10 ms·

I wonder long will the backend infra supporting the Switch will last. Especially now that they’re selling download-only versions of the games. Online services

I wonder long will the backend infra supporting the Switch will last. Especially now that they’re selling download-only versions of the games. Online services for earlier consoles like the Wii were more basic, and IIRC in some cases were developed and maintained by third parties, not Nintendo themselves? I understand wanting to get rid of that overhead especially if it wasn’t driving incremental revenue. But now the Switch is more intimately tied to online services for buying games and add ons. The most customer-friendly approach would be to keep backend services running indefinitely. Basically consider your backend to be a platform like Windows or macOS and maintain and evolve it indefinitely, keeping older consoles alive as long as possible (and continuing the ongoing revenue stream from older consoles, even as it shrinks over time, to at least cover cost.) It seems like they have to do something like this to support downloadable games, at least with the online shop. I wonder how they’ll handle it. I read a rumor that the successor to the Switch is expected in 2024 or 2025. And we picked up a Switch a couple months ago and I chose to buy all games as digital download version. And I remember the backend for the Wii being shut down. So this has been on my mind recently.

phone8675309 3y ago
This is why I don't buy a console that doesn't have a functional jailbreak/softmod. You can't count on these companies to care about the consumer past the initial purchase. If you can jailbreak your console there are plenty of sites that preserve the released games that you can install after the online services are shut down.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  We've moved so far into the "you won't own anything" lane that it got me thinking back to how we deal with the rest of the world. For instance we actively dissuade people from taking photos during foreign trips or at the restaurant because they're supposed to be enjoying the experience, instead of viewing it trough a viewfinder. We haven't reached a point yet where people are arguing they should have a copy of the tiramisu recipe and backup access to the kitchen in case the restaurant shuts down and they can't have their tiramisu anymore. In some way, I wonder if most online games nowadays aren't closer to a tiramisu experience than something we are supposed to own. Fortnite for instance would be fundamentally about the experience of interacting with other players, the seasons system etc. and "owning" the game offline would be completely different. I still see RPGs types of games and fully offline playable games as something that should be priced differently and have a more standard ownership model. Things like Super Mario Maker mentionned in the article would be sitting in the middle. Also preservation efforts should continue on an academic and cultural standpoint, to at least leave some trail of what was happening in the gaming world during our time.
  - danparsonson 3y ago
    I agree that we should think about whether or not it's better to let the past go and just enjoy experiences during their time rather than expecting them to be around forever, but I think your tiramisu example actually makes the opposite point - recipes like that are in the public domain and there will always be kitchens if you want to make one, whereas an online game server is a closed system that disappears if it's shut down. If companies would move services into the public domain when they don't want to run them any more, then the point becomes moot - if some community wants to setup their own tiramisu server to keep that cake alive, they should be allowed to.
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      This is a valid point, and I agree company data should be forced to become public under specific conditions. Now to get back to the tiramisu part, I think what makes it delicious in some restaurant is either obfuscated (e.g. the chef has a specific way to process some of the steps, or use some benign undisclosed ingredient). Or it's based on a specific ingredient that won't be available to anyone seeking it. For instance the coffee they use come from the chef's own farm, or they grind it a specific way that only works with their machinery as they haven't gone public about it. In many ways I think the generic recipe of most games is widely available: if we gave you a team and a few billion dollars, you could probably make a generic Fortnite clone in less than a year. But would it be as good as what Epic's team is providing right now ? probably not ? (no offence)
      - song 3y ago
        I disagree with you about restaurants, there aren’t really any secret ingredients etc… The main difference is skill, not many people have the skills to actually replicate a tiramisu as good as that specific famous shop. But someone who is really skilled absolutely can
