According to Japanese game magazine Famitsu, Nintendo isn’t planning for proper backwards compatibility for the Nintendo Switch. The magazine is normally a great source of information on Nintendo news, and they recently arranged a small interview with Nintendo about the upcoming hybrid home/handheld console.
In the article, Nintendo comes out and says that they aren’t planning on making Wii U games or 3DS cartridges work for the Switch. It’s looking like bad news for players who had hoped that the similar device would at the very least, play Wii U games, since the reveal trailer showed people playing Splatoon. It has been speculated that it will be a sequel or special Switch edition. Nintendo is pretty keen on waiting to reveal more information on the system until next year, closer to the release.
It seems, however, that there may be hope for those wishing to play these games on a Switch, at the very least. In the article, Nintendo refuses to go in depth about playing games downloaded to the device.
Famitsu also asked Nintendo about the Switch’s battery life. Some Nintendo handhelds weren’t amazing on this front, and with the console being such a big deal, it seems almost necessary for it to have a long battery life for its handheld play. Nintendo once again avoids the question by offering up a generic response, saying that the console would allow players to be “as comfortable as possible, even in a place where you have no power supply.” It’s possible that Nintendo doesn’t even know how long the battery will last on the release-ready finished console.
The Nintendo Switch is expected to release in March 2017.