 We're gonna be talking about the Nintendo Switch 2. I think it's safe to say the Switch 2 is likely to be Nintendo's next system. They could call it something else. The naming convention isn't really what I'm talking about, but they'll take that Switch form factor and carry it forward. It's massively successful. They have no reason to go away from it. They've always been really good with their handhelds about keeping a little bit of continuity with them. And yeah, it's obvious there could just be some refinements. And they have the perfect president, I think in charge, a numbers man who understands this. This has helped other successes out there like the iPhone or the Samsung Galaxy line of devices, tablets, watches, and yeah, PlayStation and Xbox, PC gaming as well. Having some familiarity in your new products does help make people comfortable. You know what also helps make people comfortable in purchasing new products? Backwards compatibility. And that has become a recent topic of debate with whatever Nintendo has coming next, not just because we don't really have any exact details on it, but because an actual Switch developer and modern vintage gamer keeps reminding us that we should doubt backwards compatibility on the new hardware. And he's speaking from a development standpoint because, well, he talked about this a year ago and he's just bringing it up again now and there's gonna be even more information he's gonna bring up on the next podcast he's on. Well, he just, he thinks it's really, really hard to do from a hardware perspective, especially GPUIs and without getting too technical, he just thinks it's gonna be next to impossible for there to be a universal backwards compatibility, capability from Nintendo and Nvidia that'll make your games just work without significant work done by developers on each individual game. And if significant work needs to be done by each individual developer on all of their games, yeah, then it's not really backwards compatibility. It's more like, hey, when we get around to it, this game will work. That sucks, nobody wants that. Obviously, when we think backwards compatibility, we go back to, hey, 3DS launched, you can grab any DS cartridge, put it in your 3DS and it just worked. When the Wii U launched, it might have been a bit finicky with that Wii mode, but you could put any Wii disc into your Wii U and it would just launch. And if you had digital games, you could put it into that Wii mode and it would just work. Same thing with GameCube, going to Wii. Hey, take your GameCube disc, put it in and it would just work. So Nintendo's done backwards compatibility many times, but why is it such an issue this time around? And why is there so much passion around the fact that if there is no backwards compatibility, people are gonna write off the next system? Now, the thing is we don't have to speculate a ton because Nintendo's already talked about backwards compatibility at their last financial briefing and I got this nice little summary off video game Chronicle. Nintendo was asked about backwards compatibility on future hardware during a recent financial Q and A session. This is the one during their last quarterly meeting. Their next one is on February 7th, by the way. So, Miyamoto acknowledged that in past hardware generations backwards compatibility has been difficult because the development environment, the software tools dev used to make games has traded dramatically with each new console release. Miyamoto said the following and I quote, recently, however, the development environment has increasingly become more standardized and we now have an environment that allows players to enjoy older video games on newer consoles more easily than ever before. Now, the article goes on to summarize, Nintendo is not putting its emphasis on backwards compatibility and won't commit to it being available on whatever the next console looks like. So now we're getting some of that doubt creeping in, right? Nintendo won't commit to it, so what's going on? Here's a quote from Miyamoto. Nintendo's strength is in creating new video game experiences. So, when we release new hardware in the future, we would like to showcase unique video games that could not be created with pre-existing hardware. So you see Nintendo saying it's easier than ever but we're not really focused on that. I think the reason Miyamoto can say that is because he's a game developer. I mean, I use developer loosely. He's more like a game director and artist and game director. He really pushes games in specific directions. He's not, you know, coding and sitting there on the ground floor doing that kind of stuff. He has got no background in that. He's an artist and idea guy, which is very important. If you ever wonder, you know, our idea, do idea guys matter, right? There's always this, oh, I'd love to get paid millions of millions of dollars to be an idea guy. It's really not that easy. I'll give you an example. I'm just a YouTuber that does my own thing. There is not a video that releases today, tomorrow, or the next day if I don't have ideas for videos, right? And there are times when the well runs dry and then you sit there for hours at a desk twiddling your thumbs. Maybe you go for a walk. Maybe you go work out. Maybe you go have some lunch and you're just sitting there contemplating, trying to come up with ideas. It's not that easy. And when you're talking about a complex video game situation, it's even more difficult. Not everyone's ideas for video games are good ideas. And that includes Miyamoto's. Some of his ideas, Wii music, haven't exactly been good ones, or at least weren't executed well. So the way that I look at this is, I do think we can expect backwards compatibility. And I do think despite modern vintage gamers' concerns, it will be one of those backwards compatibility modes that is universal. You can just stick your Switch cartridge in and it will work. You can port your digital library over, download your games and it will work. I don't think it's gonna be a separate mode like on Wii U where you had to boot up into Wii mode. I think it's just gonna work natively right on the platform. But I also have a caveat. A lot of us assume that some games that are unlocked, like unlocked frame rates or unlocked resolution scaling, that games like the Witcher 3 and others, there's other games like this as well on Switch, many of them, that when you put your game on that new hardware, it's gonna instantly run at better frame rates, instantly run