6 ms·

> Game modding is often brought up as another use case, but straight piracy often requires additional effort over just modding games for technical reasons (you

> Game modding is often brought up as another use case, but straight piracy often requires additional effort over just modding games for technical reasons (you need to bypass game authentication and/or redirect all file access, not just the modded bits), so I don't buy that argument. Yet once you disable signature checks in your OS, it could be used by the user for any purpose, no? Isn't that the main point of rooting your device, having ability to do whatever. Then it comes to where you draw a line. If you allow me to run any program w/o checks, I can install RetroArch for emulation, or a save manager to save me from NSO tax, so I can backup my saves without paying a monthly fee. If you allow me to run kernel extensions, I can do stuff like overclocking or use my xbox gamepad with nintendo console, and if you unlock the bootloader, I can boot into Android. Once you unlock all those capabilities to a point where I can boot any OS, you'd essentially turn a purpose-built device to a general-purpose computer, and building general purpose computers is not a crime (yet? :). I don't see PC makers or Microsoft being accused of enabling piracy, yet their platforms have the same freedoms.

marcan_42 6y ago
First, things aren't always that simple. For quite a while, we maintained a Wii homebrew ecosystem that, using our tools, let you run unsigned code on the game CPU, but not the security CPU. By doing this, piracy becomes impractical, because pirated games would need extensive binary patching to work in this environment. All piracy tools for the Wii from this era relied on exploiting the security system, usually with a different exploit from ours, since we were pretty good at hiding them (mostly so Nintendo took longer to fix them, but this was a nice side effect). This had next to no impact on non piracy related homebrew software. Modding worked fine, because having the disc in the drive let you correctly authenticate as the real game, and then you could patch the executable before launch to add your mods only. Such is how the Wii security architecture works. Eventually we opened up the security CPU for other reasons (mostly a recovery/low level bootloader tool we built), but even then, piracy requires specific software, namely hacks that translate game disc access APIs to either DVD-Video access APIs or a USB storage stack. So sure, you have a general purpose computer, but you still need specific software. Xecuter aren't just selling hardware and software that turn your Switch into a general purpose computer. They are selling hardware and software that has specific features for pirating games that are not useful in any other context. And therein lies the difference.

marcan_42 6y ago

First, things aren't always that simple. For quite a while, we maintained a Wii homebrew ecosystem that, using our tools, let you run unsigned code on the game CPU, but not the security CPU. By doing this, piracy becomes impractical, because pirated games would need extensive binary patching to work in this environment. All piracy tools for the Wii from this era relied on exploiting the security system, usually with a different exploit from ours, since we were pretty good at hiding them (mostly so Nintendo took longer to fix them, but this was a nice side effect). This had next to no impact on non piracy related homebrew software. Modding worked fine, because having the disc in the drive let you correctly authenticate as the real game, and then you could patch the executable before launch to add your mods only. Such is how the Wii security architecture works. Eventually we opened up the security CPU for other reasons (mostly a recovery/low level bootloader tool we built), but even then, piracy requires specific software, namely hacks that translate game disc access APIs to either DVD-Video access APIs or a USB storage stack. So sure, you have a general purpose computer, but you still need specific software. Xecuter aren't just selling hardware and software that turn your Switch into a general purpose computer. They are selling hardware and software that has specific features for pirating games that are not useful in any other context. And therein lies the difference.