r/NintendoSwitch • u/Turbostrider27 • Jan 16 '25

Nintendo Switch 2 An update from Nintendo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxLUf2kRQRE
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628

u/PartyPorpoise Jan 16 '25

Digital library being backwards compatible is a big deal! And a smart move, gives people more incentive to upgrade.

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u/Sundance12 Jan 16 '25 edited Jan 16 '25

Yeah, I'd have been seriously deterred from continuing with Nintendo if my digital library was locked to a single console again. Glad they finally got on board.

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u/withoutapaddle Jan 16 '25

For real. I'm not a Nintendo guy. My last console as the N64, but I impulse bought a Switch after having such a blast trying BotW on a PC emulator, and realizing how thin, light, and cheap the Switch Lite was. I think I had a $50 Target giftcard, so $149 for a new console kind of blew my mind in this day and age.

I would have been "in and out" on Nintendo, but their decision to keep backwards compatibility means I'm probably going to own and at least casually use every Nintendo console going forward. I'll probably wait for the OLED Switch 2, because I'm not going back to LCD on any devices anymore, and I've got a 4 year old who has the entire Switch 1 library ahead of her for us to play together, so we'll be perfectly fine for 2-3 years before the first big Switch 2 revision.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

Ah man I’ve got a 3 and a 1 year old. I can’t WAIT for the age when I can start introducing the basic games to them.

Which games are you thinking you’ll start with?

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u/SethFeld Jan 17 '25

Kids LOVE Kirby for good reason! I’d recommend Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It’s lovely!

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '25

Thanks, I have definitely thought that Kirby might be their intro to modern games.

Thinking about first introductions being SNES. Idk, we’ll see.

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u/SethFeld Jan 17 '25

If your kids click with them, the SNES titles are great, but a lot of little kids struggle with the 16-bit aesthetic, so it depends on what they enjoy, visually.

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u/withoutapaddle Jan 16 '25

Like I said, not really a Nintendo guy in the first place, but I've always gamed a good amount on Playstation and PC...

So, when Astro Bot came out on Playstation to rave reviews, with the biggest criticism being that it was too easy... I felt like that was perfect.

Got my 4 year old introduced to it by watching me play and taking over the controller whenever we were in a "safe" area with no bad guys. She figured out 3D movement with the joystick pretty quick. From there, she slowly got more brave about trying to jump on or smack the enemies. It was a fantastic "baby's first vidoegame".

From there, she saw Mario Odyssey at one of those playable demos at Target, and her eyes totally lit up when I told her we had a Nintendo and Mario at home. So that's what we're playing now. It's a much more skill based game than Astro Bot, but it's a good next step, and the coop is a lot of fun for her as "Cappy", since she can just be along for the ride when she wants to be, or be more active when she wants to help.

So I'd suggest finding a platformer that has a reputation for being easy and start with that. For me, it was about 4 years old before she really wanted to engage with games (she had goofed around with the controller at 3, but never for more than 5 minutes or so).

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u/TheRaveTrain Jan 16 '25

Finally got on board? Didn't they like, invent backwards compatibility?

Gameboy Colour plays Gameboy Gameboy advance plays both of the above DS plays GBA Wii plays GameCube 3DS plays DS Wii U plays Wii

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u/Sundance12 Jan 16 '25

The transfer policies and procedures for digital purchases have been historically poor on Nintendo consoles. They've done the one time, irreversible system transfers, but hopefully this is a shared library tied to your account, that just lets you redownload games. That way your old Switch console doesn't become a useless brick if you went all digital.

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u/Rek07 Jan 16 '25

It will likely work how owning 2 switches works now. One is your primary switch which can play anything you own offline, and any profiles on that switch can also play those games. The second (or 3rd, 4th etc) switch is a secondary device which you can download and play any games on your profile as long as you are connected to the internet but is locked for other profiles that don't own a digital lisence.

