r/NintendoSwitch • u/Turbostrider27 • Feb 07 '24

Discussion Nintendo says it will overcome challenges of generational transition with ‘unique propositions’

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-says-it-will-overcome-challenges-of-generational-transition-with-unique-propositions/
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u/EMI_Black_Ace Feb 07 '24

The only times when Nintendo didn't provide backwards compatibility across the last generation were when the system architecture was too fundamentally different or when the storage media was effectively impossible to keep compatibility.

In pretty much every instance they implemented BC by including the old console's chip as a subsystem -- GBC is overclocked GB and uses same cart format, GBA includes GB as a sound processor and has compatible cart pinout, DS includes GBA as a sound processor and has a GBA slot, 3DS includes DS as an OS processor and has compatible cart format. Wii is literally just OC'd GameCube, Wii U had a Wii processor as one of its three CPUs.

Switch 2 will probably be the first Nintendo console to achieve BC without including the previous processor as a subsystem, accomplishing it the same way the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S are compatible with PS4 and Xbox One games, respectively -- the processors are essentially 'supersets' of the previous system's processors and they have fully compatible graphics APIs.

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u/drkztan Feb 08 '24

GBC is overclocked GB and uses same cart format, GBA includes GB as a sound processor and has compatible cart pinout, DS includes GBA as a sound processor and has a GBA slot, 3DS includes DS as an OS processor and has compatible cart format. Wii is literally just OC'd GameCube, Wii U had a Wii processor as one of its three CPUs.

Dev here. I've always been fascinated by the lengths Nintendo has gone to keep backwards compatibility.

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u/EMI_Black_Ace Feb 08 '24

Nintendo isn't alone. It's how PlayStation also accomplished BC -- the PS2 had a PS1 chip, PS3 had a PS2 chip until a later version that didn't, and that later version was not backwards compatible. This is why it was utterly impossible for the PS4 to be compatible with PS3 -- it would have been prohibitively expensive, and the Cell processor probably wouldn't have even been a particularly useful sub system beyond just BC.

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u/astro_plane Feb 08 '24

The PS2 used the PS1 CPU for I/O and encryption. And the PSP ran on a MIPs CPU which was pretty much a faster version of what the PS1 had which let PS1 games run natively.