at 4K resolution through DLSS. And yeah, this would be the best way to play your Switch games. I don't think that's gonna happen. I honestly truly think it's just gonna play exactly the same as it does on today's Switch. And you might be disappointed by that. You're like, why am I not getting those upgrades? Wasn't this a controversy with Sony charging you to upgrade your game? Nintendo's not gonna charge you to upgrade your game. They're not gonna say pay us $10 and you can have your 4K 60 FPS Witcher 3. None, none, none, none, none, no. You know what they're going to do? Give you a deluxe version of the game for 60 bucks. It'll have 4K, it'll have 60 FPS, it'll have whatever other features, maybe they upgrade the lighting or something. It'll essentially be what they consider to be a 4K remaster of the game. And you might go, man, that's really slimy, but is it? You don't have to buy it. If you wanna play Tears of the Kingdom and 4K 60 FPS on the new platform, they'll give you a deluxe remastered version of the game to do it with. Or you could just play the version you already have and just plug it in. Is it as shady as it seems? I don't know. Nintendo obviously would be doing it to make a lot of money. I think for us consumers, we look at any time a company could do something for free and doesn't as super shady. I agree. I would rather have all of the games upgraded to 4K 60 FPS or whatever for free. But there's one caveat to this. I recognize that that isn't just a turn of a button. All the development time that went into making the games work the way they work is wonderful. But it's also not just a magic button press to make that happen. It takes development time to upgrade your games. So I do think they're gonna keep things sort of locked out even if when you run those games, I think it's gonna run in what's called a Nintendo Switch mode. Or basically the games are going to be emulated on this hardware natively without needing developers of those individual games to go on the platform to make it work. And they're going to pair the specs down through emulation to exactly what the Switch would run in handheld and docked mode. And you might hate that they pair it down like that. Why won't they give it a little extra juice? We've seen when games are given a little extra juice like Scarlet and Violet. If you run it in an emulator and you just throw more power at it, no other customizations, it suddenly runs at a smoother frame rate because most of the Switch games were designed around some of these frame rate issues. So because of that, I think they're going to pair everything back and make it run exactly like a native Switch did. And you might be mad about that, but hey, when we're talking about a new platform, isn't it about, as Miyamoto said, what's new rather than what's old? Just being able to play our games on there is already a win for me. And I'll leave it up to me on an individual basis that they re-release 4K versions of these games if I decide if I want to buy them. So would I re-buy tears of the kingdom in 4K? Probably. Breath of the Wild? Probably. Super Mario Odyssey? Absolutely. But things like Kirby and the Forgotten Land? You know, it's probably fine. Animal Crossing? I think I'm cool. I don't know that I need the 4K 60fps upgrades or whatever crazy stuff they want to do unless they're adding actual new content. That's a different story because then the conversation shifts a little bit on if they added enough new content to make the game worth the price. I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy the brand new games that come to the system. I'm gonna enjoy the backwards compatibility that I absolutely expect to be there. And I'm not gonna get too angry because I feel like when I build my expectations for this is the way I expect backwards compatibility to be, if I'm wrong and it's better than that, what am I complaining about? And if I'm right, it's what I expected. And if there's no backwards compatibility, that's I think when there might be some justified anger. And I'm not saying justified anger because, hey, times are tough, it's hard to make the backwards compatibility work, et cetera. But I trust NVIDIA and I trust Nintendo and Nintendo has a history of backwards compatibility. So if it's a similar form factor system and it isn't there, Nintendo's going against their own one generation backwards compatibility standards. They just are. Also, I wanna note, this is just a fun little note. What you need to worry about backwards compatibility is when we get to the Switch 3 or whatever the heck that system is. Nintendo is notorious for only going one generation back, not two. Just throwing that out there, there might be a day that your Switch games won't be forwards compatible on future hardware. I wish that day wouldn't come to existence. I wish it could be an Xbox situation where most games are forwards compatible all the way to the Series X, but this is Nintendo and they keep changing form factors. They keep changing types of systems, cartridges, disks. What are you gonna do? This is just the way Nintendo operates. Anyways, guys, I think we're gonna be good for this next system. I think Switch's success is gonna carry over to the next one. Will the next system be 100 million plus seller? That is to be determined because we gotta see what it is. We gotta see what they're doing. We gotta see price points. We gotta see marketing. More importantly, we gotta see games. We gotta see games that show us clearly this is why you need this new system. Maybe it's 60 FPS, maybe it's the 4K, maybe it's new lighting, maybe it's new textures, maybe it's VR. I don't know, but Nintendo's gonna have to sell us on this system and I think they'll do so soon. Also, I'm gonna save this argument for the podcast. Nevermind, we're gonna be talking about this topic on the podcast and some other things going on in the market on the podcast. I'm gonna save some of my remarks for that. That being said, be sure to tune into our podcast tonight at 8 p.m. central time. If you're watching this video at a later time, go back and re-watch the episode that happened. It's always live on our YouTube channel. We also have an audio version as well on pretty much anywhere we're a podcast heard. Just look up Nintendo Prime Podcast. You guys are amazing and awesome. I think all of you for being here, it means so much to me to have you guys watching even if you're not a subscriber. Hey, I would appreciate if you would subscribe and drop a like.