Switch 2: A Massive Library
Backwards compatibility has always been a spotty thing, unless you’re talking about the different Game Boys. Sony did it with the original Playstation to the PS2, and although it got more complicated with various revisions, initially the PS3 was a powerhouse for playing classic Playstation games. Microsoft has done some legwork to let us play old Xbox games with each new generation of Xbox console. Then we come to Nintendo, with the aforementioned Game Boy handhelds and the Wii to Wii U compatibility. Certainly it doesn’t happen as often was I like, but whenever console makers give us a chance to play our old games on new platforms it’s a good thing. And with the successor to the Nintendo Switch being announced by the end of this fiscal year (31st of March, 2025 in Japan), of course fans are hoping that the ‘Switch 2’ will allow for original Switch games to play on the new console. Now we know that the Switch 2 will allow for backwards compatibility in some form. The reason why I word it like that is because the news comes from an investor meeting for Nintendo, where it was revealed that the Switch successor would be compatible with Switch ‘software’. That could mean that everything, games on physical cartridge and games downloaded digitally will play on the Switch 2, but it could also be read to mean only digital games will play on the Switch 2; now, I think it’s reasonable to take that to mean both physical and digital games will work, since there was no qualification to software. And if that’s the case (as it should be if Nintendo wants to encourage as many Switch owners to plonk down their money for a Switch 2), then the Switch 2 is going to have a massive library available to fans from launch; and what is almost certainly Nintendo’s best console to date might have a contender to that title very quickly.
Playing videogames, writing about videogames, considering videogames—that about sums it up. Videogames are the one hobby that I’ve kept since I was only little, zapping ducks on the NES or knocking out MR. X. And when I’m not enjoying classics from the bit generation of games or checking out those earliest of polygons, I’m probably playing something from today’s age of modern gaming: if I’m not complaining about it. Something I’m doing at the moment? I started dipping my toes in the vast sea of Kemco JRPGs.
