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Comment by verst | Hacker News Reader

This is of course cynical, but naturally they wouldn't want to allow sideloading on Japanese platforms which hurt Japanese companies.

I've recently been playing around with Switch Homebrew and sideloading - mostly so I could extract my savegames to play games I own on PC instead using the Yuzu emulator (4K 60fps is more fun). Apparently Nintendo is quite good at detecting modified software on the Switch and will permanently ban and brick your hardware, so you need to go through great lengths not to connect to Nintendo servers when booting the modified or sideloaded software.

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No need to feel cynical. This is exactly what they are doing.

Japan's Prime Minister dressed up as Mario for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Japan actually has a law that makes it a criminal act to stream video gameplay without permission from the copyright holder.

In other words, Japan sees its most popular cultural exports (Nintendo, the anime industry) as national treasures deserving of utmost protection.

Why hasn't Nintendo been sued for permanently bricking people's hardware?

I'm pretty sure they don't brick your hardware, they just permaban you from their network. No more laggy Smash Ultimate netplay I guess.

I have fortunately not run into this problem yet - but all the Switch homebrew forums, Reddit communities and other sources say that your console becomes completely useless. You aren't just banned from online play and store. According to what I read it seems that even offline use will not work at that point.

Nintendo only bans for cheating in online games or installing pirated software. Nintendo has (so far) not issued any bans for just installing or using custom firmware.

There is no circumstance in which Nintendo remotely bricks your console.

When you get banned for cheating, you are banned from that specific game's servers.

When you get banned for installing pirated software, you get banned from all Nintendo Switch online services. The console can continue to be used fully offline.

Intuitively that is what I would expect too. But information on the subject is all over the place. Could you point to an established source on this subject or expand on how you have confirmed this information?

They don’t ban you just for having modified software, they will usually ban you for pirating or cheating. It’s reasonably safe to go online with homebrew if you aren’t pirating or cheating but there’s no guarantee, they could still ban you at any time for anything

All it takes is to connect to the store or multiplayer gaming services with the customized O/S and you might be a lucky candidate to have your device banned. From all accounts this doesn't appear to be an automated process, or happens rather randomly.

I agree that those who sideload pirated games and then take those games online are most at risk to have their device bricked.

You could be, but I don’t think there’s any evidence of that ever happening with the Nintendo Switch specifically

It’s hard to be sure because not everyone who pirates or cheats will admit to it and there’s a lot of conflicting information online but I go online with Atmosphere booted sometimes and I’ve never had any issues and many others do the same

I don’t think Nintendo have any way to know if all you’re doing is booting a custom OS unless there’s detection code that no one found yet

Maybe the USA could regulate consoles to allow sideloading as "retaliation", it would be nice for a trade war to benefit consumers for once.

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