The Switch Will NEVER be the Same: Nintendo Switch Dumper Review

Ummm.... If you own the game, making backups is perfectly legal. This isn't piracy, this is hacking. I agree that most movie and game downloading IS PIRACY. This is not. It's piracy if someone rips the files and distributes it. If they rip it for themselves, it's not.

So yeah, it actually is a murky area here. You'd be going after everyone under the assumption of illegal activity vs actually targeting those commiting piracy.

The point is that this is not going to stop with someone backing up their games. Come on now let's be honest. The internet is full of game ROMS that are "for backup only" again, come the fuck on. I'm not against pirating, but to say this isn't it is just silly lol
- Then it should be Nintendo's problem to come up with a business model that doesn't infringe upon their customers' property rights, not society's problem to give up everybody's rights just to enable Nintendo's DRM-based business model!
- It's kind of condescending to assume everyone does the same thing you do. Even if it's a majority.
  
  Or are you assuming that no one backs up media for the sake of backing it up? Cause that's... pretty nearsighted.
  
  I would say less than 1% of gamers backup their games
  
  Based on what evidence? Your emotions?
  
  What evidence do you have that most of this is used for legitimate backup purposes only?
  
  Should the rights of even one person doing a legitimate thing be squandered because some others are nefarious?
  
  What if I said you couldn't have your favorite food because someone found a way to use it to poison people?
  
  If you give that response, the other commenter vaporizes. Fascinating!
  
  Why is nobody able to admit when someone has a point anymore? Learning and collaboration should be the point of the internet.
  
  Because it's fucking pointless to respond when one side won't even admit to piracy being a thing.
  
  One person asked for evidence for piracy, which we all know happens, it's not a minor thing but sources are all over the place, and everyone going 'see piracy isn't a thing'. Well proves the other side then. Prove how many people only use these devices legitimately.
  
  You can't. You can only say legitimate uses happen, piracy uses happen. And don't fucking bullshit me that those rcm jigs were mostly sold for homebrew only.
  
  It's a pointless conversation at this point because I asked for evidence and the response is strawman, changing the topic to justification, just like the NRA does and there's no benefit to continue and just leave it at that.
  
  And? I'd say less than 1% pirate. I can throw in random unfounded metrics too. Still doesn't change the point. Just because you don't doesn't mean someone else won't. Which again isn't even the point of the article.
  
  The point is someone could backup their game and sell it. The buyer being unaware it would ban their console.
  
  So there's no way to have a reasonable conservation with YOU
  
  Permanently Deleted
- Then you punish the actual criminals, not everyone.
  
  There are plenty of us who prefer the steam deck over the switch. You can pull the encryption keys from your own console and the roms from your own games and play them there. There are numerous tutorials to do so.
  
  People use knives to stab people. Should we ban all knives?
  
  You're being hyperbolic and narrow-minded.
  
  Backing up a game is legal. End of story. There's plenty of legal precedent there already. So you're literally arguing that the law is not the law because of your emotional feelings.
  
  You want to change that? Change the law. Stop being a jackass on social here tho spouting bad takes when you just don't agree.
  
  People use knives to stab people. Should we ban all knives?
  
  Actually in plenty countries, plenty types of knives are not legal to carry because their primary purpose (of the type) is in attacking people, which is never a valid reason to have it as a result.
  
  Much like how with the US exception, most industrialized nations don't allow free ownership of most guns.
  
  So if anything, that's a bad argument to make as there's a lot of precedent suggesting banning such dumping devices entirely might be warranted. I wouldn't support that, but the argument you try to use as a defense exactly supports a ban.
  Mind you, the ban would be on buying/owning/importing such a device, not in the actual dumping. As in, you are legally allowed to dump your games, only you cannot acquire the device to do so as it has been shown to be primarily meant to be used for illegal purposes (usually this would mean there are privosion so that for scientific/research purposes you can acquire them).
  
  An example would be the R4 import/purchase ban in a few countries.
  
  So, only knives that have no legitimate purpose other than to cause harm are banned? A switch blade is banned while a filet knife is not. Both knives are equally capable of being tools for murder, but the filet knife can be used in hunting, fishing, and cooking. All legitimate uses. While the switchblade isn’t really feasible in any scenario outside of a fight.
  
  It’s not the presence of illegitimate uses that gives rise to the ban. It’s the absence of legitimate uses.
- Saying theres no legit way to use these is exactly why yuzu was so easily taken down, so even if youre pro or anti piracy, spreading false information about this is harmful to the hacking community.
  
  Yuzu was taken down because lawyers and people who follow the letter of the law said it was illegal. Which it was. You think it happened cause of a random internet opinion?
  
