I hope Nintendo doesn’t implement something that forces you to check every game (including cartridges) against a server, because that will ruin cartridges forever. Or simply remove cartridges in the next console and everything is a digital download. They’re not fans of these kind of devices… :/
Edit: The card looks cool, though…Which is why this flashcart is saying “don’t go online unless you’re using your own backups”. This cart spoofs the unique signature and such to the console. If you download mario kart 8 from a torrent and run it here, you’ll trip Nintendo’s copy detection. If you go to a gamestop and buy a used mario kart 8, then back it up to this thing and return the cart to the gamestop… Well one of two things happens.
1: Nintendo’s system is manually managed and Nintendo checks cartridge certs against a known dataset of pirated copies. You can now play pirated Mk8 online because of your valid cert that doesn’t match any known dumps.
2: Nintendo’s system is automated and will permanently ban anyone online with a given cert in two consoles at once. You can now play pirated Mk8 online until someone else goes to the gamestop, buys the cart you used, and tries to play online at the same time as you. Now you and the guy that bought the used game are perma’d.
I guess they learned a lesson from R4… So, they just need to have a DB of IDs tied to IPs. If an ID starts repeating a lot with different IPs (distributed around the world), they can clearly block at will. These kind of developments may be difficult to keep alive, then. Well, caveat emptor, I guess.
They 100% will and probably are already prepared to do that the day it starts shipping. DSi flashcards were a cat and mouse game, Nintendo kept updating the firmware to block them, and the hackers kept releasing new cards. This went on until DSi hit EOL
This makes me think it’ll be difficult, and inconvenient to use these type of cards. Companies actually know when you’re misusing an ID (see Apple with Beeper Mini), and act accordingly. Unless there’s a way to play disconnected from the internet (and you don’t update your console), it’ll be a pita to keep these type of card from being blocked.
All carts have certificates with them and they are already actively checked. Going connected with any invalid xci cert would put you on the list to be eventually banned barring having console specific identification hidden.
Nintendo has been down that road with the 3DS and it is a bumpy one. Typically they just blacklist the flash cart via firmware updates…and there’s not much they can do beyond that.
I’m assuming that the Switch already manually whitelists only official carts; so it’s unlikely they’ll implement an online DRM scheme. Carts don’t tend to have UUIDs or serial numbers beyond their title IDs, a number assigned to a game. Generally all they have is a developer certificate they present the Switch which gets verified every time you insert the cart.
Sure, Nintendo could definitely revoke certificates for carts; but that can and will upset people. Apparently this device effectively copies the entire dataset from the Switch carts; so this also includes the valid certificates issued to each game title.
As the data change is occurring on the fly when the cart is ejected; the Switch has no methods of detecting this unless they sloppily implemented it…which likely would be smoothed out in a few versions.
As for the morality of using a flash cart; I firmly contend that they’re fine as long as one is using it to ease the use of the system and loading it only with games they actually bought. Furthermore it’s actually possible that your Switch will need to see legitimate carts sometimes, as there could still be data there that you might occasionally need to access.
Additionally some legitimate carts may implement hardware or chipsets on cart that implement additional game functions. Nintendo could easily also go this route as well.
Uhh that’s nice.
Even better if the same concept could work on Nintendo’s next gen coming upIt could, but there’s a reason it took almost 7 years to get this in a working state
Nice
I say it’s about time.
This kind of technology SHOULD BE LEGAL if and only if you load it with games that you already own physically. Furthermore it should always allow you to execute more than just “official Nintendo titles”, it should allow you to load any application you wish.
