In a Q&A following the publication of Nintendo’s latest financial results, Nintendo director Shigeru Miyamoto acknowledged that it’s easier than ever to offer backwards compatibility but failed to mention any hints or plans for the next Nintendo console.

While Miyamoto didn’t specify which direction Nintendo consoles will be following, he did state that he believes backwards-compatibility is easier to implement in the modern era than in the past.

Translated by VGC, he said:

“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.

However, the publishing rights to video games are complicated, and we have said that we would only add titles after securing the necessary rights.

Of course, video games developed for dedicated consoles were created in different development environments for each console,” Miyamoto continued. “As a result, when the hardware changed, the development environment could not necessarily be reused, and so the video games that had been released on older consoles could not be played on newer consoles without additional modification.

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.

However, 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.”