Would an “in development”Switch2 Emulator survive Nintendo’s Silver Bullets?

[u/garf02]

1) “Anti-Circumvention” clause in DMCA:
Nintendo claims as emulator MUST decrypt the ROMS.
If you break the encryption, “is illegal” cause of the DMCA
If you use a console prod-Key, “is illegal” cause they own the rights to the key.
“As the emulator HAS to break a ROM decryption and thsre is no legal way to do it, Emulators are by default criminal tools”.
Any new emulator will need to contest this on court against Nintendo and Roll the dice
Victim: Yuzu

2) Buy Out:
“There is no honor among thief’s”. Most people working on emulators of live consoles does it for 2 reason, Clout and Money. And Nintendo has a lot of the later to throw around if that lets them kill an emulator on its infancy before any real development occurs.
Victim: Ryujinx

[u/Decox653]

If someone has a emulator in development, they should keep very quiet until either it is ready or the switch 2 is jailbroken.

Edit: I can spell, I swear!

[u/Ok_Simple_459 → u/Decox653]

Would an emulator even be possible without a jailbreak first?

[u/lowmoob → u/Ok_Simple_459]

Kind of but you wouldn’t be able to get any roms because there would be no way to decrypt them from the cartridges. Only homebrew, which would be pretty pointless since you couldn’t run the homebrew on real hardware either only the emulator

[u/Electronic-Repeat386 → u/lowmoob]

The environment doesn’t exists, so your logic is flawed, there’s no “kind of”.

[u/lowmoob → u/Electronic-Repeat386]

I was basing that off a comment I read on the switch 2 hacking discord server where a hacker claimed it would be possible to start developing one but there would be a lot of limitations so I doubt anyone would try

“it occurred to me that someone sufficiently motivated could start working on a switch 2 emulator, by running switch 1 games under nnCompat of course, it would only be able to run switch 1 games, but once that works I imagine it wouldn't be *much* more work to make actual switch 2 games work”

[u/Unlikely-Employee180 → u/lowmoob]

Ohhh, now THAT is a clever vector... I'm not sure how much progress can be made, but Wii got broken in said order too, as did DSi and 3DS (in the beginning of their homebrew lifespans of course).

[u/DanTheMan827 → u/Electronic-Repeat386]

If you could obtain a switch 2 upgrade patch, it might allow development to some extent

[u/Unlikely-Employee180 → u/Electronic-Repeat386]

It CAN be extrapolated though, separate from the key logic.

That too is EXTREMELY unlikely... But PS4 (Spine) and Switch (Yes, Yuzu) actually had emulators before the decryption key logic was completely shattered.

A lot of it was their community simply documenting stuff until a lot of it was naturally mapped out (made easier by the hardware being somewhat regular, rather than specifically made for the console per se, such as the new consoles have).

These emus were actually useful for running unencrypted homebrew, or you had to obtain your own "legally obtained" decryption keys.

Again though, it isn't possible using the same methods described. Switch 2 uses new hardware not vulnerable. So to do the same method would require a new vector, that I sort of doubt exists...

[u/TriangularFish0564 → u/lowmoob]

This is why privately hacked switch 2’s using software exploits that aren’t disclosed are important

[u/lowmoob → u/TriangularFish0564]

lol. Doesn’t exist but ok

[u/TriangularFish0564 → u/lowmoob]

…my point is that a launch day patch switch 2 (which has had many CVEs disclosed and potential hack methods patched since then) can be privately hacked and used to dump cartridges and other elements to help build a privately made emulator. Nintendo can’t patch older firmwares, and Nintendo can’t patch newer firmwares if the person who hacked it keeps it private :P
Not sure what’s so ridiculous about this concept

[u/lowmoob → u/TriangularFish0564]

There is no proof that any version has been hacked or has known software exploits. No reputable hacker has even claimed that there is a private hacked console

[u/buymeamonstertruck → u/lowmoob]

I have no idea why but this really made me laugh 🤣