I bring good news. You know the Nintendo Switch’s successor, or the Switch 2 as everyone’s been calling it for years at this point? Well, Nintendo’s confirmed that it’ll have backwards compatibility for Switch games. That means no having to pray that Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits gets rapidly ported to the new hardware right away, so you can continue to play it in public without losing street cred.
This confirmation comes directly from Ninty president Shuntaro Furukawa, in an official Tweet that comes with the lovely mix of ‘business guy must say a thing in a businesslike manner on the hell platform’ and ‘mildly important text from your dad’ energy you’d expect.
“This is Furukawa,” the exec wrote, “At today’s Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch. Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well.
“Further information about the successor to Nintendo Switch, including its compatibility with Nintendo Switch, will be announced at a later date.” So there you go, you should be able to play older Switch things on the newer Switch, which is nice. So nice, in fact, that according to Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese games industry consultancy firm Kantan Games, even investors who probably don’t have a bunch of Switch games stashed away in their drawers have reacted pretty favourably.
Anyway, returning to the idea of playing OG Switch games on the Switch 2 whenever it releases, this should hopefully mean that you can ring in that date by running away from a giant shark on a jet ski, if you wish. That’s assuming you own Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits, a, well, fishing game that came out on Switch in 2022. It’s about running some kind of aquarium-themed theme park, and based on its trailer, has a mini-game that sees you and up to three mates – as an Animal Crossing-esque fellas – fight to stay ahead of a rampaging not-quite Jaws on floating motorbikes.
To come clean, I’ve never played it, but if I can do so on Switch 2, I think the chances of me actually getting off my bum and putting my money where my mouth is will rise above 1%, so that’s something.
Since the Switch 2 hasn’t had its official name confirmed yet, the actual games that’ll be getting versions specfically aimed at it aren’t able to be properly announced as coming to the console yet, so we’ve been getting announcements like Yooka-Replaylee coming to “future Nintendo Platforms”, eyes emoji.