Will Nintendo’s Switch successor be backward compatible?

Enlarge / A selection of Nintendo consoles that can not play software designed for the previous Nintendo console… (credit: Getty Images)

As we’ve gotten further from the Switch’s early 2017 release, there has been a lot of chatter and speculation about the system’s inevitable successor. And among Switch owners, there’s plenty of concern over whether an upcoming “Switch 2” will be backward compatible with the thousands of games already available on the current Switch.

For now, Nintendo is remaining frustratingly vague on that key question. In an investor Q&A (partially translated by Twitter user Cheesemeister), Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said that “while our company is always considering various specs for future hardware, I will refrain from making specific comments about future hardware here… Our company wants to continue offering unique ways to play with its integrated hardware and software business, so please look forward to it.”

It’s hard to read too much into that non-answer, considering that Nintendo hasn’t formally announced any details about its next console hardware yet. Later in that same Q&A, though, Furukawa noted that “as for the transition from Nintendo Switch to the next-generation machine, we want to do as much as possible in order to smoothly transition our customers, while utilizing the Nintendo Account.”