Nintendo Switch Confirmed Not Backward Compatible As President Kimishima Share Future Plans

As the release date of Nintendo Switch just around the corner, more questions about the new console are being answered. With one of the major concerns being its backwards capability, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima clearly stated that the Switch will not cater games designed for other systems.

In an interview with Time, Kimishima also clarified that aside from games, controllers will also be not compatible with the Nintendo Switch, though an update may be added in the future to allow their use on the new system. As for games, some may be re-released for the Switch as remastered or original ports. Several release games of the Switch are ports from the Wii U, like "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe".

Regarding the future of Nintendo, Kimishima is looking into the mobile market as a way to bring customers to the core systems, with the Nintendo Switch being the latest addition. This proves true with "Pokémon GO", as the company met increased sales of their games and hardware after its release. With the company's first three mobile games, "Miitomo", "Super Mario Run" and "Fire Emblem Heroes" being more of experimental in terms of ways to generate profit as well as to bring Nintendo to a wider audience, fans could expect more Nintendo games in the future. Currently, "Super Mario Run" has 78 million downloads, while "Fire Emblem Heroes" has reached a million downloads.  

On its online subscription system, Nintendo is going to have a paid service roughly costing around 2,000-3,000 Yen (or $18-$27) annually. As GameSpot reported, while it may seem underpriced compared to its competitors "Xbox Live" and "PlayStation Network", Kimishima points out that they are going on a battle of content. He is confident that getting out their content at a price point that will make consumers happy will work the magic for Nintendo and the Switch. Nintendo Switch will officially be released on March 3, 2017.