Miyamoto admits that backwards compatibility is easier than ever

Despite backwards compatibility being easier than ever to implement, Nintendo's focus is on new games, Shigeru Miyamoto admitted during a Q&A held in conjunction with the company's latest financial report. Because despite nearest competitors Sony and Microsoft making it possible to relive plenty of titles even from just one or two generations back on both the PS5 and Series X, neither Wii, Wii U nor Gamecube games are available on the Switch. Miyamoto's comment (translated by VGC) was as follows.

"In the past, we provided a service known as the 'Virtual Console' that allowed users to play older video games on new consoles with newer hardware. As long as the hardware remained unchanged, those games could continue to be played."

He continued, "Recently, however, the development environment has increasingly become more standardised, and we now have an environment that allows players to enjoy older video games on newer consoles more easily than ever before."

Miyamoto did affirm that while backwards compatibility was easier than ever, it's not necessarily the main focus on Nintendo.

"Nintendo's strength is in creating new video game experiences, so when we release new hardware in the future, we would like to showcase unique video games that could not be created with pre-existing hardware."

What do you think, should Nintendo focus more on backwards compatibility efforts like Microsoft and Sony, enabling you to play more older games on the latest console?