Supposedly according to the reading material on the flash cart, yes? It seems like you just need the game file on the SD card and to put it in however cycling through multiple games on the cart is gonna be bad cause it looks like their isn't a loader in-between but you need to eject the card and put it back in to cycle to the next game you have on it.
The R4 was the pinnacle of my gaming career. I had so much fun with that. I don’t think anything has come close to scratching the itch the same way. I think it meant a lot to me, too, because I got the DS for free (online, long story) and paid for the R4 chip with money from my first job.
I could be wrong, but I feel like the initial work of putting the system in recovery mode via tinfoil/modchip would still be required, but after that everything could run off the cartridge
Funny enough this thing will likely be more useful for playing actual backups than piracy.
The telemetry on the Switch is crazy, and since all carts have certificates, Nintendo will know if your game is a pirated copy and they'll ban your console.
And we know the Switch keeps logs like crazy, so even if you're offline while using this thing it won't help... unless you stay permanently offline, but at that point you might as well just mod your Switch anyway.
The video said as much. Although this depends on how the card works with certificates. Right now the only thing we have is a promise by the creators. It will be interesting to track the development and discussion of this on GBAtemp.
Personally, though, I don't actually need this. I got a Steam Deck. It handles Switch games much better than I expected when the Deck was first announced and I can play online with friends who also use emulation.
Steam Deck. It handles Switch games much better than I expected
Oh that's nice to hear. I have not been keeping up with Switch emulation at all because my CPU was weak for it. Maybe I should try again and see if it has gotten easier to run.
unless you stay permanently offline, but at that point you might as well just mod your Switch anyway.
I feel like that’s the point of this cart. Hard modding is near impossible for most people. The choice is sending your switch to random person to be modded, which I doubt it’ll be cheap. Or just get a flash cart.
This card has two drawbacks as far as I can see. Firstly, there's no loader to swap between games.
Secondly, it only supports its own format when you back up your own games. The games you download from the net aren't compatible but it's assumed the pirates would 'repack' their past releases to be compatible.
Here's a question, would the Switch be oblivious to how the game is stored and download any updates? Do pirated games come complete with the latest available updates?
This shouldn't be an issue. Nintendo has allowed for carts containing multiple titles for years now. Inserting the cartridge causes all the games on it to appear on the home screen.
The Switch is massively popular. Assuming the cartridge works and sells even somewhat well, we will 100% see games being shared in whatever format it uses. It might take awhile for the Switch's full back-catalog to be dumped and uploaded in the new format, but popular / recent titles will be circulated within a matter of days. If there's a way to convert existing XCI / NSP rips to the new format, there are plenty of individuals / groups who will race to get everything converted as quickly as possible.
Assuming the cart is completely transparent to the Switch, which is likely to be the case, then I see no reason why updates wouldn't download as normal. If Nintendo is able to detect the carts and ban Switches that use them, it may still be possible to access updates by rolling them into the same file as the base game and loading them from the cartridge. Personally, I think the second option is fairly likely, as it's already possible to do this with NSP rips, and it's the method that offers the most resistance to whatever countermeasures Nintendo may deploy.
It looks like each game cartridge has an unique serial number. Nintendo could easily blacklist everything that touched a specific serial, because they can see from the telemetry something like 500 consoles ran the same cartridge in a day, immediately raising red flags
Considering the non-security of the Wii u ("ah, you say you have a ticket for a game? Sure, feel free to download from the servers, I trust you, don't need to verify that"), I'd assume that until a serial isn't blacklisted, the console would automatically download updates as if it was original
Seems like multiple games are swapped by removing the cartridge and reinserting it, would swap to the next title. So, 3-4 titles max or it will be annoying
This is a newb talking so take it with a grain of salt but
From initial videos it looks like when you pull out then put the cart back in, it seems to swap between games. So guess is that for the switch it looks like a normal game, not an initial boot interface to swap between, but what boots depends on which one the cart is chosen in the loop.
You're right it would be their own type, and likely a converter between them assuming the team doesn't put some sort of proprietary stopper
Likely the switch itself won't know the difference, but Nintendo has dealt with this problem in the past with the 3ds. They add a unique code to every game, so when you pirate it and try to download and update Nintendo can see 1000s of downloads of the same game with unique key, then they can just ban the console. Same if you try to play online (then later patching happened where you can change the key yourself). Downloadable updates where available then afaik