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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[–] mbirth@lemmy.mbirth.uk 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I’ve got my Switch since 2018 and am still on my first (Splatoon-edition, bought shortly after the Switch) Joycons. No problems, no drifting. And the OEM Joycons are in a drawer somewhere as backup.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Do you play a lot of Zelda? Just asking because my suspicion is that the joycons go bad quicker depending on how they're used which is dependent on the games you play.

I play a good amount of Zelda on mine and have had to replace the sticks multiple times.

[–] mbirth@lemmy.mbirth.uk 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I played the first Zelda for half a year and Ocarina of Time, but also lots of ego shooters like Doom, Doom Eternal, all the classic Dooms, Quake, Duke3D, etc. And Animal Crossing. And racers and space games.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago

Yeah I don't play any FPS games, and way more Zelda than you have. So it could be certain movements on the sticks wear them out quicker.

Of course it could just be how we're using the controllers is different. Maybe I'm just hard on equipment.

Or you just got better sticks.

I mean it is a problem on all controllers really, PS and XBox controllers can have drift problems too. But the Switch controllers are notorious for it, so I always wonder if it has something to do with the games that are exclusive to the Switch. But maybe Nintendo just has quality control problems with their controllers. Who knows?

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

You're one of the lucky few