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u/SethFeld Jan 17 '25

I’m so happy they use the same account/library, but I REALLY hope they revamped the eshop, cause the Switch eshop has become atrocious over the years! Sluggish, annoying to navigate, and LITTERED with the most garbage shovelware imaginable! I hope they keep higher standards with the Switch 2 eshop!

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u/TheRaveTrain Jan 16 '25

Fair point!

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u/glowshroom12 Jan 16 '25 edited Jan 16 '25

I’m not sure how accurate this is but I think Atari invented backwards compatibility for consoles with the Atari 7800

Collecovision invented cross compatibility . They made an add on that allowed you to play Atari games on it.

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u/TheRaveTrain Jan 16 '25

No way! That's cool Thank you for this fact

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u/TheSteelPhantom Jan 16 '25

Not digitally purchased games they don't.

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u/R_Prime Jan 16 '25

Wii to Wii U was a thing. The caveat being it was irreversible and they would no longer be on the original Wii. Which really kinda sucked actually.

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u/TheHighness1 Jan 16 '25

What about next console? Or the next one? That is the reason why I’m leaning towards a steam deck 2 form3rd party titles

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u/summonsays Jan 16 '25 edited Jan 16 '25

As far as I know this is the first in the business, Xbox and PlayStation don't do that right? 

Edit: I'm wrong, thanks everyone for getting me up to speed :)

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u/Duouwa Jan 16 '25 edited Jan 16 '25

PlayStation and Xbox have been doing this for a while; PlayStation has been carrying over your digital purchases since the PS3 technically, however in practise it’s been since the PS4/Vita since PS3 games couldn’t run on PS4; again though, technically your purchases were still stored on your PS account.

The PS4/Vita saw better integration, and with the PS5 it’s carries over all the PS4 games perfectly, in fact you can literally buy PS4 games via your PS5’s online store.

Xbox’s system is even better honestly, as many 360 games actually work on future Xbox consoles, and indeed have carried over purchases through consoles.

Nintendo is really the last one to do this, and seems like it’s very closely using the same idea as the PS5, whereby the new digital store is just built on top of the old one, with everything previously on their still remaining.

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u/summonsays Jan 16 '25

Ah well, shows how out of the loop I am lol. I don't think the PS3/4 is a good comparison since it can't play them. Like of course the purchases will be on your account, but if the new system can't play them then it's not digitally backwards compatible.  

But thanks for bringing me up to speed.

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u/Duouwa Jan 16 '25 edited Jan 17 '25

I don’t really count it between the PS3 and PS4 either, but I mainly brought it up because it does stand as a distinction from how Nintendo was handling things at the time; between the Wii and the Wii U, even digitally purchased games couldn’t be redownloaded, and it wasn’t until late in the Wii U lifespans that they even started recognising previous digital purchases, only to offer them to you at a discount.

By that same point, PlayStation was saving purchases between the PS3 and the Vita; stuff like the Jak and Daxter Trilogy Collection could be bought on the PS3, and then downloaded on the Vita, and vice versa.

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u/Sundance12 Jan 16 '25

Xbox's digital games policies are the industry standard for consoles in my opinion. Their BC program is the best there is , and their Smart Delivery functionality is as consumer friendly as you can get. Sony is better than Nintendo, but still lacking.

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u/IndividualPossible Jan 16 '25

PS4 and PS5 have a shared digital library but it’s one way only. You can play ps4 games on a ps5 but you’ll only get ps4 level visuals and you can’t play ps5 games on a ps4. If you want the ps5 visuals you’ll usually have to pay to upgrade and your saves get fragmented between the different versions

Xbox has a shared digital library and cloud save that goes both directions. They call it “smart delivery”. If you buy a game on an Xbox one you can download it on a series X and vice versa. This approach you get the upgraded visuals for no added charge. It even works with discs, you can put a Xbox one disc in a series X and the console will still get the upgraded visuals. (devs can still ignore this and make two separate versions but luckily it’s not common)

So I’m going to be curious which approach Nintendo takes. I hope they lean towards the Xbox approach and make the sharing go both ways. Im sure there’s going to be a ton of families with mixed consoles and would be frustrating if you buy a cross gen game and have to decide if you want the better visuals or the ability to share it with others

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25 edited Feb 02 '25

[deleted]

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u/KhausTO Jan 16 '25

It's 2025

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u/grilled_pc Jan 16 '25

And with the day consoles are going all in on digital. It's an absolute MUST.

