It's just strange I have yet to see anyone actually play a game using this.
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Pretty sure Nintendo's to blame for that, but who knows
That's a fair assessment. I've heard some people getting videos pulled for mentioning anything piracy related in regards to Nintendo.
Nintendo has a tendency to be a-holes to streamers who acknowledge they are playing pirated or modded games on their consoles. It is why you tend to want to follow yahoo anime rules even if you are obviously emulating a SNES.
But also... what is even the point of this? With the 3ds it sort of made sense since you really had no other handheld options. These days, portable gaming devices are a dime a dozen and the vast majority of the "modern" ones outperform the switch anyway. So people who are planning to pirate nintendo games already know they are 100-200 USD away from a much better experience that can ALSO pirate plenty of other platforms (and has Steam which gets rid of the nintendo tax for those who buy games). Which, factoring in the cost of the flash cart (looks like 59 USD from their US store with maybe 7 bucks of shipping?), isn't even that much.
And for people who want to play it on their TV/PC? It is even easier to outperform the switch.
I guess there are "kids" for whom their switch is their primary and only console. But it has mostly slotted itself into the role as "the second console that everyone has" with a PS4/5 or XBOX whatever as the "primary" for non-Nintendo games. And the people who are going to be buying this cart likely aren't 12 year old kids talking to their parents about why this random sketchy site needs credit card info...
The point is for people to have digital backups their roms to play legally and to play roms on native hardware that will guarantee smooth playing. The cost is also a factor since the switch is ending very soon; a used switch oled, a cart with 7 years worth of "free" games would <=$300. Pretty cheap if one wants to start gaming without breaking the bank.
Adding on to say, yes the Steam Deck is cheaper and better when getting one at the new discount prices. It all depends on preference for emulation or running on original software. And most here would agree that Steam deck with emulation is preferred.
Source for the switch ending very soon?
Not really a source, but a lot of here say and rumours regarding the Switch’s successor.
Form leaks, Nintendo was giving Game studios access to developer consoles.
My definition for very soon is with-in 2-3 years. In my opinion, a lot the games that are coming out are mostly filler and Nintendo has a track record of doing so before going on to the next big console with the new big AAA titles.
TotK and Wonder were far from what I'd call filler.. and from memory, Nintendo has a track record of releasing big name games at the tail end of a console's life cycle (tp on GC, botw on Wii u)..
I admit they're likely releasing the switch successor soon, though they'll likely continue to release games for the OG switch for a few years to come..
Why would you think SD with emulation is preferred when a lot of the emulated games have frame rate and stuttering issues on it? A switch with flash cart would play the games perfectly.
You're talking like everyone owns a steam deck od Rog Ally, or should just buy one of those instead? Well for starters, the SD doesn't play switch games all really well. Frame rate and stuttering issues and not all games work.
Secondly; and the bigger thing is that the SD is far and away the most popular pc handheld. It's estimated to have sold around 4 to 6 million units so far. I love mine. It's awesome. Switch has currently sold 132 million units. It's the most sold system in the world. More than any xbox, ps4, or ps5.
You're talking like the Mig isn't for people who already own a switch. You're also in some weird edgelord mindset where you think mostly just kids own a switch? Nintendo releases the age demographics of switch users, since you enter in your birthday on your profile. Every age between 18 and 45 is higher than any age under 17. Most people with a switch aren't 12. They're 25.
I have been gaming since my parents bought me an Atari 2600 for Xmas in 1980-whaterver. I got a Switch for my 50th bday and it is a great console. Love it.
I will prob never buy a Steam Deck or equivalent though as they are costly and (IMHO) inferior to what I could get in a gaming laptop for similar money.
I have a gaming laptop and yes, you can get a gaming laptop for the same $600-$700 that will perform better than the steam deck, but I seldom used my gaming laptop, between the size, needing a controller or mouse (hate gaming with a laptop trackpad) booting up, needing to save the game yadda yadda yadda and finding a spot to set the laptop, the deck is just loads quicker and more convenient to play. I've probably played more games on my deck over the last year than the previous 3 years on my desktop or laptop combined. Between kids/family and work I just don't have many large time chunks that I would dedicate to gaming. The Steam deck I can pick up and be playing 30 seconds later, then put it back into hibernation just as quick, where it loses around 5% battery a day, so I hardly ever shut it fully off.
