And what better way to strengthen the relationship with your customer by giving them a big fuck you, your library of games is stuck on your old hardware.
Man, I’m not talking about BC. I’m talking about what Bowser said. It’s like, what Bowser is saying is “we will use the Nintendo account to directly contact customers when new hardware comes out.”
This has dick all to do with backwards compatibility. I’m not saying one way or the other, and neither is Doug Bowser. I’m just here saying that hearing people try to connect Bowser’s statements which are explicitly about using the account as a marketing tool to the BC discussion sound legitimately deranged.
It’s like Bowser saying that the console will be available in the same colors as the Switch and people yelling about how that confirms Joy-cons will be compatible.
The importance of your Nintendo Account is directly tied to the user library. I know this, you know this and Nintendo knows this.
Its value to
Nintendo is the
data. It’s why every website on earth wants you to create an account before buying anything. It’s why Facebook and Google rake in billions on “free” services.
Bowser is saying that they want to avoid the dip in software sales that is associated with a new hardware launch - BC has nothing to do with getting you to buy
new software. A “smooth transition” isn’t for you, it’s for the company.
Every time you turn your Switch on it’s going to give you an alert showing you what sequels to games you already own are exclusive to the next hardware. It’s going to tell you how all the free expansion pak DLC is on those exclusive games. Microsoft scared millions of gamers by threatening their
achievements in the 360 transition.
There are dozens of ways to leverage that account to sell you new software that have nothing to do with BC. And even if BC is there, Nintendo is going to leverage them.
Nothing is a lock until it is announced, but man, this would be a huge self inflicted wound that creates a barrier to the new hardware rather than encourage it.
I agree! BC is critical to my ability to enjoy the new device, at least in year one! But let's do a little thought experiment.
Let's assume there is no out of the box BC. Let's say it's a technical issue - an emulation based solution just never gets to decent performance. Games have to be patched, and that requires dev intervention - similar to what Microsoft had to do. Nintendo is making Switch 2 ports of all their games, and are making it as easy as possible to do, and they're encouraging third parties to do the same. But at launch, only, say 10% of the eShop will be converted. Smaller games may never come. Bigger games are works in progress.
Would Doug Bowser - and Nintendo generally - still say the sentences they said? I mean... yeah? They sound right on. Concerned about the transition, plan to leverage the new account to communicate the transition to customers, doing everything they can to keep software sales up during the transition period - all of this sounds
right on the money.
That's why it is totally unhinged to me when folks try to use these milquetoast statements to confirm or even hint at BC. Bowser is a marketing exec. He's talking about their marketing strategy. The vast majority of people worried about Switch BC in forums like this one are (generally) the same type of people who bought year one when owning a Switch meant "having a
Breath of the Wild machine and pretty much nothing else."
These customers - and those software sales - are not Bowser's worry. It's the 50% of Switch owners who buy one to two games a year, max. Those people account for
100 million software units a year. Here we are, 7 years in, and those folks represent a huge portion of Nintendo's sales, Nintendo needs to preserve them - yet these are not people who consume video game media daily or even weekly. These folks
will not know the transition is happening or what it means. Nintendo's ability to
directly market to those customers is critical, and it's what Bowser's talking about - and incidentally, those people don't have big libraries. They've got 3 Pokemon games they don't play anymore (because they've beaten them and moved on to the next Pokemon) and a Mario game they play out of nostalgia, but it's "too hard."
They don't care about BC, they care about their Animal Crossing villagers. They care about Mario Kart - not
Mario Kart 8 DX, but being able to play Mario Kart, and they will pay again for a new one. And again, I think BC is important. But when Bowser talks about engaging these customers through their accounts, I don't see how that translates to BC at all.
)...
