The Nintendo Switch recently celebrated its sixth anniversary and at a time when we are waiting for the announcement of its successor, there is a lot of curiosity around what Nintendo will do about backwards compatibility and how it will manage the transition of generations.
With more than 122 million units sold, Switch is one of the most popular consoles ever and its players are eager to hear Nintendo confirm that its precious catalog of games is not left behind, that it will accompany them and will be able to continue them playing on the new machine.
According to the well-known ModernVintageGamer, content creator working at NightDive Studios, Nintendo may be facing compatibility issues with games from current hardware to the new one and does not believe that backwards compatibility is already guaranteed.
As he says, Nvidia’s existing Tegra X1 chip in the Switch is responsible for the problems, as it will force a recompile of all games for the new hardware.
“If Nintendo drops the Tegra X1, something everyone feels most likely, current Switch games will not work on the new hardware, that is without recompiling the games for that hardware.”
ModernVintageGamer says that there are several solutions for Nintendo and one of them is software emulation, similar to what Microsoft has done with the Xbox Series. The latest Microsoft consoles allow you to emulate Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles to play games from those generations.
This suggests a great level of power for the Nintendo Switch successor, which has ModernVintageGamer wondering if the companies are willing to put in the hard work of making the new chip compatible with Tegra X1.
Another possibility is to include a Tegra X1 chip in all future Nintendo consoles, which would allow playing without emulation, similar to what Nintendo did by including the Gamecube chip in the Wii.
This could increase the manufacturing cost of Switch’s successor and even force the presence of two entries if the new game format is different, but it would allow you to play games without emulation and even enjoy next-gen updates.
