Nintendo of America President On the Future of the Switch, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and More
Nintendo of America President On the Future of the Switch, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and More
Inverse sat down with Doug Bowser to talk about the release of 'Super Mario Bros. Wonder,' the future of the Nintendo Switch, and the state of the industry.
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Well, first I can't comment — or I won't comment, I should say — on the rumors that are out there. But one thing we've done with the Switch to help with that communication and transition is the formation of the Nintendo Account. In the past, every device we transitioned to had a whole new account system. Creating the Nintendo Account will allow us to communicate with our players if and when we make a transition to a new platform, to help ease that process or transition.
Our goal is to minimize the dip you typically see in the last year of one cycle and the beginning of another. I can't speak to the possible features of a new platform, but the Nintendo Account is a strong basis for having that communication as we make the transition.
Is this him indirectly confirming backwards compatibility?
Why would Nintendo do anything as customer friendly as back compatibility? It's just not who they are.
Because the GBA never played Gameboy games, and the Wii never played GameCube games, and the Wii U never played Wii games, right?
That's who they used to be.
Like others have said, but I will repeat:
- GB->GBC->GBA->DS->DSi->3DS->n3DS
- GCN->Wii->Wii U
It's very much something they have a strong history of doing where it can work.
The two lines you mention do cut off at some points, though. The DS no longer had backwards compatibility with the GB and GBC, the DSi with the GBA, although the 3DS re-added GB and GBC, just digitally. The Wii U also doesn't support GCN discs. All of these, however, work pretty well with homebrew like mGBA and Nintendont, they're just not available officially.
Yea, but all the consoles I listed at launch had nearly full BC with the previous gen. DSi wasn't compatible with Rock Band for DS, or fully compatible with the DS pokemon games that used the GBA slot for pal park, but beyond that, they've been pretty good for not starting any generation without a clean slate before Switch.
Yeah, I agree with that. I was just trying to point out how Nintendo's BC has never been as complete as it could be, for whatever reason it may be, but yeah, they've been pretty good at guaranteeing last-gen compatibility so far. Let's see how it goes with whatever will succeed the Switch.
Because they've done it many times in the past? Wii, WiiU, Gameboy series, DS series all had backwards compatibility.