JRPGfan said:
Not every game released by nintendo has updated patches.... ? |
I think this video is completely misconstruing what's happening. He likely has a NSO subscription, which does save data backups. He most certainly had Internet on at some prior point on the Switch 2 (in his mind, that's the only way it could already "know" that an update exists with airplane mode on). That means it would have had a chance to sync his Cloud save data onto the Switch 2 in the background, but not the game update patches.
Now at the time of the video, even with no Internet, the Switch 2 can see the XCX save data was made with a version that's newer than what's installed/on-cartridge. It cannot in all fairness allow the game to just launch: the old version might not know how to handle the new data, which risks corrupting the save file. Therefore it does not provide the option to Start Software without updating: not because Big Brother knows there's an update, but because the save data itself is the tell.
My own data point: I am pretty sure I've seen the "Start Software" button appear after the latest firmware, though I might be wrong. On the other hand, I have seen the mandatory update screen dozens of times after I recently reset my Switch 2's memory: this creates the exact conditions described above, as the save data is preserved, but the update data is wiped. I thought it was weird when I first saw mandatory update, but it only took me 5 seconds to realize what the most logical explanation was.
The YouTube (at least not the part of it I could stomach watching) does nothing to dispel this as the reason for mandatory update or to control for this factor. They probably did not even consider the theory before jumping to clickbait conclusions.
Last edited by ebw - on 14 July 2026
