I am trying to choose between buying a Nintendo Switch or a Nintendo DS.

This may not be the perfect community to ask - but I can’t think of any better place.

The reason for my question: I don’t want to own obsolete hardware in 10 years. Lately most games seem to depend on a “phone home” feature, which is not really an issue for my pc because it is always connected, but a console is something I want to play always and everywhere.

I already did some searching and found that games can be played offline fine (most of them, some exceptions are there like Multiplayer and Mortal Kombat), but:

  • There is something like the paid Nintendo Online Account. I am not planning on having a paid account. How much of the system depends on the account?
  • Can I have progression in a game (let’s say: one of the Zelda franchise) and will my Wife and Kids all have their own progression, without having to pay for X accounts?
  • People who own a Switch, let’s take this to extremes, do you feel like in 20 years from now you can still do the same things on your hardware as you can do now? (No multiplayer is fine)

Also, feel free to rant about “paying is not owning”, the state of the gaming industry is horrible.

  • roadkill@kbin.social
    0·
    5 months ago

    Not always true: Not all physical copies contain full copies of the game and will require downloads before the game can be played.

    Animal Crossing being a prime example. Mario Kart 8 requires 4.4 GIGABYTES to be downloaded before the game is playable. There have also been cart revisions where earlier versions of the game were complete on the cart… and newer versions of a cart were partial and required downloads as a cost saving measure.