New Switch piracy tool can brick the console due to piracy prevention

[Len]

If the headline of this report confused you, that’s because the details behind the situation are as silly as they sound. A new payware program has been released that enables piracy on the Nintendo Switch, and a vulnerability researcher found a line of code in the program that can cause it to brick the system. In an epic twist of irony, the code is present due to it being an anti-piracy measure. That’s right, the developers of the piracy tool don’t want people to pirate their own creation.

What happens is that the program has a line of anti-piracy code that writes a randomly generated password to the Switch’s internal memory. This password prevents any new information from being read or written from the internal storage, thus turning the system into nothing more than a paperweight. The brick code was uncovered by Mike Heskin and he posted his findings to Twitter.

Well then, it looks like the developers of this software actually want people to pay to access the program. If that’s the case, then why even create a tool that allows people to pirate games? Not only is this whole situation just ironic, it’s also blatantly hypocritical.

It has recently been discovered that Nintendo has outfitted the Switch with several anti-piracy measures of its own. So, clearly, no company likes having to deal with piracy.