YHK - yet another hacker news clone

I suppose we can let AI write the entire blogpost :)

GKCs aren't perfect, but both PS5 and Xbox Series consoles have had games where the disc is near useless too, either with only part of the game on the disc (e.g., Oblivion Remastered) or virtually none of the game on the disc (Indiana Jones). GKCs are at least upfront and clear on the packaging. I wish they had banned the practice of codes in a box. THOSE SUCK.

And just yesterday I had to use my modded 3DS to rescue a physical 3DS cart that wasn't booting. Luckily I was able to but there's no guarantee a physical game will last forever either.

The Nintendo cartridges contain the full playable version of the game.

Third party publishers often just put the key on it. So blame them for that

They are tradeable and resellable which is a very important property for poorer gamers instead of rich collectors like us.

Edit: Switch 2 is also biggest proponent of SD Express. Any supporter of SD cards coming back to phones and other devices should appreciate the stance taken here. Nintendo could've gone the Google/Apple route and just sold 512GB and 1TB models. Instead this effort, like Sony's Xperia phones, are completely unrecognized.

options for switch1, ps5, xbox: Disc or code in box.

options for switch 2: Full game on cartridge, switch 2 edition (including switch 1 support), Game Key Card (half physical), Code in the box.

I don't see why should nintendo be blamed for providing more options. if anythng you should blame the publishers for chosing "Code in the box" (looking at you diablo) when GKC would do. or GKC when full cartridge would do.

Console hacking has been like that for a very long time. But usually after the first exploits are found and hackers can start playing with things, many more follow. Though Nintendo has been stripping down the OS every new console so there’s less interesting stuff to exploit outside of games.

This gives visibility to a lot more unencrypted code, so just give it time. More bugs will be found quickly now that the code is inspectable.

I remember having to buy GTA Liberty City Stories to jailbreak the PSP. Then there was the infamous Cubic Ninja jailbreak which caused the game to become worth hundreds of dollars.

Almost every console jailbreak required the use of a specific game, going all the way back to the original Xbox. PS1 and 2 required a specific disc or swapping in a legit disc. Even the NES required a real game cart alongside your third party carts.

It turns out that opening locks is a hell of a lot easier when you have a key.

Don't need to buy the game.

Make a JP Nintendo account and download the demo (not available globally) https://store-jp.nintendo.com/item/software/D70010000010547

Short term the argument that 'piracy exists yet doesn't affect steam sales' holds true.

Long term when someone makes emulating Switch 2 on your Steam Deck a 1-click install I'm not so sure.

> Worth noting too that this would have easily fetched >$50k

More like $30k, no ("system processes allowing piracy")?

I'm working on a IoT device at work and have been the "hands in the lab" for my agent this week. It's been a really weird experience. Making changes to the update/recovery process, so I have to validate several permutations of fault injection (i.e.: abrupt power loss during update step X while on starting version Y).

I would love to give it unattended "hands". I just thought it was more time efficient to do it manually rather than spend days trying to figure out how to automate SD card pull/plug. X and Y are relatively small, and I expect this validation to be too costly to do at a regular cadence in CI. I can trivially use a MCCI USB-C switch for the power though.

Tips would be appreciated if anyone here has thoughts.

For those who don’t know: https://youtube.com/watch?v=aet8rWKs-A0

Basically, since it wasn’t possible to extract the files from Switch 2 games, fans who wanted to listen to the Mario Kart World soundtrack outside of the game would record the audio output from their console and exploit glitches in-game to prevent sound effects from playing and phase-cancel overlapped recordings of the same song with each recording being interrupted in different parts to isolate the music then crossfade the remaining segments into the complete track.

(I'm interested in Homebrew, and I'd love to port my self made game dev framework on Switch 2, but I'm afraid of losing everything)

Definitely a risk.

never go online and even if you reset the console afterwards , assume the console will get banned when connect to the internet as they know to look for markers of customer firmware.

Switch 1 hacks bypass this by copying ofw from flash onto the microSD card and patching it there to my crude understanding, so that unsigned code never touches the firmware on the system memory.

Something like this definitely will be needed again for the Switch 2 so I'd only do this if you don't care about being banned.

EDIT: ofw = OFW = official firmware

The chances of getting banned for this are extremely high. The Switch 2 has plenty of mechanisms to detect tampering. Even if you were completely offline during the process and then reset the Switch afterward, there are logs. People have already been banned for using the MIG Switch to play backups of Switch 1 games on the Switch 2.

Not your account but the Switch. That’s how it works in Switch 1

I jailbroke my Switch 1 the day I bought it, was banned from Nintendo Online the next day. The only games I bought were physical. I was told this would happen, so it wasn’t an issue at all.

I’ve told my friends if you plan on playing online on it, definitely don’t jailbreak.

written at the top: current 23.01 version (i did get the sw2 on first day because you never know but...)

This works on the latest firmware, until they patch it, you can buy even new consoles that are vulnerable.