this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] FfaerieOxide@kbin.social 64 points 10 months ago (26 children)

Copyright Mig-Switch 2024 - A product of Mig Switch, developed and produced in the Russian Federation

You'll understand if I don't contribute to their tax base for now.

[–] Moonrise2473@feddit.it 18 points 10 months ago

I have the feeling it's just a "cover my ass" situation, in this way when they receive legal requests they can redirect them to the trash can

While it's possible that it's developed in Russia because there are so many smart devs and engineers, it would be stupid to actually make the product in a country without the supply chain and they would need to smuggle everything from abroad and back for shipping to the rest of the world. And getting payments from the distributors

IMHO it's actually made in an unnamed Chinese factory and in Russia there's just a shell company (if at all)

[–] XYZinferno@lemmy.basedcount.com 11 points 10 months ago

This is just a theory/rumor (and partially a cope) but some people have floated the idea that this might not even be produced in Russia, and the overbearing Russian/Soviet symbolism is to throw off Nintendo and hide where it's really being produced.

Afaik there's no evidence to substantiate this, but if it were to be true, that would be hilarious.

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[–] bigkahuna1986@lemmy.ml 30 points 10 months ago (18 children)

It's just strange I have yet to see anyone actually play a game using this.

[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure Nintendo's to blame for that, but who knows

[–] bigkahuna1986@lemmy.ml 17 points 10 months ago

That's a fair assessment. I've heard some people getting videos pulled for mentioning anything piracy related in regards to Nintendo.

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[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 16 points 10 months ago

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.

[–] Steelmonkey@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Still gonna wait for the official release instead of pre ordering. That and might be good to wait and see what Nintendo might do.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 8 points 10 months ago

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[–] Kanzar@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] lemann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

In the video, the solution looked to be a wireless remote that cycled the MIG cart to the next game, quite cumbersome IMO

[–] vodka@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

That's a third party multi cartridge device, not related to the MIG cart at all tho.

[–] Kanzar@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] vodka@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Instantly if you try playing online.

[–] Pneuma@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] vodka@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

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

[–] Pneuma@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] vodka@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

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.

[–] nintendiator@feddit.cl 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Pneuma@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] nintendiator@feddit.cl 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Pneuma@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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:

  1. 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).

  2. 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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[–] nintendiator@feddit.cl 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Pneuma@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago

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.

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[–] XYZinferno@lemmy.basedcount.com 3 points 10 months ago

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

[–] _sideffect@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

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)

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