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      While recipes are not copyrightable, they are not automatically public either. A restaurant can consider its recipes trade secrets, and sue any employee that discloses them and win. Even photographing the chef's recipe book or something as an outside person would be punishable via trade secret laws. Famously, Coca Cola's recipe is supposed to be a closely guarded secret, for example. So, while of course there are many widely known and available tiramisu recipes, a specific recipe from a specific restaurant is not necessarily so. Just in passing, this is something that many people who wish for an end to software copyright forget: the alternative to copyright is not at all free public software, it is trade secret Linux "recipes".
lbourdages 3y ago
I bought physical copies of my Switch games for that exact reason. I can dump the carts somehow and play the games legally using an emulator if/when they pull the plug on it.
- al_borland 3y ago
  This was my tactic as well. Seeing Xbox and Playstaion making console versions without optical drives has me worried about what the future may look like.
  - KennyBlanken 3y ago
    Optical drives have been useless for ages. Games are routinely coming out with ~60-100GB day-one updates.
    - tredre3 3y ago
      And optical drives can store that comfortably. There is no reason the entire game couldn't be on the disk and working as intended. The reason there is such a large day one update is simply that games are released unfinished and/or untested. This isn't the fault of the medium. This is a systemic video game industry problem.
      - robinson7d 3y ago
        (The following comment agrees with you, it is not intended as an argument against what you’re saying): Technically being able to contain the content and actually being able to boot the game from the disc (after transferring to the console hard drive) are two separate things. Even without counting Day 1/Day 0 patches. Some games refuse to run without downloading additional content that isn’t on the disc, others require talking to a server even if you’ve just downloaded the latest updates, others. A patch to fix bugs and add content is one thing, refusing to play entirely is another.
        3y ago
philistine 3y ago
Look at the one company who owns a vibrant operating system: Microsoft. They dropped the original Xbox like a box of bricks. They shut down those old servers quite rapidly. With the Xbox 360 however, they will stop the ability to buy games on an original Xbox 360 next year. That's a long era of support! https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/08/17/xbox-360-store-will-close-july-2024/ https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/08/17/xbox-360-store-will-c... I'm fairly convinced new credit card standards are probably what is closing down the 360 store. They're only closing down the ability to buy things. Nintendo is also shutting down the Wii U and 3DS around the same time and Sony has already stopped allowing credit cards on a PS3. https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22713526/sony-ps3-vita-buy-games-credit-debit-card-paypal https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22713526/sony-ps3-vita-bu... But getting back to Microsoft, the Xbox One and the Series consoles are running the same store. The OS is for all intents and purposes exactly the same. Any 360 game that has been migrated to the new One/Series store through backwards compatibility is staying purchasable past the closure of the 360 store. When the next round of closures comes, Microsoft won't close down a store, they'll prevent the Xbox One from accessing the store. I hope with all my might that Nintendo does the same; that the Switch OS remains their software platform and that they close access to their store, not shut it down.
- croutonwagon 3y ago
  I would argue Microsoft is one of the better ones with respect to backports and longer term support. Others (cough google cough) are on the other end of that spectrum. I would imagine Nintendo is somewhere in the middle. That said, i still grabbed Digital copies of games. Plan is i can put multiple switches on an account and when they are traveling (ie: not connected) my kids can play games without having to cop 2 copies of every game. Still need to get the second switch online to test this premise though.
  - Geezus_42 3y ago
    You can only share games between accounts on your "home" switch.
    - 3y ago
slowhadoken 3y ago
Valve has the perfect setup right now. Your desktop, laptop, or Deck can connect to Steam.
- easton 3y ago
  Unless it’s a 32-bit Mac come January or a machine running windows < 8, in which case you’re screwed until you buy new hardware. Which I’m fine with, but it’s not like Valve is magical somehow. If your machine isn’t still getting Chromium builds they can’t build Steam for it, you still need to buy new hardware. And the game consoles (less) often let you play old games on new hardware.
  - slowhadoken 3y ago
    My Deck just runs all those old windows games using proton. I mean, Windows subsystems runs Linux. You don’t even need VMs anymore. It’s not magic it’s just portability.
    - kiwijamo 3y ago
      The majority of my steam collection is games that will not run on the steam deck or Linux. Out of 15 I have, only three works on. YMMV but doesn't look like 'all' these windows games unfortunately. May be more of an issue with the type of games I like, i.e. Civilisation, Age of Empires, etc.
      - slowhadoken 3y ago
        I have over three hundred games purchased on Steam, Windows games, and ROMs (GB to PS3) and I’ve only experienced one or two issues and it wasn’t the Deck’s fault. I play indie games on it all the time too. Now games are being made with the Deck in mind.
