The article is deadly wrong about some things. What is this "break from the past with non compatibility" as that's flat out just wrong. Plenty of Nintendo systems have had backwards compatibility. The most famous and obvious one being that you could run GBA games on the DS. This was so much a feature that they included a physical slot for the GBA games as the carts did not use the same form factor as DS carts. The GBA could also play GB and GBC games with no issues.
So backwards compatibility for at least the last generation is more the norm for Nintendo than an outlier.
We can go further away: GBA games worked on DS, GBC games worked on GBA, GB worked on GBC...
Backwards compatibility on Nintendo over the years has been the norm, not the exception
Yeah it's very odd people are viewing this as a change on the part of Nintendo. They tend to like backwards compatibility and push it for a few generations. You can gripe all you want about their refusal to lower their asking cost for their first party titles but they are pretty good at transitiong people through the generations. Let's also not forget that the GB went through several revisions and they kept selling them straight into the DS era. The GBA also did the same. They don't like hanging their customers out to dry which is one of the reasons people like them.
Well GC, Wii and Wii U use the same CPU (no new ISA or evolved ISA) with the Wii U they made it a 3-core but it's the same core from previous console.
It goes beyond that when you look at their entire product stack outside of the NES, SNES, N64 sessions they've always had backwards built into it. It's one of the reasons people like and trust them they don't screw their customers and while they still keep high prices on their IP generally they are extremely good at making generational switches as painless as possible.
Shit even the fucking SNES could play gameboy games via a Super GameBoy adapter.
They've had their share of asshole moments and flops but the reason people like Nintendo is it just works. And unlike apple they don't hang people out to dry.
