Comment by chungy

Comment by chungy 2 days ago

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.

nerdjon 2 days ago

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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larusso 2 days ago

First Wii was able to play Game Cube Games. WiiU was backwards compatible to Wii. All theses consoles used nearly the same chipset anyways.

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- monocasa a day ago
  
  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.
  
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  jpalawaga a day ago
  
  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)
  
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- lotsoweiners 2 days ago
  
  I was always amazed the Wii with its full size discs could play the GameCube mini discs.
  
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  jzwinck 2 days ago
  
  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
  
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la6776 2 days ago

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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- Lio 2 days ago
  
  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.
  
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- chungy 2 days ago
  
  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.
  
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- bitwize a day ago
  
  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.
  
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TuxSH 2 days ago

3DS has hardware support for GBA games too, actually, though these only got distributed via the Ambassador program.

Also had VC for most of Nintendo's platform.

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chungy 2 days ago

I know, and you can basically restore full GameCube compatibility on the Wii U via Nintendont. Neither of them let you use the actual physical games from the old system, and needing to perform jailbreak hacks to use them and load ROMs on anyway doesn't count as much as out-of-the-box compatibility.

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- TuxSH 2 days ago
  
  Fair. A shame, still, especially for GC compat on WiiU.
  
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  Wowfunhappy 2 days ago
  
  The problem in both cases is that the consoles were actually missing a key piece of hardware: the ability to read the disc or cartridge.
  If you're a hacker-type person who has already digitized your gamecube collection (or, let's be honest, downloaded the games illegally) then this doesn't matter. But for regular consumers, there needs to be a way to verify ownership.
  Nintendo could have made some titles available digitally (which is what I wish they'd done), but that requires getting content rights sorted out for games that have never been sold digitally before, so the full catalog would not have been available. Also, there would have been a ton of hemming and hawing about "Nintendo is making me buy my Gamecube games again?!?" No comment on whether such complaints would have been reasonable.
  
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10729287 2 days ago

>Nintendo New 3DS: plays Nintendo DS, DSi, and (old) 3DS games

I know HN doesn't have any room for sarcasm but I couldn't not laugh trying to remember what were the NEW 3ds games. Sure the second pad made the 3DS way more comfortable to play, and 3D was a bit better, but we all got scammed here regarding games supporting this new hardware.

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daveoc64 2 days ago

The New 3DS consoles did have double the RAM and an improved CPU and GPU, so there were quite a few games like Minecraft and the SNES Virtual Console that could only run on the New models.

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chungy 2 days ago

There are a handful of more New 3DS exclusives than there were DSi exclusives. Both revisions failed to garner enough market for developers to try to target them.

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freddi333 2 days ago

Super Smash Brothers worked very well with the second pad.

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jamesgeck0 2 days ago

IIRC Xenoblade Chronicles and Fire Emblem Warriors were the only ones I really cared about. Lots of people held onto their old hardware; probably wasn't worth excluding them.
The biggest advantage of owning a New 3DS turned out to be the huge performance uplift. A fair number of games ran at double the framerate or only supported 3D mode on the newer hardware. Code Name STEAM had substantially less downtime on the New models because the AI could process turns faster. Several reviews for Hyrule Warriors Legends flat out said not to buy the game unless you had a "New" model due to performance issues.

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jedberg 2 days ago

The Switch is interesting, because while you can't play the old games you already own, the Switch can play those games with an emulator, if you're willing to pay them more money to get a digital copy.

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lotsoweiners 2 days ago

You probably know this but most of those aren’t really generations. Game boy color, DSi, new 3ds are just upgrades of the same generation kinda like PS5 vs PS5 Pro.

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chungy 2 days ago

"Generations" is a fairly subjective term all things considered, and I basically acknowledged it by saying these things are fuzzy.
As the sibling post mentions, they all have exclusives, however, which is something Sony has refused to allow for PS4 Pro and PS5 Pro updates. And even though Nintendo considers the GBC to be the same console as the original GB when it comes to tallying sales figures, it's a rather significant upgrade. Slightly better than NES full color games, double the processor speed. It made a compelling upgrade and target for developers.

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- Izkata a day ago
  
  Back when they were first coming out, a lot of us also considered GameBoy Pocket to be a new "generation". I think it might have supported a few more shades of grey from the original? And better battery life. And lots of case colors.
  
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  chungy a day ago
  
  Capabilities wise, it was identical to the original Game Boy. Just four shades of gray for games to draw in. Externally: smaller unit, better battery life, higher contrast screen, new link port (yay adapters for connecting to the original Game Boy...), and "Play It Loud" (the colored cases to choose from). A true revision, no room to question about leaps in gaming technology. :)
  
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klausa 2 days ago

All of those have games exclusive to them.
3DS has like ~15, though some heavy hitters (Xenoblade and Fire Emblem), DSi has like 6 no-names (and, technically, a whole lot on DSiWare); but there are many GBC-exclusive games.

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- Macha a day ago
  
  Although funnily enough, in most regions Pokemon Gold and Silver were not actually GBC exclusive and would run on the original Game Boy, despite arguably being the game the GBC was most promoted for and having colour (which didn't work on the DMG, obviously) as their major features.
  The Korean release of Gold and Silver, along with Crystal, did actually require a GBC.
  
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johnwalkr 2 days ago

I almost forgot the switch doesn't play Wii U games, given that almost all Wii U games worth playing were also released for the Switch.

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danudey 2 days ago

> playing neither 3DS nor Wii U games.

Except the ones they remaster for us for $70.

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BearOso a day ago

I was about to say that. Pretty much every unique Wii U game has been remastered for Switch.

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8note 2 days ago

im pretty sure all the later versions of gameboys could play the old games, so long as the cartridges have the same package and connector.

the GBC games just didnt fit well in the DS

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chungy 2 days ago

The DS can't play GBC games at all, it doesn't have the Z80 CPU from that console to even provide backwards compatibility. Nintendo also removed it from the Game Boy Micro, making it a GBA-only console.

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