      - doix 3y ago
        Civilization and Age of Empires definitely work on Linux. Or atleast civ 5, AoE2:DE and AoE4 all work. I strongly suspect most of the other versions work as well. I actually haven't encountered a single game that doesn't work on Linux that's available on steam. I'm sure they exist, but I personally haven't hit any. My biggest annoyance was when I tried to play Diablo 4 and had to mess about with the Blizzard launcher. Really made me appreciate how fool proof Linux gaming has become with Steam nowadays.
saghm 3y ago
It's kind of crazy how Nintendo has basically thrown out their entire service for consoles multiple times and started from scratch now. Can you imagine if Xbox Live or the PSN were thrown out and replaced with an incompatible new service after a single generation of use, let alone multiple times? Even ignoring the user experience, it feels like a massive waste of engineering work, with the benefit being...not having to spend as much effort implementing the service, or recruiting the proper talent to make it good enough to last? It honestly seems like they just didn't seen a compelling reason for previous generations, which is an unfortunate lack of foresight, but I really hope they've figured it out for the Switch and won't do it again.
- hadlock 3y ago
  Lack of support for 3DS and (probably) switch means I am moving over to the Steam Deck for my next console, probably early next year. Losing my entire switch library, basically forever, when the Switch 2 (or whatever they call it) is released seems like throwing good money after bad.
  - mikepurvis 3y ago
    Nintendo has been getting greedy in recent years with the paid rereleases and HD ports. However they had a terrific track record on backcompat for years in the handheld space. GB -> GBC -> GBA -> DS -> 3DS, every one supporting at least one generation back's physical media. Nintendo understands the value of the Switch library and I think would be very cautious to release successor hardware that didn't play the existing titles.
    - worthless-trash 3y ago
      Nintendo understands, Nintendo dont care.
    - epiccoleman 3y ago
      > Nintendo understands the value of the Switch library and I think would be very cautious to release successor hardware that didn't play the existing titles. I really hope so. The switch has such a great library, it would be an absolute shame if they abandoned it all. From the rumors I've heard they're sticking to a similar platform for the next console so hopefully backwards compatibility is reasonably likely.
hellotheretoday 3y ago
I can sort of understand ending life for allowing purchasing on the platform but why would you not create servers for the new consoles in a way that allows you to continue to serve downloads or at the very least whatever licensing necessary to launch the software to old hardware? If I buy a game I should be able to launch it and redownload it. If the above is not feasible then strip the drm at the consoles end of life and allow me to download my library and launch it indefinitely until bitrot destroys it. Absurd that we have this current system of “purchase digitally and play until the servers are shut off, which is a timeframe that is unclear”
- chii 3y ago
  > If I buy a game I should be able to launch it and redownload it. unfortunately, this is not the right for which you paid, despite the fact that it is what people believe when they click purchase. That's why i condone piracy. It enables preservation, regardless of the choice of the copyright owner. That's why i would always want to make an offline backup of whatever i buy. It's hard to do sometimes, and the onus being on me to do it is a failing of the consumer protection laws that did not evolve with digital purchases.
  - hellotheretoday 3y ago
    Agreed and why when I do purchase I only purchase physical. The digital downloads of games I have are either games that were so hilariously cheap on sale my moral compass didn’t matter (eg marked down to sub $5) or the free downloads I get from various promotions like the epic store. I don’t pirate video games but I don’t have any qualms with someone who does given the gross anti consumer practices the industry has been getting away with for ages Unfortunately consumers don’t seem to agree and have no problem shelling out billions of dollars for these things. The current console generation is clearly pushing hard to shift things entirely to digital; it is actually becoming difficult to purchase physical copies of games. The recent yakuza game didn’t get a physical release in the USA and I had to import a copy from play-Asia. It works fine on my us ps5 but they were clear as it’s a region 3 release any future patches/dlc/psn support may not work correctly unless I create a region 3 psn account specifically for that game. Quite a headache. Although funny enough the game itself was $10 cheaper so even with tax and shipping it worked out to be the same as if I had bought it on psn.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
I always buy physical copies for this exact reason.
andy_ppp 3y ago
I was about to buy the new Zelda game online, you are right though it’s hard to imagine how they can ever stop supporting it without everyone who bought a digital game coming to them with a bill. I wonder what the terms and conditions say?

