Yesterday, Nintendo revealed its next console, the Nintendo Switch 2, via a brief video. The clip didn’t reveal an excessive amount of outside of its design and a transient glimpse of the following Mario Kart game. We did get one crucial detail, though: the system is compatible with Nintendo Switch games, each digitally and physically. There’s one caveat that has fans nervous, though. Nintendo says that select games won’t be backwards compatible, but it surely hasn’t explained what meaning yet.
While we’re at midnight about what meaning, we’ve got one reasonable guess — and it has to do with the unique Switch’s most underused feature.
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While the Switch is best known for its revolutionary handheld design, that’s not the console’s only unique feature. When it was announced, Nintendo put numerous emphasis on the system’s IR sensors, which appear at the underside of Joy-con controllers. These were speculated to be the system’s bespoke gameplay gimmick … but that didn’t go exactly as planned. Nintendo never really did much with that idea, nor did third-party developers. Only a handful of games utilize the IR sensors in any respect.
That will have been for the most effective, since the Nintendo Switch 2 doesn’t appear to feature IR sensors — or at the least not in the identical way that they appeared on the unique Switch. If that’s the case, it’s reasonable to assume that a handful of games won’t be entirely compatible with Nintendo’s recent system.
That list would come with WarioWare: Move It!, Ring Fit Adventure, 1-2 Switch, Game Builder Garage, Nintendo Labo, Resident Evil Revelations, and Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training.
There’s still a probability that these games could mostly work on Switch 2. Ring Fit Adventure only uses IR sensors to record players’ heart rates, for example. The feature is slightly more integral to games like 1-2 Switch though, so it’s hard to assume Nintendo making those games compatible with its recent hardware.
We’ll need to wait to seek out out what’s officially off the table. For now, all we are able to do is wait until April 2’s Nintendo Switch 2 Direct.
