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Comment by rhn_mk1 | Hacker News Reader

I am going to be impressed if this pans out.

On the surface, it looks like some of the toys may be more reliable than others - they really need to have skillful designers and coders to be able to pick up particular keys of the piano (I assume they don't have much to work with apart from vibrations).

The second part is that they are just complicated to make and not as robust as dedicated toys. Piano, or the foot pedals are examples - how many days of use until they fall apart? Will Nintendo fight copycats who provide cheap replacements?

Even if they gett all of the above wrong, I will forgive them if there will be a way to adapt or design your own gizmos and make them work without being an approved developer - this really does look like a great way to learn hacking.

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I was really curious about how the piano example works too, apparently it uses a camera in the controller -

"The right Joy-Con’s motion IR camera reads the back of each key in order to tell the piano which note to play. "

http://time.com/5106363/nintendo-switch-labo-toy-cons/

It does seem a really interesting system, look forward to hearing more about it!

Yeah, pretty darn clever. With a camera you can do rotary encoders and all sorts of other awesome tricks too.

Nintendo really seems to be hitting their stride with the switch.

I always wondered what that IR plastic bit on the controller was all about... not enough to actually go research it though. Hah.

Will Nintendo fight copycats who provide cheap replacements?

You've already purchased the console and software - and Nintendo doesn't sell either at a loss. The cardboard is a trivial part of the picture.

Kids could also just cut another pattern out of their own boxes, and I bet Nintendo would love to see kids doing that.

+1. Besides, cardboard replacements still stimulate demand for more genuine Switches and games.

> how many days of use until they fall apart?

Well, it's cardboard, so you just tape or glue it back together. Or tape another layer of paper or cardboard on top.

> Will Nintendo fight copycats who provide cheap replacements?

You're paying for the software, not the cardboard.

> You're paying for the software, not the cardboard.

Indeed. $60 is a standard Nintendo game price. As far as people buying Switch games are concerned, it's free cardboard.

> I will forgive them if there will be a way to adapt or design your own gizmos and make them work without being an approved developer

We are really really close to homebrew on switch (which will let you do this).

Get a console 3.0.2 or lower, which currently have the full stack (TrustZone, Kernel, Userland, all of it) pwned. Libraries exist to interface with joycon input as well. We're just waiting on public tooling.

It's probably not what you're asking for (Mario Maker Style) - but it's doable.

Or stop buying devices that try to lock you out and force you into this cat-and-mouse game.

What about game archival? (Think redump.org, not piracy).

Is there access to the SD card to pull title updates too?

I wonder whether I should buy a second switch to backup all my titles.

There is a disaster coming to game collecting and retro gaming in the next few years. When the servers for updates go, there's going to be a lot of incomplete games around.

There's access to everything, (full kernel takeover), and there's TrustZone takeover too (think Intel ME).

https://twitter.com/nintendolife/status/953941301023707138

> Nintendo Life: Nintendo Will Freely Provide Cardboard Design Patterns For Labo https://t.co/jGmyE4CZTR

Link was updated. Apparently, they're not.

> how many days of use until they fall apart?

it's cardboard, it doesn't matter

but yeah, the killer move will be software support to make your own, and it might take over the damn world (says the father of several small human children)

Likely the cardboardiness is to encourage people to copy it - the software is where they make money surely?

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