phone8675309 3y ago

This is why I don't buy a console that doesn't have a functional jailbreak/softmod. You can't count on these companies to care about the consumer past the initial purchase. If you can jailbreak your console there are plenty of sites that preserve the released games that you can install after the online services are shut down.

makeitdouble 3y ago
We've moved so far into the "you won't own anything" lane that it got me thinking back to how we deal with the rest of the world. For instance we actively dissuade people from taking photos during foreign trips or at the restaurant because they're supposed to be enjoying the experience, instead of viewing it trough a viewfinder. We haven't reached a point yet where people are arguing they should have a copy of the tiramisu recipe and backup access to the kitchen in case the restaurant shuts down and they can't have their tiramisu anymore. In some way, I wonder if most online games nowadays aren't closer to a tiramisu experience than something we are supposed to own. Fortnite for instance would be fundamentally about the experience of interacting with other players, the seasons system etc. and "owning" the game offline would be completely different. I still see RPGs types of games and fully offline playable games as something that should be priced differently and have a more standard ownership model. Things like Super Mario Maker mentionned in the article would be sitting in the middle. Also preservation efforts should continue on an academic and cultural standpoint, to at least leave some trail of what was happening in the gaming world during our time.
- danparsonson 3y ago
  I agree that we should think about whether or not it's better to let the past go and just enjoy experiences during their time rather than expecting them to be around forever, but I think your tiramisu example actually makes the opposite point - recipes like that are in the public domain and there will always be kitchens if you want to make one, whereas an online game server is a closed system that disappears if it's shut down. If companies would move services into the public domain when they don't want to run them any more, then the point becomes moot - if some community wants to setup their own tiramisu server to keep that cake alive, they should be allowed to.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    This is a valid point, and I agree company data should be forced to become public under specific conditions. Now to get back to the tiramisu part, I think what makes it delicious in some restaurant is either obfuscated (e.g. the chef has a specific way to process some of the steps, or use some benign undisclosed ingredient). Or it's based on a specific ingredient that won't be available to anyone seeking it. For instance the coffee they use come from the chef's own farm, or they grind it a specific way that only works with their machinery as they haven't gone public about it. In many ways I think the generic recipe of most games is widely available: if we gave you a team and a few billion dollars, you could probably make a generic Fortnite clone in less than a year. But would it be as good as what Epic's team is providing right now ? probably not ? (no offence)
    - song 3y ago
      I disagree with you about restaurants, there aren’t really any secret ingredients etc… The main difference is skill, not many people have the skills to actually replicate a tiramisu as good as that specific famous shop. But someone who is really skilled absolutely can
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    While recipes are not copyrightable, they are not automatically public either. A restaurant can consider its recipes trade secrets, and sue any employee that discloses them and win. Even photographing the chef's recipe book or something as an outside person would be punishable via trade secret laws. Famously, Coca Cola's recipe is supposed to be a closely guarded secret, for example. So, while of course there are many widely known and available tiramisu recipes, a specific recipe from a specific restaurant is not necessarily so. Just in passing, this is something that many people who wish for an end to software copyright forget: the alternative to copyright is not at all free public software, it is trade secret Linux "recipes".

lbourdages 3y ago

I bought physical copies of my Switch games for that exact reason. I can dump the carts somehow and play the games legally using an emulator if/when they pull the plug on it.

