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I love the amount of control we are using over our devices. It is not like people can do anything malicious with it. Anyway; so like Apple (less and less lucki

I love the amount of control we are using over our devices. It is not like people can do anything malicious with it. Anyway; so like Apple (less and less luckily), Nintendo forbids editable code to run on their devices? Or is it allowed if there is a gaming aspect involved? Or just not at all?

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
You can purchase a BASIC interpreter on the 3DS eShop. It's called SmileBASIC, and it's pretty full featured. http://smilebasic.com/en/ http://smilebasic.com/en/ It doesn't make intuitive sense to me why a BASIC interpreter would be allowed, but not a Ruby interpreter. The difference is likely that Nintendo was never informed about the Ruby interpreter. While I wish everything was user-modifiable, I'm generally okay with game consoles being locked down, because they don't bill themselves as general-purpose computing devices. I can't run my own software on my BluRay player either.
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  It was the deception by the developer. He chose to hide it from all reviews and gave a false description of what the product to sell on the platform was.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    I really don't think an easter egg like this is enough for "false description of the product". Is Excel 97 not a spreadsheet program?
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      Was Excel 97 submitted to a separate authority for testing and validation prior to release? It was, don't you think the authority should have been informed of any hidden functionality or easter eggs?
      - AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
        > don't you think the authority should have been informed of any hidden functionality or easter eggs? The users? Sure. An authority? No, not really.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        It was submitted to a lot of stores with harsh requirements for shelf space, acting partly on testing and partly on trust. I'd say the authority there is comparable, and no they didn't need to be informed as long as the program admirably performed its job with no malicious code.
- jplayer01 8y ago
  Which was then used to enable privilege escalation in an exploit. https://mrnbayoh.github.io/basicsploit/ https://mrnbayoh.github.io/basicsploit/ Nintendo is doing far more to prevent piracy and homebrew than they ever have before. It's no surprise to anybody who's familiar with this stuff that they aren't okay with arbitrary code execution, especially if none of the interpreter code was vetted/audited by anybody security conscious. I'm even surprised so many people here aren't getting it.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    Oh, heh, I hadn't heard about that exploit! I will point out that the Switch already supports untrusted and unvetted code execution—it's called Javascript. The Nintendo Switch may appear to not have a web browser, but it pops up when you try to log into a captive portal. Without it, no one would be able to use public wifi hotspots. I will also note that Nintendo hasn't exactly done a great job at preventing piracy or homebrew on the Switch—both are available provided you have a somewhat older model, and on the latest firmware even.
    - naikrovek 8y ago
      Show me a captive portal that exploits a hole in the security of the Switch, and I'll show you a whole line of captive portals that will very soon no longer load on a patched Switch. Also, I don't think JavaScript is required by most captive portals. Form tags don't require JavaScript. Recovery Mode was the fault of Nvidia, not Nintendo. Soon after that was discovered, the silicon for the Switch was iterated and now you need a signed binary, even in recovery mode. They plug holes as soon as they find them. I don't think it's fair to compare the relatively limited number of people that work at Nintendo to the literal army of people that work to break Nintendo's work every day.
      - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
        You can create a captive portal on your home network that just lets you navigate to any website. https://www.imore.com/how-use-hidden-web-browser-nintendo-switch https://www.imore.com/how-use-hidden-web-browser-nintendo-sw... Edit: Oh, the particular article I linked has you use a public, specially-crafted DNS server, instead of setting one up on your home network as I've done in the past. Oh well, same principle. Plenty of captive portals do indeed require Javascript, which is why the Switch's web browser supports Javascript.
- phaedrus 8y ago
  A major issue (for me) with SmileBASIC is they removed (presumably at Nintendo's request) any way to export or import code except for their walled garden. Previous versions of SmileBASIC (for the regular DS, under the name Petite Computer) allowed one to (iirc) scan a QR code to input files. Someone has made a modem for SmileBASIC, but it's a lot of typing to get it loaded (presumably Nintendo would quickly pull it from the curated list of programs if someone tried to upload a copy of that).
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    The QR Codes were likely removed because they were cumbersome. I'm not convinced Nintendo was involved. There's a Megaman clone for the DSi version which requires you to scan more than 100 (!) QR codes. That's not fun, and even as an edge case, it's not an experience you want anyone to have with your product. Better to push them to the central server.
    - elsonrodriguez 8y ago
      There's a chance Cubic Ninja has made Nintendo weary of QR codes in third party software.
      - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
        That's very possible too, but other 3DS games still use them, and hackers have found plenty of other entrypoints since Cubic Ninja.
olodus 8y ago
I wonder how far you could go with a language game Zachtronics - style before Nintendo would shut you down. I'm betting it would probably be all good until you allowed interfacing with some more basic underlying systems to the language (such as network for example) to the language. They can't be against custom map making for example right? How Turing complete are you allowed to make your custom map editor?
- crooked-v 8y ago
  The requirement would probably be sandboxing without access to the rest of the machine, since that's what they've allowed for previous "programming toy" releases. SmileBASIC has full programming capability aside from direct hardware and network access, including comprehensive control of rendering and importing/exporting programs (http://smilebasic.com/en/ http://smilebasic.com/en/).
- naikrovek 8y ago
  See: Human Resource Machine on Switch. It's a game about programming in assembly where you actually program in "assembly". It's not real assembly, but at the same time, it kind of is.
icebraining 8y ago
It seems a full coding platform is being launched for the Switch[1], so that's likely not the problem. My guess is that they want to approve it first, which seems sensible if it's being published on their store (even if we wish there were alternatives to their store). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16176742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16176742
CJefferson 8y ago
There are several code systems on Nintendo systems. What Nintendo is upset about is this was hidden, so they couldn't properly check it.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