  Anyways this is the funniest thread on Lemmy. A bunch of fellow pirates doing pirate shit and pretending like they're doing altruism lol
  
  Yes what lawyers are known for, following the letter of the law.
  
  But wait! Dont lawyers occasionally fight on which side of the law is correct?? What could be true then??
- A car can be used to drive from point A to point B. But sure some people have used it to ram through crowds of people to hurt or kill them. So hey, cars are murder devices. Amirite?
  
  /s
  
  99.999% (or whatever) of the time cars are used to go from A to B and there's no real thought about it. How many people do you really think make backups for purely personal storage redundancies? This feels more like grape juice and yeast kits (or whatever) from the prohibition era.
  
  I'm sorry but no. Anyone who's into collecting retro gaming console knows the importance of being able to back up your game cartridges. The technology isn't infaillible. Especially over time.

<shrug> I support things being hackable, dumpable, flashable, whatever. I also support piracy. But those two aren't as interlinked as you want them to be.

Hacking because it's ownership. Do what you want with the things that you own. Piracy because fuck 'em. That's what happens when you make everything digital - it becomes much, much easier to acquire for free.

come on guys, I do X because of Y, everyone else must do it for the same reason, and if they claim otherwise they're definitely lying.

Yeah you're definitely lying, especially if you claim you've never pirated a game you don't own
- Where did they make that claim?

The majority of people pirate, but insofar as there is a single person who wants to do literally anything else with their hacked system, then it isn't exclusively about pirating, and the narrative to condemn the entire practice of hacking as being solely about pirating is nothing more than another corporation trying to make it harder for people to modify their own property as they see fit.

I think buddy is asking for honesty in the discussion. If your goal is piracy, just say so, don't hide behind that one person who "wants to do literally anything else".

You're right, generally speaking, but most of us don't fit into that category.
- That'll never happen so long as there's the possibility of being sued for admitting you're doing something that might be illegal. It's simply not worth the risk to most people.
- Don't fight for yourself, fight for the community.
  
  It doesn't matter what I want, it matters what the community as a whole wants, and we want more than just pirating. Nobody's hiding, we're just not missing the forest for the trees; it's not honesty in discussion to boil and entire group of people down to the desires of just the few people in this thread, it's just being self-centered.
  
  If you want to talk about what you as an individual want, feel free, but don't act like it's the definitive thing to discuss when the community is greater than all of us.
  
  "community" yuck don't be part of online communities
  
  ... I can't tell if you're serious or not, but if you're honestly so put-off by human connection and comradery, I'm disappointed. Kind of a weird take from someone on Lemmy if that's the case, though.
  
  Online communities are trash and you're all bots. Real life is very different
  
  Haha, we're in a digital age, buddy. Computers are nothing more than the latest way to connect real people in real ways. Sure, bots exist, just like spam telephone callers exist and were probably major issues when that was the main way for people to connect with one another across large distances, but you're not going to stop it by covering your ears and denying the existence of every person you can't physically see.
  
  I have a wife and family, I have friends, and I have online communities I care about; they're all just different legitimate social circles. We may not have evolved for it, but we're living it anyway, and the faster you adapt to that, the better.
  
  Very convincing bot. Nice try
  
  Sorry, bud; you've been having a human connection this whole time.
  
  Not clicking that, I have enough custom mouse cursors
The majority of people pirate

Really?
- In the context of people who hack their systems? I'd certainly say so.
  
  Ah, in that scope, I see.

It’s also about how apparently games run better from a rom using an emulator on a switch rather than through the native software of the switch itself. It’s crazy.

That's likely due to the Switch throttling itself a fair bit in handheld mode, to avoid overheating and spending too much battery power.

Running an emulator on Linux likely uncaps the performance.

If it was about pirating, you wouldn’t need the dumper, you could just download the already dumped game online

Lol dude why are you being purposely dumb? You think the person who dumps the game will keep it only for themselves and never share the file online? You need the dumper to put the game online for others
- Almost the entire library of the switch is already online.

All the popular switch games have already been dumped & shared online. The cart that lets you download and play those came out MONTHS ago.

THIS cart is so you can download and backup your OWN Switch games, something I want just so I don't lose my save data. Thanks for loudly assuring everyone that you know fuck-all about any of this though!

Isn’t all your saved data stored in the device and backed up to the cloud? What games store saved data in the carts?
- Gotta pay for cloud saves and trust Nintendo to keep them as long as I might want them, so ... no.
  
  The save file is not on the cart, mate.
  
  Would be easier to back it up if it was, and half the games I care about are stored entirely on the console anyways. What are you not getting?
- On Switch, no game cards support writing of save data or anything else. It's a departure from 3DS and all previous Nintendo cart formats for as long as games have supported saving at all.
  
