Are fake Switch carts a thing?

[yankii]

I have to buy used Switch games sometimes and was wondering what's stopping someone from sealing a MIG Switch board with a microSD loaded up with the XCI + certs inside a Switch cart shell and selling it as a real game - other than the price of the MIG, that is.

It won't make sense for most games but there are a lot of Switch games in the $100+ range so as long as the dump can be obtained [which should be easy for assholes who have no qualms about returning a game after dumping it], a fake cart can be made.

Of course, people will notice once they're banned because of it but no marketplace allows returns after 6-9 months, which is around how long it takes for Nintendo to issue bans, from what I understand, meaning the buyer is pretty much fucked.

 

[thesjaakspoiler]

The MIG is way to expensive for making this attractive for pirates but technically you're right that you could do this.

Fake cartridges for older consoles where mass produced for a few dollars so that is what made them attractive for both sellers and buyers.
Also carts weren't that protected by any security measures,
Afaik, there are no fake carts out there because nobody knows the crypto keys with which the data is signed.
What sometimes happens is that people buy a game, swap the internal PCB with an old/broken game and return the game to the store to get their money back.
The next person who buys the returned game will notice that it is a different game or no working at all.