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    Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

    (www.youtube.com)
    781 points HelloUsername | 15 comments | 16 Jan 25 13:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.421s | source | bottom
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    nerdjon ◴[16 Jan 25 14:11 UTC] No.42725322[source]▶
    Happy to see that Nintendo is treating the switch more like how they traditionally handled their mobile platforms instead of their consoles.

    Iterating instead of throwing out everything with each new version. There is a part of me that is going to miss the, do weird shit and see what works, Nintendo that brought us some really fun ideas. But a stable Nintendo just being able to continue putting out great games has its advantages.

    I am curious about the specs, but honestly don't care much. The only real issue the Switch had was being able to keep up with some of the games put on it with FPS but it still had beautiful games (like Tears of the Kingdom). So as long as it is actually a decent spec bump I am happy and have zero care to compare it to the other consoles (but I am sure people are going too and scream that it is "underpowered").

    The biggest thing I am curious about, will it be OLED since that will be disappointing to go back to non OLED from the OLED Switch. And Price.

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    chungy ◴[16 Jan 25 14:31 UTC] No.42725623[source]▶
    Nintendo has tended to maintain at most 1 generation of backwards compatibility, though you can get some fuzzy ideas of "generations" in a few cases.

      Game Boy Color: plays original Game Boy games
  Game Boy Advance: plays Game Boy and Game Boy Color games
  Nintendo DS: plays Game Boy Advance games
  Nintendo DSi: plays Nintendo DS games
  Nintendo 3DS: plays Nintendo DS and DSi games
  Nintendo New 3DS: plays Nintendo DS, DSi, and (old) 3DS games
  Nintendo Wii: plays GameCube games
  Nintendo Wii U: plays Wii games
    The Switch is a notable break in both of these lines, playing neither 3DS nor Wii U games.
    replies(8): >>42725685 #>>42726494 #>>42726555 #>>42727826 #>>42727920 #>>42728119 #>>42728772 #>>42728998 #
    1. nerdjon ◴[16 Jan 25 15:28 UTC] No.42726555[source]▶
    Based on that list, they have tended really only to do that on mobile platforms. It was one of my favorite things about the platform, but it always felt like this was partially thanks to the older hardware still getting games well into the new hardware's life in many cases. Major games, I believe Pokemon has done this a few times?

    Most of their home consoles were complete departures from previous hardware.

    NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube all did not work with prior games were fairly different (ok admittedly the outward difference between the NES and the SNES were minimal but still no compatability).

    So honestly I think it was more notable that the Wii could play Gamecube games than the other way around as far as Nintendo's track record goes.

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    2. la6776 ◴[16 Jan 25 16:02 UTC] No.42727076[source]▶
    for what it's worth Nintendo had planned to make the SNES backward compatible and that intention influenced design choices, particularly the very similar CPU.
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    3. ◴[16 Jan 25 17:08 UTC] No.42727930[source]▶
    4. larusso ◴[16 Jan 25 18:06 UTC] No.42728661[source]▶
    First Wii was able to play Game Cube Games. WiiU was backwards compatible to Wii. All theses consoles used nearly the same chipset anyways.
    replies(2): >>42729023 #>>42732019 #
    5. lotsoweiners ◴[16 Jan 25 18:32 UTC] No.42729023[source]▶
    I was always amazed the Wii with its full size discs could play the GameCube mini discs.
    replies(1): >>42730598 #
    6. chungy ◴[16 Jan 25 18:49 UTC] No.42729243[source]▶
    Yeah, the SNES uses a 65816, which is pretty much a backwards-compatible and 16-bit extension of the 6502, used in the NES. The SPC is likewise capable of nearly perfectly reproducing the NES's audio capabilities, and the PPU has the same background and sprite layering as the NES as a foundation.
    7. jzwinck ◴[16 Jan 25 20:40 UTC] No.42730598{3}[source]▶
    Ability to play smaller discs was normal in most CD-ROM and DVD players for many years before the Wii. A few people (probably half of whom have HN accounts) used to give out mini-CD business cards...sometimes even with truncated edges so the disc was not entirely round: https://www.duplication.com/cd-business-card-duplication.htm
    replies(1): >>42730985 #
    8. hnlmorg ◴[16 Jan 25 21:13 UTC] No.42730985{4}[source]▶
    Yeah but most of the optical drives that support this have trays or are top loading. It’s a little more counterintuitive to have a postbox-style drive (I don’t know what they’re actually called) that supports different sized discs.
    replies(1): >>42732221 #
    9. Lio ◴[16 Jan 25 22:22 UTC] No.42731673[source]▶
    I heard that it was a forced response to Sega aggressively cutting the price of the Megadrive/Genesis to the point that it made it very difficult for Nintendo to sensibly price the SNES bill of materials.

    Something had to go and it was backwards compatibility.

    10. monocasa ◴[16 Jan 25 23:01 UTC] No.42732019[source]▶
    WiiU also had the back compat hardware of the Wii, just couldn't take a gamecube disc in it's drive.

    Similarly, a lot of the SNES internally looks like it was at least initially designed for back compat with the NES.

    replies(1): >>42732847 #
    11. jacobgkau ◴[16 Jan 25 23:22 UTC] No.42732221{5}[source]▶
    > postbox-style drive (I don’t know what they’re actually called)

    Slot-loading.

    12. jpalawaga ◴[17 Jan 25 00:52 UTC] No.42732847{3}[source]▶
    GC emulation wasn't emulation; it was done with a separate chip. It was more like native support. Eventually Nintendo removed that chip and backward-compatibility support from the console.

    (so, even if you could put a GC disk in, it didn't have capability to natively play the game)

    replies(1): >>42733218 #
    13. Nullabillity ◴[17 Jan 25 01:52 UTC] No.42733218{4}[source]▶
    It sounds like you're confusing the Wii's backwards compatibility with the PS3's. The Wii didn't have a separate "GameCube chip", its core was effectively an overclocked GC.
    replies(1): >>42735019 #
    14. bitwize ◴[17 Jan 25 06:20 UTC] No.42734621[source]▶
    Sega actually did what Nintendidn't. The Sega Genesis had a Z80 coprocessor, a video chip that was yet another extension of the TMS9918A design, and a PSG sound chip -- all just more advanced, or supplemented by other hardware, versions of components the Master System had. With an adapter add-on called the Power Base Converter, Master System games could be played on the Genesis.
    15. larusso ◴[17 Jan 25 07:40 UTC] No.42735019{5}[source]▶
    https://youtu.be/meZA9KHkFuY?si=5xrsSjNxKLxLnd6J

    He explains it quite well. Sorry it’s German but I guess the information about the chips and reasons Nintendo choose them should be all over the net.