  That change is probably done to help tie saves to user accounts, enable cloud saves even when the card is not inserted, accommodate variable-size user data features like level creation, and mitigate the risk of game save based exploits like Twilight Hack spreading from user to user.
  
  Unfortunately that (plus inability to put saves on SD card) means that backing up your own save data requires either being able to run homebrew on the system that has the save or having another Switch that can and relying on Nintendo servers to perform the transfer. Either way, having a Switch that runs homebrew means you don't need this dumper.
  
  Well that's disappointing to hear, damn. I see why Nintendo did it that way, and that's exactly why it's disappointing they did it that way.
- Not all games back up to the cloud and you nees an active NSO subscription to be able to backup to their cloud.
  
  ~~I haven't seen this video yet (battery almost dead, gonna watch later) but this device appears to let you backup your saves locally without running it by Nintendo.~~
  
  Edit: I forgot that Switch cartridges don't hold saves so this device can't do that.
  
  No, the device is purely to dump game cartridges. It has nothing to do with your saves (which are stored on your Switch).
  
  To dump your savegames, you need access to your Switch's internal USER partition.
~~Does this require using a modded switch or can anyone buy this hardware and back up their own save data?~~

edit: Nvm, sounds like you can't back up your own save data with this, you would need homebrew, damn.
- The thing I feared but dared not speak when it occurred to me...

Didn't bother reading the whole thing huh, about how this can effect people that legally buy used games?

I am mixed on what you're saying.

As everyone is saying, it doesn't matter if the primary purpose of this is piracy, because this enables legal behavior through the same process as the piracy. You cannot say that this is illegal because it is not piracy until you take the output of this and do something else with it.

But also it sucks that we have to discuss these things with false pretense to avoid Youtube content bans and stuff like that.

But that is the reality of the world we live in, and Nintendo DOES suck and IS an evil company when it comes to consumers rights.

For the record, I do not pirate anything presently. At a certain point in my life I decided that I could go without things or buy them. But I don't judge for people making the opposite choice.

I feel like devices like this aren't really under a false pretense though. Most people who would pirate games like this probably wouldn't buy a third party device so they can copy a friend's cartridge so they can emulate it, they'd more likely just download it and skip the middle man.

The only real way I see it being used primarily for piracy is in areas where Internet activity is heavily monitored/restricted, or broadband isn't available/accessible. Otherwise a 1 month subscription to a VPN and a few gigabyte of Internet usage is far cheaper and easier to a pirate.
- Selling bootleg copies would still count as piracy, as would returning the game after copying it. But your point point makes sense. This device's main focus is probably not those cases.
  
  But emulators are a thing that we usually stress the legal use-cases when the majority use-case is piracy. So it's kind of an area where pretense is required, and the earlier video reviewing the cartridge and this one reviewing the copying device both go out of their way to make it clear that they aren't talking about the piracy use-case and that they still think their video will be taken down.

Some people just want to mod a game they love and play it again. There's more than one reason to use these tools.

Right, but for every one person who wants to do that, 9 others want to make money off a mod or spread the game for free, which benefits the creator not at all.
- So are you gonna cite your sources for that 1-9 ratio? Still waiting on the source for your other comment about only 1% of gamers backup their games implying the other 99% use backups for piracy.

I guess it depends on what you call pirating. Is it okay for me to emulate switch games I own on my steamdeck? It prevents me from having to carry around two devices, and in some cases the games run better. I that situation I've paid everyone I'm supposed to.

And Nintendo is just supposed to accept that everyone will use the honor system and not share their game files for games they don't own?
- Yeah, cause I should have rights with things I purchase. You're allowed to record anything over the radio, you can record anything that comes over broadcast/cable TV. That's not pirating that's the law. Why should this be any different and why should it matter if I get it physically or digitally.
- Yes. Otherwise they're just preempttively accusing their customers of being theives. Some would consider that libel and slander.
  
  Go ahead and sue

Wow you are biased. Piracy is a service problem. Therefore platforms with more service issues become targets for more advanced and rampant piracy. Nintendo basically deserved it. Not an honest people's problem that it takes going that far to make the platform act as user friendly as they expected it to by default in the first place.

Of course, but in this case the piracy is more complex than just buying. The issue is much more how this can and might affect buying customers.
- This case is not about pirating yourself but about a tool for creating more pirate copies, which will make it more convenient for end users, whether they will pay for it or not.
  
  The issue you mentioned will likely not hit pirates negatively. As someone mentioned it's not unique to this Nintendo console, so it's the result of them not learning.

ROFL! PC exclusive my ass.

