By Fans who cherish tangible cartridges are keeping a sharp eye on the Switch 2, eager to determine how well the system functions as a fully-offline device—one that can stay alive not just for years, but for entire decades. The newest firmware drops a troublesome proviso: the ability to boot Super Mario Bros. Wonder from its physical card has been switched off unless you first fetch an additional patch.
“We can verify Nintendo has cut off offline functionality for Super Mario Bros. Wonder on the Switch 2 between firmware 20.1.1 and the current 20.2.0,” the physical-media monitors at DoesItPlay? on Bluesky said. “We updated one of our European consoles and now the EU cartridge fails to launch. We spot-checked other first-party releases; none of them show this change.”
I ran the same test on a North-American Switch 2 running the freshest firmware. With wi-fi deactivated, I slipped in the Mario Wonder cart, tapped its tile, and an unavoidable update demand popped up.
Backward-compatibility with original Switch games has been the primary hurdle for offline-focused Switch 2 owners, since the feature needed a firmware bump that, until very recently, could only be pulled down from the internet. Donkey Kong Bananza arrived without that revision on its cart, yet the brand-new Switch 2 version of Super Mario Party Jamboree does pack the required update—allowing you to enable backward compatibility while staying offline. Sadly, that same patch bricks Mario Wonder’s ability to run sans connectivity.
“Nintendo just stepped over a hard boundary,” DoesItPlay? declared in a follow-up post. “The tests prove they have the capacity to retroactively lock out legally purchased cartridges if an update isn’t applied—and they’ve actually done it on multiple occasions. After the sneaky ‘game-key card’ debacle, this is yet another blow against owning physical games.”
Right now this snag affects a tiny slice of Switch 2 owners; grabbing a wi-fi signal is trivial in 2025. Yet these minute compatibility hiccups are already turning into headaches for vintage consoles that rely on online services, and one day—when the Switch 2 itself is considered retro—accessing all of its capabilities is going to be far more difficult than anyone would prefer.
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