RagingToad

I am trying to choose between buying a Nintendo Switch or a Nintendo DS.

This may not be the perfect community to ask - but I can't think of any better place.

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!

How are you enjoying Secret Life until now? I've had a lot of laughs and I only watched Gem and Mumbo. Still need to watch Grian and Etho, they are always very good at being there with all the shenanigans. Anyone else I should watch this time?

(Also this is bad for my real life, so much stuff to watch)

Just curious... Do you play on a multiplayer server? If yes, what kind of? Do you use a modloader on your client?

Are you playing vanilla or modded? (I consider QoL mods like MiniHUD or Xaero's Map almost vanilla but ofcourse not everyone agrees)

I play:

1. on a whitelisted SMP (I had to look that up.. Survival Multiplayer) which is almost Vanilla (you can use a Vanilla client) - aimed at adult players (25+)
2. Ocassionally single player just to try out different modded versions or things (I might play create for 2 days and then leave it at that)
3. Currently playing on a members-only Create server

Oh yeah, only Java. Never played bedrock. I tried for 5 minutes on my phone and it's not for me.