I agree. it's always hidden under "backup" but reality is piracy. I pirate too.

nobody bitches

excuse me, but i bitch about it all the time, thank you very much.

Yeah, you're downvoted to hell. I do think it's funny when people in pretend to "preserve" games or what have you as well.

I'll join you in the downvotes and say I one hundred percent agree with you here.

People will go on and on about legitimate issues but downvote tooth and nail when you correctly day this was developed and sold primary for piracy.

And let's face it, this is built and sold for mainly piracy with the very few who are using it for legitimate uses like preservation.

Outside of the small scene groups dumping new releases, why would someone wanting to pirate go to the trouble of buying a legit copy of a game and this device, only to dump the game resulting in effectively the same file that someone else has already put online?

The people who are putting game roms online generally aren't randos. It's scene release groups, who already have plenty of ways to dump carts without this, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing roms released same day or earlier than the shelf date.

You can already dump games with any Switch you can run homebrew (and therefore pirated games) on. I've done it with my carts so I don't have to juggle the little things or bring a case with me. You don't need this dumper to do it, or to get the files to put on the MiG flash card this is for. Normal dumps off the internet work fine in the cart for pirated game playing on newer switches.

So yeah, it's a piracy device. But I just don't see the use case here for it to meaningfully aid piracy at all.

Look, I have pirated games on a ton of consoles and handhelds, including the Switch, and I've also dumped my own carts/discs. One thing I've never done, or never heard of someone doing, is using one of these dumping tools and then selling the used copy of the game.

I'm sure there are people out there that have, and in the days of game rental stores people absolutely would rent a game and dump it, I used to do it with music CDs. It was harder to grab shit from the intenet back then though, so it was easier than downloading.

If I like a game enough to buy it, I'm not going to the trouble of getting an insulting amount for reselling it. If it was crap enough that I no longer wanted it, why would I dump the cart to a file?

Nowadays, you can download ten switch games in maybe an hour and a half, and every single game is downloadable normally on release day.

Why would you spend extra money on the dumper and lose money from reselling the game for less than you spent, when you can just download it for free?
- Who knows, like you said, scene groups, maybe people who just want Internet points and want to upload files, people who just want the convenience of novelty. Same, I've dumped my own switch games via USB so this seems very just novelty to me and maybe it's pick it up just to have it.
  
  But yeah, gone are the days when you'd go rent a nes, snes games into floppies and needing a external dumping equipment so I don't really know who this device is for but it's interesting how many people are so defensive that you point out piracy device is mainly for piracy.

This is the wrong crowd for that, mate. I’ve gone through this rodeo on Lemmy too many times and you’re just going to get dishonest people pretending that what they’re doing isn’t stealing. It’ll be everything from “preservation of games” to “it’s just like renting from a library” and all the extremes of dishonesty.

No one here’s going to be honest about it.

You're being just as dishonest as the people you accuse in two different ways: there are people already in the replies to this comment admitting to the same things, as well as making unverified claims that "they're actually pirating, they just won't admit it"
- Except I’m not. The last time this discussion came up, I was downvoted to hell and no one said anything of the sort.
  
  Even in these comments… most of the replies are that it’s not only about piracy. There’s one person that has said “Yeah, I agree… I pirate.”

You'll burn for this here.

I should save this post for the "what opinions aren't welcome on Lemmy" question that comes up every few weeks.
- Maybe. But also read the replies before you do.
- Typically being purposely obtuse and spreading bullshit is indeed not tolerated. Hope that clarifies things!

You're so fucking dumb.

This is not about pirating.
This is about Nintendo being so greedy they have created an environment where customers buying used games can get screwed by Nintendos own certificates system.

You mean you need a game cartridge and a Nintendo system to play a Nintendo game? Shocked, just like every console ever made, even up till now which require license verification within the game code?? Shocked.

But you want to go around Nintendo so you can "backup" and share the game and hack it and spread it to everyone for free, but that's not pirating?? Dude I'm pro pirating, but to call this anything but pirating is such a lie
- This comment explains pretty well about how this is going to potentially affect legitimate users, credit to neoman4426
  
  Nintendo Switch cartridge based games have a file that's unique to each individual cartridge. The dumper and accompanying flash cart make use of that file. If Nintendo detects two people playing while connected to the internet with the "same" cartridge, there's a high chance of them banning both consoles. So any used game anyone buys after this point runs the risk that someone dumped it, maybe an old owner who resold, maybe someone who bought and returned it, etc, which means even a legitimate user who hasn't even heard of the flash cart could get banned. There's also the potential issue of people using the tech in the flash cart once people figure out how to use those chips to sell bootlegged reproduction cartridges that have the same issue