5 ms·

As soon as Nintendo announced they were shutting down the E-Shop I finally homebrewed my 2DS XL. Best thing I ever did to it.

Gigachad 4y ago
The 3DS series was probably the peak of console hacking. There was a surprisingly long period where you could install freeshop and it would download any game direct from Nintendo’s servers without paying. Along with easy persistent soft mods. I expect in the coming gens, console hacking will reach borderline impossible levels when things get replaced with memory safe languages. Probably all that’s left is cpu glitching with power and clock attacks.
- skeaker 4y ago
  The Switch is already said to be unhackable with purely software-side methods by the big names in the scene. I guess we'll find out with time if that's really true, but the current homebrew scene for it really only exists thanks to that hardware error in the first revision of the console which afaik isn't even Nintendo's fault. I think the 3DS scene may have been a real wake up call for them.
  - hosh 4y ago
    There was a recent article framing the Steam Deck as a handheld PC gaming platform, which got me thinking about using it as a base for a handheld dev environment.
    - bityard 4y ago
      It's just a pretty ordinary Linux computer with a touchscreen and joysticks attached. I wouldn't do much serious dev on it myself because of the smallish screen but I've seen Real Hackers do more with less. Could be worth a shot!
      - hosh 4y ago
        Hundred Rabbits were talking about using a hacked Nintendo handheld with a custom OS; it’s for when they run out of power while sailing. These are the folks who made UXN, and even going as far as designing gestures and glyphs for each opscode so that computation can still be worked out without electronic devices. I got interested in this from CollapseOS and Collapse Informatics, imagining a day when we lose our ability to make advanced microchips, but still have salvagable ones laying around.
    - komali2 4y ago
      I went a bit down this path cause I thought it would be fun to not bring my laptop and only bring the steam deck on trips. It's just unfortunately not very convenient, the laptop clamshell with the keyboard right there and stably attached to the monitor is just so much more handy of a design. In terms of actual power, once you get the steam deck hooked to an external monitor with whatever peripherals you need like keyboard, it's just fine as a dev device, or for editing photos in dark table or running music production software. And, obviously, for gaming, works well, all in Linux. In terms of using the onscreen keyboard as a "handheld dev device" I think one of those competitors with a miniature sized physical keyboard built in would probably be better, or there's a whole scene I glimpsed once of people making mini clamshell designs of machines with mini keyboards. The touchpads work ok but it's just infuriatingly slow compared to a keyboard, especially once you start needing brackets, parentheses, etc.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I don’t think it’s unhackable, it’s probably more just unviable because any software exploit just gets quickly patched and becomes useless. Along with the difficulty of having to find a whole chain of exploits to work your way up the privilege layers. The hardware exploit is still usable in the latest models but it’s harder to access. You require soldering a mod chip to the switch rather than sliding a jig in the controller rail. But regardless, I think hardware security is outpacing hackers abilities. The cat and mouse game is becoming increasingly one sided.
  - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    IIRC, launch-day Switches are sought after in the modding communities for this reason. On a related note, mine is in almost mint condition, but I'll make sure to let the modders know if I decided to get the upgraded one.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  Or as Steam Deck shows, you can just drop the whole security theater and have a perfectly viable and arguably better handheld console device.
agentultra 4y ago
Same. The developer tooling for it is rad too. I’m blown away by it. It’s a really fun platform to hack on. If you try it out drop the devs a donation! They’re super talented and deserve all the respect.

Gigachad 4y ago

The 3DS series was probably the peak of console hacking. There was a surprisingly long period where you could install freeshop and it would download any game direct from Nintendo’s servers without paying. Along with easy persistent soft mods. I expect in the coming gens, console hacking will reach borderline impossible levels when things get replaced with memory safe languages. Probably all that’s left is cpu glitching with power and clock attacks.

skeaker 4y ago
The Switch is already said to be unhackable with purely software-side methods by the big names in the scene. I guess we'll find out with time if that's really true, but the current homebrew scene for it really only exists thanks to that hardware error in the first revision of the console which afaik isn't even Nintendo's fault. I think the 3DS scene may have been a real wake up call for them.
- hosh 4y ago
  There was a recent article framing the Steam Deck as a handheld PC gaming platform, which got me thinking about using it as a base for a handheld dev environment.
  - bityard 4y ago
    It's just a pretty ordinary Linux computer with a touchscreen and joysticks attached. I wouldn't do much serious dev on it myself because of the smallish screen but I've seen Real Hackers do more with less. Could be worth a shot!
    - hosh 4y ago
      Hundred Rabbits were talking about using a hacked Nintendo handheld with a custom OS; it’s for when they run out of power while sailing. These are the folks who made UXN, and even going as far as designing gestures and glyphs for each opscode so that computation can still be worked out without electronic devices. I got interested in this from CollapseOS and Collapse Informatics, imagining a day when we lose our ability to make advanced microchips, but still have salvagable ones laying around.
  - komali2 4y ago
    I went a bit down this path cause I thought it would be fun to not bring my laptop and only bring the steam deck on trips. It's just unfortunately not very convenient, the laptop clamshell with the keyboard right there and stably attached to the monitor is just so much more handy of a design. In terms of actual power, once you get the steam deck hooked to an external monitor with whatever peripherals you need like keyboard, it's just fine as a dev device, or for editing photos in dark table or running music production software. And, obviously, for gaming, works well, all in Linux. In terms of using the onscreen keyboard as a "handheld dev device" I think one of those competitors with a miniature sized physical keyboard built in would probably be better, or there's a whole scene I glimpsed once of people making mini clamshell designs of machines with mini keyboards. The touchpads work ok but it's just infuriatingly slow compared to a keyboard, especially once you start needing brackets, parentheses, etc.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s unhackable, it’s probably more just unviable because any software exploit just gets quickly patched and becomes useless. Along with the difficulty of having to find a whole chain of exploits to work your way up the privilege layers. The hardware exploit is still usable in the latest models but it’s harder to access. You require soldering a mod chip to the switch rather than sliding a jig in the controller rail. But regardless, I think hardware security is outpacing hackers abilities. The cat and mouse game is becoming increasingly one sided.
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  IIRC, launch-day Switches are sought after in the modding communities for this reason. On a related note, mine is in almost mint condition, but I'll make sure to let the modders know if I decided to get the upgraded one.
m4rtink 4y ago
Or as Steam Deck shows, you can just drop the whole security theater and have a perfectly viable and arguably better handheld console device.

agentultra 4y ago

Same. The developer tooling for it is rad too. I’m blown away by it. It’s a really fun platform to hack on. If you try it out drop the devs a donation! They’re super talented and deserve all the respect.