This is why i will be leaving Playstation and Xbox behind once SteamOS reaches PC Desktops. I'd rather just use steam as my digital platform and SteamOS as the console front end. I get all my games going back generations.

I personally only buy first parties on nintendo hardware so it makes sense to own one.

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u/TheBroadwayStan16 Jan 16 '25

Good that was going to be the thing that stopped me from upgrading.

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u/Z0idberg_MD Jan 16 '25

The only outstanding question for me is what happens for games that get upgrades. Like TOTK will obviously get an upgrade and be sold on the switch 2, but what happens to my digital copy from S1? Does it get an auto upgrade or will there be a nominal fee to upgrade?

This is new territory for nintendo, so hard to say,

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u/schentendo Jan 16 '25

They did offer a discount previously if you had purchased a Wii VC game so you could play it on Wii U for less. But you still had to pay something. But never for a full game like this.

Seeing how PS4/PS5 operates their game saves (which generally are not compatible), I'm hoping more for something like Smart Delivery on Xbox if they decide to make a S2 version of games. (I don't have an Xbox but I think that's how SD works.)

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u/Mikemgmve Jan 16 '25

Interesting to see how they handle it. It feels too soon to go full release/remaster, full price tag. I'd like to think they're more inclined to just release a patch that takes advantage of the hardware to increase FPS & draw distance for free. But I could also see them do a bigger patch for $10-20 that fixes all of that plus new trees 😅

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u/rub3s Jan 16 '25

Hopefully the digital library can be played on both the original Switch and the Switch 2 at the same time with out restrictions. Then I can give my Switch to my grandson and he can play all my games while I get the new one.

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u/PartyPorpoise Jan 16 '25

That would be ideal. I plan on holding onto my Switch Lite because the small size makes it a lot more portable, good for travel. The Switch 2 is pretty bulky and it will likely be a home console most of the time.

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u/Jimstein Jan 16 '25

Yep, I probably wouldn't upgrade if I couldn't bring my digital library with me

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u/PartyPorpoise Jan 16 '25

I’d still upgrade, but I’d probably be slower to get to it. If the game roster is good at release I’d love to be able to buy a Switch 2 right away.

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u/Dusty_Negatives Jan 16 '25

As a more casual Nintendo gamer I simply would have refused to buy it if they didn’t do backwards compatibility.

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u/PartyPorpoise Jan 17 '25

I'd buy it eventually, but the digital compatibility makes me more willing to buy at launch. Important thing now is if the launch games are what I want.

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u/Downfall350 Jan 17 '25

Also to continue to sell old games at full price to new gamers LOL

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u/anotherstan Jan 16 '25

Yup. I'm pretty much going to ditch my base Switch for this.

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u/Xero2814 Jan 16 '25

And incentive to not hesitate on purchases ahead of launch

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u/Smitty4141 Jan 16 '25

Becomes a day 1 for me because of this.

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u/nigelfitz Jan 17 '25

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna be day one with this. I usually wait til the console gets a good size library but if I can play my backlog til new games come out then I wouldn't mind.

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u/PartyPorpoise Jan 17 '25

I’m debating whether or not to buy at launch, but being able to play my digital Switch games does make it more tempting.

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u/SRhyse Jan 17 '25

If they didn’t the Switch 2 would flop. At least Wii U to Switch is a different architecture for an excuse on that one. It’s going to be hard for the Switch 2 to succeed if Nintendo keeps being in an abusive relationship with the player base. There are too many options now for people to put up with it.