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Following a series of announcements, Nintendo took to Twitter after its Corporate Management Policy Briefing to assure fans that games from the Nintendo Switch will still work on what many are dubbing the Switch 2.
The briefing, which is available on Nintendo’s website, provides a comprehensive look at the company’s current status in the console market. Notably, they’ve sold a whopping 146 million units from the Nintendo Switch Family, and the platform’s games have outperformed those on any previous Nintendo hardware. The detailed 59-page document delves into sales figures and the firm’s history, also confirming that services like Nintendo Switch Online will persist once the new console launches.
If you’re used to gaming on Sony or Microsoft systems, this announcement might not be so earth-shattering. Microsoft, for instance, has truly excelled in backward compatibility. Their Xbox consoles can boost frames and resolutions for games from the original Xbox and Xbox 360 when played on newer devices like the Xbox One or Xbox Series S/X. Sony, however, has had a different approach since the PS3, which could play games from all its predecessors. While the PS5 supports PS4 games quite well, only some PS2 and PS1 titles are available through emulation. Meanwhile, PS3 games are left to cloud streaming on the PS4 and PS5, which doesn’t sit well with many PlayStation enthusiasts.
Historically, Nintendo has done a decent job with backward compatibility until the arrival of the Nintendo Switch. The Wii U could play titles from the Wii and GameCube, and its Virtual Console bridged most of the gaps in Nintendo’s earlier libraries. The 3DS could run DS games, though it couldn’t handle Game Boy Advance games or anything from before the dual-screen era.
The Nintendo Switch marked a shift, merging handheld capabilities with home console features and transitioning from PowerPC to Arm CPU cores. This meant cutting off backward compatibility with older generations. Luckily, the Switch’s success with its Nvidia-powered mobile hardware has encouraged Nintendo to stick with this format. So, people investing in games now won’t have to stress about their future compatibility with the Switch 2.
With any luck, this advancement will also allow games that struggled on original hardware, like Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, to run smoother and faster, surpassing 60 FPS. This is especially interesting since Nintendo has been cracking down on emulation software—perhaps because they want to prevent emulators from easily running Switch 2 titles, much like Dolphin did with GameCube and Wii games.
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