Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa revealed during a corporate management policy briefing that the successor to theNintendo Switch, colloquially referred to as the Switch 2, will be backwards compatible with the company’s current-gen console. This may not come as a surprise to some, but up until now, many fans were unsure if the Switch 2 would even be capable of running the same games as the originalSwitch. Alongside this announcement, Furukawa also confirmed that the Switch 2 will have Nintendo Switch Online functionality. In other worlds, players that have NSO accounts for the current Switch will not need to make a new one for the console’s successor.
The fact that the Switch 2 is backwards compatible with the original Switch means thatmany Wii U games will be playable on the upcoming system. Although the Wii U’s library of games is not natively supported on the Switch, most of the big exclusives from the ill-fated system have been ported to Nintendo’s current-gen console over the years. Thanks to the Switch 2’s backwards compatibility,Mario Kart 8,Bayonetta 2,Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker,Super Mario 3D World,and the dozens of other Wii U games on the Switch will be playable across three console generations, which is quite impressive. Hopefully, Nintendo brings games from some of its other consoles to the Switch 2, as well.
The Switch 2 Should Support Games from Other Nintendo Consoles Besides Wii U and Switch
The Switch’s NSO Service Lacks Key Parts of Nintendo’s History, Like the GameCube
Nintendo has released a handful of games from its legacy consoles on the Switch via Nintendo Switch Online, but not every platform is available on the service. Out of these consoles, perhaps the most glaring omission on NSO is the GameCube. This sixth-generation system is home to some of the best games in Nintendo’s history, from mainstream hits likeThe Legend of Zelda: The Wind WakerandMetroid Prime 2to cult classics likeEternal Darkness: Sanity’s RequiemandF-Zero: GX. A significant portion ofthe GameCube’s exclusive libraryis sadly still trapped on the console to this day, with no way to play them on modern hardware.
It’s possible thatNintendo hasn’t brought GameCube titles to NSOyet due to limitations in the Switch’s hardware. The console may not be powerful enough to emulate games from the sixth-generation system, and it probably doesn’t have enough internal storage to make a GameCube NSO app viable. Since the Switch 2 will almost certainly be more powerful than the original Switch, there’s a greater chance of the GameCube being added to NSO on the console. In addition, Nintendo’s next-generation device will likely have a sizable amount of internal hard drive space, so storing and downloading GameCube games shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.
DS and 3DS Games Should Be Available on the Switch 2 Via NSO
If Nintendo does bring GameCube games to the Switch 2 via NSO, then it should also consider bringing Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS games to the service, as well. Being the underpowered handheld consoles that they are,the DS and 3DSare obviously not hard to emulate; games from these two systems can run on practically anything with a screen these days. That being said, since DS and 3DS games heavily utilize the dual screens and touch controls of the consoles, bringing them to modern platforms like the Switch isn’t an easy feat.
Both the DS and the 3DS have hundreds of exclusive games, the majority of which will probably never be ported or remastered for modern platforms due to their dual-screen nature. The Nintendo DS is home to some amazing classics,likePokemon Black and White,Dragon Quest 9, andMario + Luigi: Partners in Time, whilethe 3DS has beloved gameslikeThe Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds,Pushmo, andAnimal Crossing: New Leaf. In some cases, it may be more of a hassle than it’s worth for Nintendo to bring these games to NSO, but as long as the Switch 2 has a touchscreen like the originalSwitchdoes, then they should be able to run just fine on the company’s next console.