al_borland 3y ago
This was my tactic as well. Seeing Xbox and Playstaion making console versions without optical drives has me worried about what the future may look like.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  Optical drives have been useless for ages. Games are routinely coming out with ~60-100GB day-one updates.
  - tredre3 3y ago
    And optical drives can store that comfortably. There is no reason the entire game couldn't be on the disk and working as intended. The reason there is such a large day one update is simply that games are released unfinished and/or untested. This isn't the fault of the medium. This is a systemic video game industry problem.
    - robinson7d 3y ago
      (The following comment agrees with you, it is not intended as an argument against what you’re saying): Technically being able to contain the content and actually being able to boot the game from the disc (after transferring to the console hard drive) are two separate things. Even without counting Day 1/Day 0 patches. Some games refuse to run without downloading additional content that isn’t on the disc, others require talking to a server even if you’ve just downloaded the latest updates, others. A patch to fix bugs and add content is one thing, refusing to play entirely is another.
      - 3y ago

philistine 3y ago

Look at the one company who owns a vibrant operating system: Microsoft. They dropped the original Xbox like a box of bricks. They shut down those old servers quite rapidly. With the Xbox 360 however, they will stop the ability to buy games on an original Xbox 360 next year. That's a long era of support! https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/08/17/xbox-360-store-will-close-july-2024/ https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/08/17/xbox-360-store-will-c... I'm fairly convinced new credit card standards are probably what is closing down the 360 store. They're only closing down the ability to buy things. Nintendo is also shutting down the Wii U and 3DS around the same time and Sony has already stopped allowing credit cards on a PS3. https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22713526/sony-ps3-vita-buy-games-credit-debit-card-paypal https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22713526/sony-ps3-vita-bu... But getting back to Microsoft, the Xbox One and the Series consoles are running the same store. The OS is for all intents and purposes exactly the same. Any 360 game that has been migrated to the new One/Series store through backwards compatibility is staying purchasable past the closure of the 360 store. When the next round of closures comes, Microsoft won't close down a store, they'll prevent the Xbox One from accessing the store. I hope with all my might that Nintendo does the same; that the Switch OS remains their software platform and that they close access to their store, not shut it down.

croutonwagon 3y ago
I would argue Microsoft is one of the better ones with respect to backports and longer term support. Others (cough google cough) are on the other end of that spectrum. I would imagine Nintendo is somewhere in the middle. That said, i still grabbed Digital copies of games. Plan is i can put multiple switches on an account and when they are traveling (ie: not connected) my kids can play games without having to cop 2 copies of every game. Still need to get the second switch online to test this premise though.
- Geezus_42 3y ago
  You can only share games between accounts on your "home" switch.
  - 3y ago

slowhadoken 3y ago

Valve has the perfect setup right now. Your desktop, laptop, or Deck can connect to Steam.

easton 3y ago
Unless it’s a 32-bit Mac come January or a machine running windows < 8, in which case you’re screwed until you buy new hardware. Which I’m fine with, but it’s not like Valve is magical somehow. If your machine isn’t still getting Chromium builds they can’t build Steam for it, you still need to buy new hardware. And the game consoles (less) often let you play old games on new hardware.
- slowhadoken 3y ago
  My Deck just runs all those old windows games using proton. I mean, Windows subsystems runs Linux. You don’t even need VMs anymore. It’s not magic it’s just portability.
  - kiwijamo 3y ago
    The majority of my steam collection is games that will not run on the steam deck or Linux. Out of 15 I have, only three works on. YMMV but doesn't look like 'all' these windows games unfortunately. May be more of an issue with the type of games I like, i.e. Civilisation, Age of Empires, etc.
    - slowhadoken 3y ago
      I have over three hundred games purchased on Steam, Windows games, and ROMs (GB to PS3) and I’ve only experienced one or two issues and it wasn’t the Deck’s fault. I play indie games on it all the time too. Now games are being made with the Deck in mind.
    - doix 3y ago
      Civilization and Age of Empires definitely work on Linux. Or atleast civ 5, AoE2:DE and AoE4 all work. I strongly suspect most of the other versions work as well. I actually haven't encountered a single game that doesn't work on Linux that's available on steam. I'm sure they exist, but I personally haven't hit any. My biggest annoyance was when I tried to play Diablo 4 and had to mess about with the Blizzard launcher. Really made me appreciate how fool proof Linux gaming has become with Steam nowadays.

