Nintendo offers vague answers on backward compatibility for “Switch 2”

As we've gotten further from the Switch's early 2017 release, there has been a lot of chatter and speculation about the system's inevitable successor. And among Switch owners, there's plenty of concern over whether an upcoming "Switch 2" will be backward compatible with the thousands of games already available on the current Switch. For now, Nintendo is remaining frustratingly vague on that key question. In an investor Q&A (partially translated by Twitter user Cheesemeister), Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said that "while our company is always considering various specs for future hardware, I will refrain from making specific comments about future hardware here... Our company wants to continue offering unique ways to play with its integrated hardware and software business, so please look forward to it." It's hard to read too much into that non-answer, considering that Nintendo hasn't formally announced any details about its next console hardware yet. Later in that same Q&A, though, Furukawa noted that "as for the transition from Nintendo Switch to the next-generation machine, we want to do as much as possible in order to smoothly transition our customers, while utilizing the Nintendo Account." That's not completely new information; Nintendo said in a 2020 investor presentation slide that it planned to use the Nintendo Account for its "Integrated Hardware-Software Next gaming system" releasing in "20XX." Still, a new quote stressing a "smooth transition" and a legacy account management system could be seen as a hint that Nintendo plans to let Switch players bring their game libraries forward to new hardware.

Looking backward

Nintendo has a long history of backward compatibility on its portable systems, each one of which could play games from the previous generation in a chain running from the original Game Boy to the Nintendo 3DS line. More recently, the company implemented a similar chain of backward compatibility from the Gamecube through the Wii U, the latter of which could even play downloadable games transferred over from the Wii.

But Nintendo broke its chain of backward compatibility with the Switch, which merged both of Nintendo's hardware lines into a new "hybrid" platform. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Sony were increasingly focused on backward compatibility as a marketable feature on their latest Xbox and PlayStation consoles. From a game development standpoint, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto noted in November 2022 that in the past, software development environments "could not be brought forward when the hardware changed, and it would become impossible to play software released for previous hardware without making changes." More recently, though, the integration of those development environments across hardware has meant that "generally speaking, it has become easier to implement an environment where software released for past hardware can be played on new hardware," Miyamoto said.

Tech talk

Of course, implementing backward compatibility on the new Switch depends on more than just software development environments and online account structures. The new hardware powering the "Switch 2" will need to be able to interpret software designed for a completely different SoC in some way. As Modern Vintage Gamer points out in an excellent March video on this subject, the Nvidia Tegra X1 chip powering the Switch runs on the company's increasingly outdated Maxwell architecture, which dates back to 2014. Even if Nintendo sticks with Nvidia chips (as seems likely), a new console would likely rely on a new SoC built on a new architecture like Ampere or even Lovelace.

The chip compatibility situation is further complicated by the way Nintendo's Switch software format packages a full Maxwell GPU driver stack and game-specific shaders in with the software itself. That means a binary written for the Maxwell-based Switch hardware would not work on a non-Maxwell GPU without a full recompilation. There are some ways around this problem, as Modern Vintage Gamer outlines. Nintendo could follow Microsoft's lead in using a software-based emulation layer to support older hardware, a strategy that has proven successful for unofficial Switch emulators on the Steam Deck. Nintendo could also simply integrate a full X1 chip on the "Switch 2" motherboard, mirroring the strategy it's taken for some portable consoles in the past. Individual games could also be patched to work on the new hardware, though this would likely leave some holes of support, given the Switch's massive game library.

A question of will

Technical issues aside, the question of Nintendo's actual desire to pursue backward compatibility for the "Switch 2" looms large. Most of the solutions discussed above come with added costs for Nintendo, either in terms of emulation/patch development or physical costs for the hardware itself. Backward compatibility would also require the new system to be fully compatible with current Switch controllers and the Switch cartridge format (which tops out at a paltry 32GB), both of which could force design compromises.

Those may seem like small hurdles to overcome to ensure that tens of millions of Switch owners could carry their libraries forward to new Nintendo hardware. But there is at least some market research suggesting that backward compatibility has a limited impact on a platform's long-term success. There are also some signs that Nintendo might not consider backward compatibility to be a high priority for new hardware. In November, after Miyamoto remarked on the increasing ease of backward compatibility in software development, he added that "Nintendo's strength is in our creation of new entertainment, so when we release new hardware going forward, we plan to continue to offer new and unique gameplay that cannot be realized on existing hardware." That's not a firm denial, but it's also not exactly a full-throated endorsement of the importance of keeping current Switch software libraries accessible on new hardware going forward.