Look at the one company who owns a vibrant operating system: Microsoft.
They dropped the original Xbox like a box of bricks. They shut down those old servers quite rapidly. With the Xbox 360 however, they will stop the ability to buy games on an original Xbox 360 next year. That's a long era of support!
I'm fairly convinced new credit card standards are probably what is closing down the 360 store. They're only closing down the ability to buy things. Nintendo is also shutting down the Wii U and 3DS around the same time and Sony has already stopped allowing credit cards on a PS3.
But getting back to Microsoft, the Xbox One and the Series consoles are running the same store. The OS is for all intents and purposes exactly the same. Any 360 game that has been migrated to the new One/Series store through backwards compatibility is staying purchasable past the closure of the 360 store.
When the next round of closures comes, Microsoft won't close down a store, they'll prevent the Xbox One from accessing the store. I hope with all my might that Nintendo does the same; that the Switch OS remains their software platform and that they close access to their store, not shut it down.
Looks like the Xbox 360 will get more than 18 years of online store support. That's a really long time considering it launched in 2005.
I would take 18 total years online support for the Switch. It's been out for 6 so far, so even if I "only" got 12 years out of my unit (I just bought one recently) that would be pretty good...
...but not excellent. I bought a Wii in 2008 and after a long time in storage I pulled it out again a few years ago. Since then it's been used at least once every two weeks and mostly weekly. It's 15 years old and everything including the game CDs have held up surprisingly well.
Will I want to use my Switch and the digital games I purchased, in 15 years? Can't rule it out based on past history.
Wikipedia says >132 million Switch units have shipped, and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom just launched 6 months ago. Adding it all up, shutting down the Switch backend services in even 4 or 5 years seems insane at best.
I got my original NES over 30 years ago. I had to swap a couple capacitors but still hook it up occasionally and show the kids games like Duck Hunt(required an old tv as well) and Tetris and Blaster Master. These digital games that suddenly stop working simply due to no server support is a hard pill to swallow. At that point I really think companies should be forced to release source code and keys and allow anyone who wants to offer support a chance to run the games.
The transition to not owning my own games sealed my decision to stop buying them. To me, it is insane to allow a company to determine how long I get to enjoy my purchase. More gamers need to take a stand.
Effectively Xbox 360 can have a human lifetime's worth of support because they have a jailbreak. I worry about the subsequent xbox consoles. They haven't been cracked right? They are the ones with a real ticking clock unless someone finally gets to cracking it.
I still have an Xbox 360, and as I'm not a regular gamer it's still my go-to. We maybe bought in in '06-'08. if they would shut down only services (and I could still play offline), that's totally ok for me. 15 years for a console is a long time.
WiiU and 3DS eShops are already closed: https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/... but to your point, you can still download owned games and DLC "for the foreseeable future", just purchases have been removed. You still have the option currently to migrate any leftover funds to a newer Nintendo account.
I would argue Microsoft is one of the better ones with respect to backports and longer term support.
Others (cough google cough) are on the other end of that spectrum. I would imagine Nintendo is somewhere in the middle.
That said, i still grabbed Digital copies of games. Plan is i can put multiple switches on an account and when they are traveling (ie: not connected) my kids can play games without having to cop 2 copies of every game.
Still need to get the second switch online to test this premise though.
An account can only have one "primary" Switch, which is the only one that will play games without an online ownership check. Secondary switches need to be online to play games.
* The company doesn't exit the console business and shut down their servers.
I'm pretty regularly playing 20+ year old games, and plan on playing them for the next 40 years. On this timescale I have serious doubts about the stability of online first platforms.
A key detail here is that Xbox 360 online games were and are playable (as long as their individual servers are still running), while this network shutdown will disable any ability to play unmodified 3DS or WiiU games.
Fan patches and system modifications will keep things running, but I assume that the population that’s both willing and able to apply them will be sharply limited.
They dropped the original Xbox like a box of bricks. They shut down those old servers quite rapidly. With the Xbox 360 however, they will stop the ability to buy games on an original Xbox 360 next year. That's a long era of support!
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/08/17/xbox-360-store-will-c...
I'm fairly convinced new credit card standards are probably what is closing down the 360 store. They're only closing down the ability to buy things. Nintendo is also shutting down the Wii U and 3DS around the same time and Sony has already stopped allowing credit cards on a PS3.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22713526/sony-ps3-vita-bu...
But getting back to Microsoft, the Xbox One and the Series consoles are running the same store. The OS is for all intents and purposes exactly the same. Any 360 game that has been migrated to the new One/Series store through backwards compatibility is staying purchasable past the closure of the 360 store.
When the next round of closures comes, Microsoft won't close down a store, they'll prevent the Xbox One from accessing the store. I hope with all my might that Nintendo does the same; that the Switch OS remains their software platform and that they close access to their store, not shut it down.