For me the Switch fills that role.
a) The point is to play Nintendo games b) You'd be surprised how smart 12 year olds are when they want something
I guess there are "kids" for whom their switch is their primary and only console
lol I "kid" you not
Which handheld devices are better regarding experience and easy piracy? Im asking because I might want to look in to that.
I am the legal target audience. I have a PC that I use at home for most games and a switch that I use for flights and business trips. I buy most games on physical karts because I prefer them to digital and buying used games on eBay is half as expensive as the eShop. Having 3-4 games on a single chip would be much more convenient than carrying several games with me.
Also I bought it in ~2018. In 2018 there were no other good portable game systems at a reasonable price point. There are a lot of good Nintendo exclusive games series out there. Yes there are modern portable systems that can emulate the switch but I'm not going to buy a new system to emulate something I already own.
It seems like this will be able to play modified games too. I would love to try out some custom games on my switch.
The piracy option is also nice but I could almost justify the kart without that.
I think the point is just to say that you can.
Popping it in and out to get all the games loaded in sounds not great at all to me. I heard previously that it was necessary to get around some protection system, but surely there could have been a button we could press to short something and make the console think the cart was unplugged without physically unplugging it?
I'm gonna wait to see if there's a v2 eventually. Or competitor products. Or in two week I'll get tired of waiting and just buy it. I won't know until it happened.
Still gonna wait for the official release instead of pre ordering. That and might be good to wait and see what Nintendo might do.
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Given they can't seem to have a loader, I know they have to somehow trigger the Switch to know there's another game - but can you imagine having to do that several times to cycle to the game you want? The cost needed to repair the cartridge slot after too many pushes is definitely going to outweigh having just bought a Steam Deck and emulated the Switch instead.
In the video, the solution looked to be a wireless remote that cycled the MIG cart to the next game, quite cumbersome IMO
That's a third party multi cartridge device, not related to the MIG cart at all tho.
Ugh... yeah... guess it's cheaper than chipping it. I do wonder how quickly the big N will ban people all using the same game ID.
Instantly if you try playing online.
Maybe if you use the widely circulated ones.
I can imagine plenty of people will start(have been) dumping rental carts from ie. the library.
If those dumps loaded onto the mig are indistinguishable from the original and Nintendo starts banning those, they risk banning a lot of other legitimate players who also rented and played on those carts.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it didn't use to be an issue to Nintendo because you had to install the xci and that was detectable. Now you can run the game off the cart directly.
The MIG uses its own IDs from what I understand, and if they're invalid (randomly generated) or used by others (not random and used by other MIG users) Nintendo will know, autodetect, and ban you
Ah okay so I guess the mig can't spoof ids. Then in any case it's probably only a matter of time the console gets banned if it ever reaches the internet, which is worse than modding because now you have no way of updating the firmware for future games.
I do wonder if they'll check if you have played a game via the MIG offline then go online later with a legit game, I don't think they do currently but with the existence of the MIG I am certain Nintendo will make that happen with an update.
To be fair, once your console gets banned you can get the firm upgrades pretty much freely from the Archives and won't have to ever worry about any kind of "desync" that could Alert the Mothership.
How would you install the firmware that you obtained from the Archives tho? Remember that the console for all intents and purposes is unmodded so Daybreak is not an option.
Unlike previous handheld generations, system firmwares are no longer embedded into the game carts either so while a game can require a newer firmware, it does not come with an option to update offline afaik
How would you install the firmware that you obtained from the Archives tho?
Fair point. To be also fair I'd consider that anyone who is considering still mainlining a Switch in 202X and would be any interested in a flashcart, it would be because their system is already modded.
Unlike previous handheld generations, system firmwares are no longer embedded into the game carts either so while a game can require a newer firmware, it does not come with an option to update offline afaik
I might be remembering wrong but I've found formware upgrades in carts such as FE3H and New Pokémon Snap. It's not like they're that heavy, so they can easily be added as payload to the cart.
Fair point. To be also fair I'd consider that anyone who is considering still mainlining a Switch in 202X and would be any interested in a flashcart, it would be because their system is already modded.
Interesting point. Although quite the contrary, I'd think the flashcart mostly interests switch owners who didn't mod their console for whatever reason. Eg. OLED owners, cost of modchip install, lack of access to reputable installers, risk of physical damages, voiding warranty, hassle of juggling cfw updates, etc.
