Only games i'm interested in this year is:
Link's awakening
Luigi's Mansion 3
Pokemon Sword and Shield
Currently running 8.1.0 and Atmosphere 0.9.3
Soft version requirements and master key encryption don't really matter. What matters is the SDK used for the game. Link's Awakening will almost surely work with 8.1.0. Luigi's Mansion has a high chance of working with 8.1.0 but might not. Pokemon Sword/Shield could possibly work with 8.1.0, but they are the likeliest on the list to require 9.0.0.Only games i'm interested in this year is:
Link's awakening
Luigi's Mansion 3
Pokemon Sword and Shield
Currently running 8.1.0 and Atmosphere 0.9.3
*For sure they will work on 8.1 if they are released before november! during november probably, by december, its a crap shoot, maybe yes maybe probably leaning more towards no.
*If the game releasing has a physical cart version (not just digital only) and is released between now and during november, it should work on 8.1. Physical games on a cart releasing during december are maybe 50/50
of course game updates are a different story
The absolute best thing to do is NOT to update until everything gets sorted on 9.0.x believe me you will know when games are requiring 9.0 because you will post ... "im on 8.1 and xxxxxxxxxxxx new game is not working, its saying it needs an update" yeah when you start running into those, its time to update. But you should be good at least for the next 8 to 10 weeks for sure.
Hard to tell, but you should be fine. It's not as if we don't have 9 CFW anyway worst case scenario
Both Smash and Pokemon Let's Go came out around the time firmware 6.2 was out but could be played on firmware 5.1. We won't be seeing any firmware 9.0 games until firmware 10.0We don't have SX OS with 9.0.0. Sure, it's not a real problem because people could switch to another CFW. But still, it's quite the inconvenience if you have to change your entire setup just for a single game.
Atmosphere currently derives and uses the 9.0.0 master key on both 8.1.0 and 9.0.0. So crypto won’t be an issue at all .By installing those games while selecting "ignore required firmware version" in your NSP installer, some of them will work with 8.1.0.
If you break the 9.0.0 crypto on those games by repacking them with NSC_Builder while using the new masterkey, a lot of them will work with 8.1.0.
Only those that have been created with 9.0 SDK could become a problem. I have a feeling Pokémon could fall under this category, but time will tell.