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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[–] Kir@feddit.it 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

If you don't count multiplayer and buy only physical copies of your game, you will be able to play for as long the hardware will function. You can also hack your switch and keep a copy of every game you may need somewhere in an hard-drive too.

[–] roadkill@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Kir@feddit.it 1 points 9 months ago

This is true, my mistake! That's another reason to pirate

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