Nintendo confirms Switch backwards compatibility and Switch Online for Switch successor (UPDATE)

In many ways, this is great news. On the other hand, it basically confirms that the “Switch successor” is going to be just a more powerful Switch. Normal for PlayStation gamers, I know. But not what we Nintendo fans are used to with a new console.

We kinda already knew that by now, but still let's wait for the unveiling. They might still have a little trick up their sleeve.

I see what you're saying, but I mean, not necessarily. The DS played GBA games. Wii played GameCube. It could be a whole different thing with a cartridge slot for Switch games. Aside from requiring some sort of motion controls, most games could be played with standard controllers.
And yeah, I would kind of rather be surprised with something unexpected. (I suppose that's redundant) But it still could be wildly different in other ways, if not the basic form factor. I'll bet they'll throw us some curveballs. The Wii U was in some ways an iteration on Wii - I know, besides the GamePad and HD and all that - but they also innovated a ton on the software side, which was really cool. Maybe that's what we can look forward to.

I don't agree with that at all. NES to GameCube was all very typical upgrades as was GB to GBA. DS to 3DS and Wii to Wii U offered some ultimately unsuccessful extras, but they were essentially just an upgraded console, too. This will be no different from the latter two.

Uh oh This means I might have a lot of games to catch up with when I decide to get a Switch successor O_ o I might as well be able to play these last few Zelda games I had to miss out on. Awesome!

Nice to know, i do recall was it before TOTK they had some internal update that apparently "unlocked the fps limiter" or something similar on the switch, and at the time it was speculated for the next console to be a thing for boosting performance, hopefully thats the case and games like scarlet/voilet could actually run well on next gen console (not that i would go back into that specificly, other games could benefit as well).

This is really really good to hear! I hope the controllers also work, don't care much for the joycons but for the pro controllers.
I think this is a really good direction, specially with the whole world at crisis and companies just doing anti-consumer business everywhere, being able to carry over your stuff to the new console has always been great, like with the gamecube-Wii, ds/3ds and wii-wii u. For me it was one of the factors for switching over at launch, also saved money with the wii controllers on wii u and had something to play in between release droughts.

I'm excited about this! Now we just wait to hear if anything gets improved while playing on the new consoles. Even if it doesn't, I'm really happy about the news.

Now it makes me wonder: Will we be allowed to have our accounts on more than one console soon? Could I make a new island in Animal Crossing New Horizons on Switch 2 and still play my original island on Switch 1, both with the same Nintendo account?

You can have your account on more than one system already though. The secondary systems just need to be online to validate your game and saves. But Animal Crossing will never work that way regardless, since the island is tied to your system, and transferring it to a new system deleted it off the old.

Im seeing some discussion as to what they meant by "software will also be playable".... like they are skirting an issue like there isnt a card slot to put your physical card into, but you can (maybe) pay a small fee for them digitally and re-download them if you previously attached them to your nintendo account...

I guess I'm going to need to investigate how my account can work on two systems. My wife and I have two Switches right now but we're only using one.... mostly because if my wife the ACNH "island representative" moved to a new Switch, it destroys the island for both of us. But if we can have our accounts on more than one Switch, maybe we can at least play other games on separate Switches.

I'm confused by the parsing of "software." This refers to games as opposed to "hardware", which is the console or accessories. Nintendo uses the same language to report game sales. Why are we concerned over this? Maybe the next system won't have a cartridge slot, but I fail to see how we can ascertain that from the word "software."

I think it's clear now with the update, as the investors are concerned about "games/software" being playable on the new console.