Nintendo has a rather complicated relationship with its own history, choosing to feed us classic titles through various online subscriptions rather than dump everything on the Nintendo Switch at once. It's better than nothing, though, and over the years Nintendo has started collecting quite a wide variety of retro titles from different systems, making the Nintendo Switch 2 the perfect place to play almost any Nintendo game.
I say almost because there are a few systems that Nintendo isn't happy with on the Switch 2, the biggest being the Nintendo DS. It was such a massive handheld console that was home to a lot of great games, but unless you're willing to pay the sometimes ridiculous prices for physical copies, there's no real way to play them. However, that could soon change.
Nintendo Switch 2 could get DS games, according to new patent
First spotted by Twitter user Mike Odyssey, a new patent recently filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office seems to indicate that Nintendo is currently digging into ways to implement the DS's unique dual-screen system on the Nintendo Switch 2. I was able to dig up the patent myself, and it's actually legit.
According to the patent, it looks like Nintendo has noted several ways to do this on a single screen. One of the most obvious methods is to have one of the screens always appear in the corner, almost like a picture-in-picture setup, although one wonders how this might work for more UI-intensive titles.
Fortunately, Nintendo seems to be toying with another system that will allow players to switch between two full screens running simultaneously, essentially relegating the second screen to the glorified menu. That's probably the smarter way to do things, though of course it would be difficult to port games that relied much more heavily on the second screen.
At the very least, it's a sign that Nintendo is experimenting with potentially adding Nintendo DS games to its long list of consoles included in the Switch 2 online subscription service. It's been a long time coming, and if the dang Virtual Boy can re-release a game on the Switch 2, then the DS definitely can.
- Mark
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Nintendo
- Original release date
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June 5, 2025
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$449.99
- Operating system
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Proprietary
- Resolution
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1080p (handheld) / 4K (docked)
- HDR support
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Yes
