this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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I apologize if this video has already been posted here. I did a rudimentary look through the posts of the past few days and couldn't see it.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Do these things "just work" like the R4 for the Nintendo DS? I know that's old as hell but it was the last console/handheld I've owned lol

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Supposedly according to the reading material on the flash cart, yes? It seems like you just need the game file on the SD card and to put it in however cycling through multiple games on the cart is gonna be bad cause it looks like their isn't a loader in-between but you need to eject the card and put it back in to cycle to the next game you have on it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Nah, just don't have 500gb sd card with 30 games on it and it should be pretty awesome

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

The R4 was the pinnacle of my gaming career. I had so much fun with that. I don’t think anything has come close to scratching the itch the same way. I think it meant a lot to me, too, because I got the DS for free (online, long story) and paid for the R4 chip with money from my first job.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I still have my TTDS card from way back in 2005. It still works with the 3DS thanks to a homebrew app.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I could be wrong, but I feel like the initial work of putting the system in recovery mode via tinfoil/modchip would still be required, but after that everything could run off the cartridge

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Pretty sure the whole talk around this flashcard is that entirely no modding whatsoever is required. Just insert and play.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

Gary has nothing to lose, Nintendo are already bending him over for the rest of his life.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Funny enough this thing will likely be more useful for playing actual backups than piracy.
The telemetry on the Switch is crazy, and since all carts have certificates, Nintendo will know if your game is a pirated copy and they'll ban your console.
And we know the Switch keeps logs like crazy, so even if you're offline while using this thing it won't help... unless you stay permanently offline, but at that point you might as well just mod your Switch anyway.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The video said as much. Although this depends on how the card works with certificates. Right now the only thing we have is a promise by the creators. It will be interesting to track the development and discussion of this on GBAtemp.

Personally, though, I don't actually need this. I got a Steam Deck. It handles Switch games much better than I expected when the Deck was first announced and I can play online with friends who also use emulation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Steam Deck. It handles Switch games much better than I expected

Oh that's nice to hear. I have not been keeping up with Switch emulation at all because my CPU was weak for it. Maybe I should try again and see if it has gotten easier to run.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've been playing Breath of the Wild, Mariokart 8, and Super Mario Wonder.

Breath of the Wild has the same framerate issues as the Switch, Mariokart 8 runs super smooth, Super Mario Wonder has the occasional stutter, but given how new the game is om confident that'll be resolved with a few updates.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Do not play Breath of the Wild via Switch Emulation, play it via Wii U emulation instead with Cemu.
You get the exact same game but Wii U emulation is easier to run, more well developed and has more options for adjusting framerate and graphics.
You can convert your Switch save to work with the Wii U version.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

unless you stay permanently offline, but at that point you might as well just mod your Switch anyway.

I feel like that’s the point of this cart. Hard modding is near impossible for most people. The choice is sending your switch to random person to be modded, which I doubt it’ll be cheap. Or just get a flash cart.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

My thoughts exactly when this was posted earlier. "Checking to see if this game can be played" should bring a quick end to this.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If it lets me run moonlight on my switch without having to mess with the offical OS of the device, then brilliant

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

It wont. It'll run retail games only.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

This card has two drawbacks as far as I can see. Firstly, there's no loader to swap between games.

Secondly, it only supports its own format when you back up your own games. The games you download from the net aren't compatible but it's assumed the pirates would 'repack' their past releases to be compatible.

Here's a question, would the Switch be oblivious to how the game is stored and download any updates? Do pirated games come complete with the latest available updates?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
  1. This shouldn't be an issue. Nintendo has allowed for carts containing multiple titles for years now. Inserting the cartridge causes all the games on it to appear on the home screen.

  2. The Switch is massively popular. Assuming the cartridge works and sells even somewhat well, we will 100% see games being shared in whatever format it uses. It might take awhile for the Switch's full back-catalog to be dumped and uploaded in the new format, but popular / recent titles will be circulated within a matter of days. If there's a way to convert existing XCI / NSP rips to the new format, there are plenty of individuals / groups who will race to get everything converted as quickly as possible.

  3. Assuming the cart is completely transparent to the Switch, which is likely to be the case, then I see no reason why updates wouldn't download as normal. If Nintendo is able to detect the carts and ban Switches that use them, it may still be possible to access updates by rolling them into the same file as the base game and loading them from the cartridge. Personally, I think the second option is fairly likely, as it's already possible to do this with NSP rips, and it's the method that offers the most resistance to whatever countermeasures Nintendo may deploy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

It looks like each game cartridge has an unique serial number. Nintendo could easily blacklist everything that touched a specific serial, because they can see from the telemetry something like 500 consoles ran the same cartridge in a day, immediately raising red flags

Considering the non-security of the Wii u ("ah, you say you have a ticket for a game? Sure, feel free to download from the servers, I trust you, don't need to verify that"), I'd assume that until a serial isn't blacklisted, the console would automatically download updates as if it was original

Seems like multiple games are swapped by removing the cartridge and reinserting it, would swap to the next title. So, 3-4 titles max or it will be annoying

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

This is a newb talking so take it with a grain of salt but

  1. From initial videos it looks like when you pull out then put the cart back in, it seems to swap between games. So guess is that for the switch it looks like a normal game, not an initial boot interface to swap between, but what boots depends on which one the cart is chosen in the loop.

  2. You're right it would be their own type, and likely a converter between them assuming the team doesn't put some sort of proprietary stopper

  3. Likely the switch itself won't know the difference, but Nintendo has dealt with this problem in the past with the 3ds. They add a unique code to every game, so when you pirate it and try to download and update Nintendo can see 1000s of downloads of the same game with unique key, then they can just ban the console. Same if you try to play online (then later patching happened where you can change the key yourself). Downloadable updates where available then afaik

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

That logo design though, 🔥 fire fire fire