saghm 3y ago

It's kind of crazy how Nintendo has basically thrown out their entire service for consoles multiple times and started from scratch now. Can you imagine if Xbox Live or the PSN were thrown out and replaced with an incompatible new service after a single generation of use, let alone multiple times? Even ignoring the user experience, it feels like a massive waste of engineering work, with the benefit being...not having to spend as much effort implementing the service, or recruiting the proper talent to make it good enough to last? It honestly seems like they just didn't seen a compelling reason for previous generations, which is an unfortunate lack of foresight, but I really hope they've figured it out for the Switch and won't do it again.

hadlock 3y ago
Lack of support for 3DS and (probably) switch means I am moving over to the Steam Deck for my next console, probably early next year. Losing my entire switch library, basically forever, when the Switch 2 (or whatever they call it) is released seems like throwing good money after bad.
- mikepurvis 3y ago
  Nintendo has been getting greedy in recent years with the paid rereleases and HD ports. However they had a terrific track record on backcompat for years in the handheld space. GB -> GBC -> GBA -> DS -> 3DS, every one supporting at least one generation back's physical media. Nintendo understands the value of the Switch library and I think would be very cautious to release successor hardware that didn't play the existing titles.
  - worthless-trash 3y ago
    Nintendo understands, Nintendo dont care.
  - epiccoleman 3y ago
    > Nintendo understands the value of the Switch library and I think would be very cautious to release successor hardware that didn't play the existing titles. I really hope so. The switch has such a great library, it would be an absolute shame if they abandoned it all. From the rumors I've heard they're sticking to a similar platform for the next console so hopefully backwards compatibility is reasonably likely.

hellotheretoday 3y ago

I can sort of understand ending life for allowing purchasing on the platform but why would you not create servers for the new consoles in a way that allows you to continue to serve downloads or at the very least whatever licensing necessary to launch the software to old hardware? If I buy a game I should be able to launch it and redownload it. If the above is not feasible then strip the drm at the consoles end of life and allow me to download my library and launch it indefinitely until bitrot destroys it. Absurd that we have this current system of “purchase digitally and play until the servers are shut off, which is a timeframe that is unclear”

chii 3y ago
> If I buy a game I should be able to launch it and redownload it. unfortunately, this is not the right for which you paid, despite the fact that it is what people believe when they click purchase. That's why i condone piracy. It enables preservation, regardless of the choice of the copyright owner. That's why i would always want to make an offline backup of whatever i buy. It's hard to do sometimes, and the onus being on me to do it is a failing of the consumer protection laws that did not evolve with digital purchases.
- hellotheretoday 3y ago
  Agreed and why when I do purchase I only purchase physical. The digital downloads of games I have are either games that were so hilariously cheap on sale my moral compass didn’t matter (eg marked down to sub $5) or the free downloads I get from various promotions like the epic store. I don’t pirate video games but I don’t have any qualms with someone who does given the gross anti consumer practices the industry has been getting away with for ages Unfortunately consumers don’t seem to agree and have no problem shelling out billions of dollars for these things. The current console generation is clearly pushing hard to shift things entirely to digital; it is actually becoming difficult to purchase physical copies of games. The recent yakuza game didn’t get a physical release in the USA and I had to import a copy from play-Asia. It works fine on my us ps5 but they were clear as it’s a region 3 release any future patches/dlc/psn support may not work correctly unless I create a region 3 psn account specifically for that game. Quite a headache. Although funny enough the game itself was $10 cheaper so even with tax and shipping it worked out to be the same as if I had bought it on psn.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

I always buy physical copies for this exact reason.

andy_ppp 3y ago

I was about to buy the new Zelda game online, you are right though it’s hard to imagine how they can ever stop supporting it without everyone who bought a digital game coming to them with a bill. I wonder what the terms and conditions say?