this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

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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.

edit: Thank you all for the comments! I don't post a lot, so it was kinda overwhelming :)

For clarity:

  • I meant I want to "buy for life" (not really "life", but, if the hardware survives you can play on pre-internet consoles forever - you can even buy more games if you can find them)
  • I want to buy a physical copy of the games, not download them

I've decided to go with the Nintendo DS for now (I have a DSi - this week I bought a couple of games, 2nd hand). Reasons:

  • I already had it
  • Joycons on switch. Multiple people mentioned having problems with them. I don't count on being able to buy them new in 10 years, meaning they will have to last.

Again: thank you all for the useful input!

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I've owned my switch since 2017 and Ive never used Nintendo's online services, I think they're actually DNS blocked or if I forgot to DNS block them then my console might be banned but it makes no difference to me, I get an error it can't connect to Nintendo when I start some games but other than having to click past that it's smooth sailing.

You can still have multiple users/profiles/saves without needing to link Nintendo accounts at all.

I think most of what I do with it now I could still do in 20 years although if I'm being totally honest one thing I use a lot is moonlight to remote stream games off my desktop and Im sure you could use it with current Gen PCs to stream but I'm guessing the between wifi and video codec standerds changing over time i dont think moonligbt will still work in 2044...but thats probably a bit outside the scope of your question.

An easier way to put it, the switch is currently probably the best modern console for piracy and that should tell you a lot about how little it depends on any kind of (not already cracked) authentication

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Get a Switch, get it right now, also get this tool. The answer currently is yes, as long as the hardware still works & the battery doesn't explode, and a switch combined with the MIG tool will give you a robust local library of games. Get your rig + MIG & never connect that switch to the internet ever again.

Nintendo is notoriously litigious & overly protective of all things Nintendo. The MIG Switch cartridge looks AMAZING but obviously Nintendo fucking hates it & they will probably try to issue a patch that nerfs it and/or kills your Switch in the future.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If it's like my other consoles from 20 years ago, It'll be sealed in a box in the attic while you emulate it without a thought.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

You can already emulate it with ease, lol. There are multiple Switch emulators, even

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

People thought the same thing in 1985. The NES still works.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

For future reference, consider [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Since the problem of the joycons breaking down has come up a few times, I just want to mention that you can easily couple 8bit-do controllers, or presumably any others, and play with those instead. That's likely to mean they'll be available for a while. Not sure that you can do anything about a DS's buttons breaking

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

My switch died after about 4 years. A capacitor burned, tried to replace it, but still nothing happens... dont know if Ill get it to work again

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