You can purchase a BASIC interpreter on the 3DS eShop. It's called SmileBASIC, and it's pretty full featured. http://smilebasic.com/en/ http://smilebasic.com/en/ It doesn't make intuitive sense to me why a BASIC interpreter would be allowed, but not a Ruby interpreter. The difference is likely that Nintendo was never informed about the Ruby interpreter. While I wish everything was user-modifiable, I'm generally okay with game consoles being locked down, because they don't bill themselves as general-purpose computing devices. I can't run my own software on my BluRay player either.

kevin_b_er 8y ago
It was the deception by the developer. He chose to hide it from all reviews and gave a false description of what the product to sell on the platform was.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  I really don't think an easter egg like this is enough for "false description of the product". Is Excel 97 not a spreadsheet program?
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    Was Excel 97 submitted to a separate authority for testing and validation prior to release? It was, don't you think the authority should have been informed of any hidden functionality or easter eggs?
    - AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
      > don't you think the authority should have been informed of any hidden functionality or easter eggs? The users? Sure. An authority? No, not really.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      It was submitted to a lot of stores with harsh requirements for shelf space, acting partly on testing and partly on trust. I'd say the authority there is comparable, and no they didn't need to be informed as long as the program admirably performed its job with no malicious code.
jplayer01 8y ago
Which was then used to enable privilege escalation in an exploit. https://mrnbayoh.github.io/basicsploit/ https://mrnbayoh.github.io/basicsploit/ Nintendo is doing far more to prevent piracy and homebrew than they ever have before. It's no surprise to anybody who's familiar with this stuff that they aren't okay with arbitrary code execution, especially if none of the interpreter code was vetted/audited by anybody security conscious. I'm even surprised so many people here aren't getting it.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  Oh, heh, I hadn't heard about that exploit! I will point out that the Switch already supports untrusted and unvetted code execution—it's called Javascript. The Nintendo Switch may appear to not have a web browser, but it pops up when you try to log into a captive portal. Without it, no one would be able to use public wifi hotspots. I will also note that Nintendo hasn't exactly done a great job at preventing piracy or homebrew on the Switch—both are available provided you have a somewhat older model, and on the latest firmware even.
  - naikrovek 8y ago
    Show me a captive portal that exploits a hole in the security of the Switch, and I'll show you a whole line of captive portals that will very soon no longer load on a patched Switch. Also, I don't think JavaScript is required by most captive portals. Form tags don't require JavaScript. Recovery Mode was the fault of Nvidia, not Nintendo. Soon after that was discovered, the silicon for the Switch was iterated and now you need a signed binary, even in recovery mode. They plug holes as soon as they find them. I don't think it's fair to compare the relatively limited number of people that work at Nintendo to the literal army of people that work to break Nintendo's work every day.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      You can create a captive portal on your home network that just lets you navigate to any website. https://www.imore.com/how-use-hidden-web-browser-nintendo-switch https://www.imore.com/how-use-hidden-web-browser-nintendo-sw... Edit: Oh, the particular article I linked has you use a public, specially-crafted DNS server, instead of setting one up on your home network as I've done in the past. Oh well, same principle. Plenty of captive portals do indeed require Javascript, which is why the Switch's web browser supports Javascript.
phaedrus 8y ago
A major issue (for me) with SmileBASIC is they removed (presumably at Nintendo's request) any way to export or import code except for their walled garden. Previous versions of SmileBASIC (for the regular DS, under the name Petite Computer) allowed one to (iirc) scan a QR code to input files. Someone has made a modem for SmileBASIC, but it's a lot of typing to get it loaded (presumably Nintendo would quickly pull it from the curated list of programs if someone tried to upload a copy of that).
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  The QR Codes were likely removed because they were cumbersome. I'm not convinced Nintendo was involved. There's a Megaman clone for the DSi version which requires you to scan more than 100 (!) QR codes. That's not fun, and even as an edge case, it's not an experience you want anyone to have with your product. Better to push them to the central server.
  - elsonrodriguez 8y ago
    There's a chance Cubic Ninja has made Nintendo weary of QR codes in third party software.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      That's very possible too, but other 3DS games still use them, and hackers have found plenty of other entrypoints since Cubic Ninja.

olodus 8y ago

I wonder how far you could go with a language game Zachtronics - style before Nintendo would shut you down. I'm betting it would probably be all good until you allowed interfacing with some more basic underlying systems to the language (such as network for example) to the language. They can't be against custom map making for example right? How Turing complete are you allowed to make your custom map editor?

crooked-v 8y ago
The requirement would probably be sandboxing without access to the rest of the machine, since that's what they've allowed for previous "programming toy" releases. SmileBASIC has full programming capability aside from direct hardware and network access, including comprehensive control of rendering and importing/exporting programs (http://smilebasic.com/en/ http://smilebasic.com/en/).
naikrovek 8y ago
See: Human Resource Machine on Switch. It's a game about programming in assembly where you actually program in "assembly". It's not real assembly, but at the same time, it kind of is.

icebraining 8y ago

It seems a full coding platform is being launched for the Switch[1], so that's likely not the problem. My guess is that they want to approve it first, which seems sensible if it's being published on their store (even if we wish there were alternatives to their store). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16176742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16176742

CJefferson 8y ago

There are several code systems on Nintendo systems. What Nintendo is upset about is this was hidden, so they couldn't properly check it.