 Before I get into today's video, I wanna remind you to subscribe to the channel. I would love if you guys did, we're on our road to 133,000 subscribers and I am trying to get to about 150,000 subscribers by the end of the year. So I would appreciate if you guys would just subscribe to the channel and support my journey to become a full-time YouTuber. You know, I've been doing this for six years and I never really thought that this was gonna be possible. So thank you ahead of time for your support. All right, but let's get into this video because we gotta talk about something that dropped a little bit before the direct. It was some news from one of Nintendo's major partners that seems to hint at least, if you're reading the tea leaves of what was said, appears to heavily suggest that the next Nintendo platform, which we've been calling Nintendo Switch to for a little bit now, but we don't really know what it's gonna be called, will have backwards compatibility. Now, we know Nintendo has already heavily suggested that there needs to be some sort of forward compatibility with things like Nintendo accounts and we know Nintendo accounts are also tied into Nintendo Switch online. So you might already presume that maybe the MSO games could be carried forward, possibly digital games, but here's the thing, none of this is confirmed because Nintendo has to announce a platform in order for us to have confirmations of backwards compatibility. But something was said about Mario plus Rabbids Sparks of Hope by the CEO of Ubisoft, Ysgimot, in an interview he did with GameIndustry.biz that is quite fascinating and we're gonna read a segment of that interview that was posted over on Video Game Chronicle and we're gonna give you the full context here because it does have to do with advice Nintendo gave them and some other stuff that kind of leads into a comment about how long they think this game is going to last. So in an interview with GameIndustry.biz, Ysgimot suggested Nintendo had advised the company that it would be beneficial to release the sequel on Switch's successor. 2017's Switch exclusive Mario plus Rabbids Kingdom Metal has reached over 7.5 million players according to Ubisoft Milan creative director, David Silliani. Now these are old numbers, it's probably creeped its way up to 8 million but we don't actually know. So despite the excellent ratings and players reception as well as an ambitious marketing plans, we were surprised by Mario plus Rabbids Sparks of Hope underperformance in the final weeks of 2022 and early January. And this is a statement Ubisoft made earlier this year. While Ysgimot said that the market is suffering from inflation, he did tell GameIndustry.biz the company should have been more patient with Sparks of Hope release. I think it was a different issue with Mario, he said. We had already released a Mario Rabbids game on Switch. So by doing another, we had two similar experiences on one machine. On Nintendo, games like this never die. There are 25 Mario games on Switch. Nintendo has advised that it's better to do one iteration on each machine. We were a bit too early, we should have waited for the next console, he added. Because you could play a great game and we think it'll last for 10 years because we will update it for the new machine that will come out in the future. Now, that comment can mean a lot. 10 years will update it for a new machine in the future. Yeah, they could bring it in a deluxe version to the new machine. They could obviously add 4K support or whatever. I mean, we don't really know if the new machine's even gonna have 4K, but we're just kind of presuming based on rumors. It's interesting though, when he says it'll be a 10 year game and it'll be bringing it forward to the new system, it kind of feels like even though they did say they'll update it and who knows, maybe that means another batch of DLC will be coming that might even be like a half game or full game DLC. I do think that he seems to be suggesting with all being able to actually say it that Mario Plus Rabbids will be playable. Sparks of Hope will be playable on the new machine if you potentially own it right now. And I think that is a sign anyways that backwards compatibility is going to be a thing. Now, do I think Ubisoft knows what Nintendo's next system is going to be? Well, yeah, if they had a conversation with Nintendo before and or after the game came out about the release timing of the game and Nintendo's suggestion on what they could have done differently, to me it would seem that Nintendo has probably shared with them what that new device is and they might already have dev units and all of that as well, especially if they're already making plans and updating it for that machine. Well, okay, if you're already making plans for that then chances are you probably already have those dev units and you would probably already know if it's backwards compatible. So this to me is a must have feature but it's not something that's ever really been guaranteed with Nintendo. Now with Nintendo's home consoles, they've pretty much never done it. Not in an official capacity anyways. There's been add-ons and stuff. With their handhelds, it's been a little bit of a different story. And if you consider switch a handheld, maybe you're leaning this way. You could play Game Boy slash Game Boy Color Games on Game Boy Advance. You could play Game Boy Advance games on the Nintendo DS. You couldn't play the original Game Boy games so it's only been like one generation backwards compatibility. But they did that again with 3DS. You could play DS games. And then they stopped because if the switch is a handheld, well it doesn't play 3DS games. And obviously switch doesn't play Wii U games. So switch sort of rebooted Nintendo in a way. So the way that we have to approach this is that it is probably likely that Nintendo's looking into it. We've heard from people like Modern Vintage Gamer and a few others out there that it's not as simple as gamers think it is. We just want a feature to exist. But there's a lot of nitty gritty that goes into it. And Modern Vintage Gamer kind of believes that it shouldn't be a foregone conclusion because of the difficulties in switching to a newer architecture even in the same line and how it might not be just a simple switch turn. And it could require a lot of people to put work into their old games to make them work. And this is true in some regards. I mean, this happens with Xbox and PlayStation as well. More and more games become compatible and cross compatible and forward compatible over time as updates are released. But I do think that Nintendo is going to emphasize some form of backwards compatibility. If it's not the entire library at launch, I do think it's gonna be a massive chunk of that library with promises to continue updating and making things more and more compatible. And I do think in terms of this game, Ubisoft's clearly gonna put in the work to make it compatible just like Nintendo is gonna put in the work to make sure all their games are compatible. But will third parties always put in the work to make sure their games work? I don't know. Ideally, it would just be a hardware solution and all games would just plug and play like it was on their handled systems in the past. But that's a lot different story today. So I do think that this is at least a hint towards a future that we all, I think, want. I don't think there's anyone who says, man, I don't want backwards compatibility. I don't want to play my Switch games on the next system. And I guess if you're someone who wants it to be a streaming stick or you're someone who wants them to go back to just a traditional home console with disks, then yeah, you may not want them to put on the Switch disk or the Switch cartridge reader. Maybe you want them to split back off in the handheld. And it's like, look, I understand that there's going to be some outliers out there that will say, hey, I don't want backwards compatibility because of the direction I want Nintendo to take. But I think in general, if we presume that Nintendo's not about to abandon the hybrid arena because they've been so successful there, it'd be very strange if they didn't give it at least one more go. But then again, Nintendo's not always done good with that second go around. So we'll see. But if Nintendo does go have another go at this hybrid situation where they're making all games for one platform, backwards compatibility for most of us is a must. But it's not a guarantee. Modern Avengers Gamer is right in that much. It is not a foregone conclusion. It is not a guarantee. And it's not even just because of the difficulties of making it happen. It's also just because Nintendo doesn't guarantee it. Nintendo has done backwards compatibility in the past. They've also not done it. So it's sort of a crapshoot, but I do think that at least suddenly, like subtly, just a little bit in this interview, there was almost a hint at it, but it's Ysgema who's been at this a long time and he knows how to hint at things without necessarily giving you the exact confirmation needed. So, but yeah. By the way, the DLC is pretty good. I'm playing it a little bit today. I just started playing it today. Dude, this Marvel's Rabbids DLC, this might be the best world. This might be better than anything they had in the original release. And that's exciting because I love Mario plus Rabbids. I'm sorry. Maybe this whole video just existed for me to have an excuse to gush at the end. I don't know. Anyways guys, thank you so much for tuning in and I'll catch you in the next video.