I'm not sure what you mean by mainlining a switch means, but I'm a fairly new switch owner myself(late 2022). I bought the OLED at a discount not knowing the high costs associated with modding specifically the OLED model. (At the time it was upwards of $300CAD for modchip and install, and there were plenty of horror stories of how finicky it was) Had a flashcart been available at the time, I'd buy that in a heartbeat instead.
For people who didn't mod and already own a library of games, a flashcart would've still been a cheap and good opportunity for people to discover new games they otherwise have missed or wouldn't have bought either way.
I might be remembering wrong but I've found formware upgrades in carts such as FE3H and New Pokémon Snap. It's not like they're that heavy, so they can easily be added as payload to the cart.
I haven't been able to find any resources online that suggest firmware is embedded onto the game carts at all. What you may have confused with is GAME UPDATES, which can be present on carts. The issue with your suggestion is two-fold:
-
By injecting a payload to the cart, you have to modify the game rom(xci) and thus invalidate the NCA signature. It is my educated guess(with no proof admittedly) that this is the reason that the switch failed to launch games when they tried to add updates and DLC onto the MIG. (OP's video mentioned this in an update).
-
Even if point one wasn't the case, the console does not know what to do with the firmware because there's no mechanism to update from an offline source to the best of my knowledge. Even the Switch's own maintenance mode requires internet connection to download a new firmware.
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I haven’t been able to find any resources online that suggest firmware is embedded onto the game carts at all.
That mmight be because currently the SEO space for "nintendo switch cart firmware" searches seems to be globbed by mentions to the flashcart project, depending on where / how do you search. Currently it eats up the first page and a half for me, even on DDG.
I have the physical carts that prove it. It's how I got my Switch in Pegascape to upgrade firmware safely in the first place. It was also critical to getting some very early upgrades (3.x) going. Perhaps they're just not doing it anylonger for newer fws?
A few sources on the existence of such carts include various threads at gbatemp, gamefaqs, and the ChoiDujourNX FAQ. What I don't know is if the upgrade is part of the game cart data or if it's partitioned sepaately.
I think you're right about SEO cluttering up searches with flash cart and also probably search engines becoming crappier in general. Everything I encountered so far has been telling me "no" and I had to look really hard to start finding traces of updating through game carts as far back as around 2019.
That said, the general consensus nowadays is still "no" since I guess they stopped doing it for newer firmwares as you suggested.
In any case we'll find out in due time as people start getting their hands on the flash cart and see how the cat and mouse plays out.
It does? That explains why in the video the person was able to play incomplete dumps after some tweaking. I know that on their website they recommend you create a full backup that includes multiple cartridge-specific identifiers if you want to use "online mode". From my limited outsider perspective I'd always assumed these were required to be present for the Switch to even recognize something was in the slot, as the slot uses a seperate circuit and chip to ensure validity before passing it through to the Switch. I never thought of the possibility of them including a (currently) valid ID for you!
Unless the developers have managed to obtain an official private key from some publisher in order to digitally sign their certificates, this thing really isn't gonna survive long, is it? Nintendo could ban the cert (or, if it's bogus, enforce stricter verification) and/or flag everyone using it (maybe even retroactively?). Why would they even make it have an identifier in the first place, since they already want you to provide your own and all it does is give Nintendo something to ban?
Sorry for my rambling by the way
If I were to get my hands on one of these, I probably wouldn't put too many games on there, maybe just one or two that I'm adamant on playing at the time.
I do have some low capacity micro SDs scattered at home as well that should barely be large enough to house a single switch game. So worst case scenario, I could also just pop the cart out, swap the micro SD, and plug it back in to only require a single insertion.
Granted, this might not be feasible for people who just want to use the migswitch as a backup tool to put all their legal games on one cart, but for pirates like myself I'd consider it only a minor setback.
Not to mention the cartridge slot probably being designed to last a lot of insertions before failing
I was doubtful of this before any actual videos came out, but now I'm impressed by how they got past the cartridge protection system.
As for the reinsertion of the cartridge, as others have said, just don't put 20 games on there and you're fine.
I never understood people that liked having that many games at once... You definitely aren't playing all of those.
I find the dumper is a weird accessory, as all it takes is one person with cfw and the nx tool to upload all the id's and everyone else can use it. (of course, not for online, but if you don't care about online, then it's great)