A few days after the monumental reveal of a work-in-progress flashcart being made for the Nintendo Switch, more information has been made available. The previously unnamed flashcart is set to be called "Mig Switch", and the initial Twitter user that unveiled the Mig Switch's existence, After Time X, managed to get in contact with the team behind it all. According to them, they were offered a review unit of the Mig Switch, but turned it down, as the After Time X team fears legal repercussions from dealing with "backup loader" hardware.

Another interesting tidbit is that existing dumps of Switch games will NOT be compatible with the Mig Switch, and backups will need to be repacked to function with the flashcart. Games played with the flashcart can be played online, as well.

The Mig Switch currently has a website, where it is seeking distributors to work together with in order to sell initial limited quantities of the Mig Switch device, with the first units to be delivered sometime in January. The team claims that full availability is expected around March/April 2024. It'll come with the Mig Switch card, and the Mig Switch Dumper, with the latter of which allowing you to back up your games using NXdumpTool.

More Details Has Been Uncovered About the First Switch Flashcart

After some digging around by our @AfterTimeX journalists, it was discovered that the “Switch Flashcart” in fact has a name, “Mig Switch” and they agreed to answer a few of our questions about some points that… pic.twitter.com/kQtXdSNg7E

— After Time X (@AfterTimeX) December 27, 2023

Official Website

 

[impeeza]

1) proper software exploit for OLED/Lite/V2 models

Do not hold your breath, that's is more likely will never happen, the only method will be chip mod.

As today there is no major reason to not update firmware to 17.0.1 unless you have a very specific setup.

 

[Bladexdsl]

In other words the MIG as stated by the supposedly creators web page, THE DEVICE IS ONLY TO EMULATE YOUR OWN CARDS. Period.

than it's fucking useless than nintendo might as well not even bother try and take it down

 

[impeeza]

than it's fucking useless than nintendo might as well not even bother try and take it down

Kinda...

 

[W00fer]

Do not hold your breath, that's is more likely will never happen, the only method will be chip mod.

As today there is no major reason to not update firmware to 17.0.1 unless you have a very specific setup.

Nah, don't say that. Nintendo uses a browser that eventually will be suspect to a webkit vulnerability. However the Tegra Trustzone is the real problem. The modchip still relies on RCM mode and the Picofly trains itself to trigger the reset within fractions of a second. The other way to hack a Switch will most likely come from a chained attack just like the Vita. So a bug in an emulator (for example the SNES emulator on Switch) will lead to an exploit with priviledge escalation to the whole system.

But there are many more attack surfaces like we have seen over the years. On Wii there were DNS problems, on Wii Mini a Bluetooth protocol failure, on WiiU the FailST bug.

The real challenge is the Xbox One. Not a single hack has been done. The Xbox360 is also very strong, with RGH3 it's close but still a hardware mod. Xbox security has been very very tight. Eventually like with the OG Xbox a drop in solution will be developed like Project Stellar. We saw it also with the PS3. The Superslim is the only console that is still not able to run permanent custom firmware. Even the PSP has now the bootrom dumped, there is a way to unbrick them with the Baryonsweeper batteries and custom firmware can come. If PSP is eventually hacked 20 years after release, I'm sure the Switch will. Maybe just a software hack that will be patched by Nintendo, but it will be hacked by a softmod.

On Playstation we also saw that only signed executables ran, after the masterkey was found they could make signed executables. Recently also a DSi Modchip was announced by someone which is under 30 years old. So the knowledge is there, the tech is there. It just needs to be in the right hands, with the right amount of time and the right intention. Do not forget that there are much heavier fortified structures the world has. Banks, airplanes, etc. The Switch Lite is after all just a souped up Tegra phone. It doesn't have the same security like an ATM has.

 

[impeeza]

Nah, don't say that. Nintendo uses a browser that eventually will be suspect to a webkit vulnerability. However the Tegra Trustzone is the real problem. The modchip still relies on RCM mode and the Picofly trains itself to trigger the reset within fractions of a second. The other way to hack a Switch will most likely come from a chained attack just like the Vita. So a bug in an emulator (for example the SNES emulator on Switch) will lead to an exploit with priviledge escalation to the whole system.

But there are many more attack surfaces like we have seen over the years. On Wii there were DNS problems, on Wii Mini a Bluetooth protocol failure, on WiiU the FailST bug.

Yes, your guesses have been thoroughly answered by sciresm who has been studying the firmware and almost has been reverse engineering it since 2017, and he is very confident that will never happen, look into his twitter account and on the atmosphère github. that has been explained in dept.

 

[W00fer]

Yes, your guesses have been thoroughly answered by sciresm who has been studying the firmware and almost has been reverse engineering it since 2017, and he is very confident that will never happen, look into his twitter account and on the atmosphère github. that has been explained in dept.

I sincerely respect sciresm and his abilities but never say never. People thought that also with the Sega Saturn which was hacked after 20+ years. New people come with new tactics, skills, tools, new scientific findings and thus new exploits.

If you look at the recent iPhone and Playstation hacks these have been adapted from Google Security Team CVE's. Facebook a billion dollar company was in the past years exploited while they have the funds to hire the best in class developers to protect their systems. I think you vastly underestimate the power of young developers.

 

[W00fer]

So it's February and not a single sign of MIG progression?

 

[BigOnYa]

So it's February and not a single sign of MIG progression?

I believe they are not shipping out till end of February. What else do you mean by "progression"?

 

[W00fer]

Only the dumper is released. Based on nxdumptool

https://migswitchitalia.com/pages/download

And that is still in beta

On various Telegram channels I hear the Mig might be postponed due to shortages

With progression I mean dumping of this thing. I mean it's not like a supercomputer.

 

[impeeza]

So it's February and not a single sign of MIG progression?

I think you use a web translator, progression shold be "avance"

And no, there us no avance nor new information about the device, the device really is very basic: will emulate a 1:1 copy of a physical cartridge, period. Will no work as a entry point for OFW, will no work for online piracy, etc.

 

[rayida]

This will be something good to pick up in a year's time by which point there'll probably be no more AAA first party titles coming, cheaper clones available, potential advancements on the flash card (maybe a button to cycle games rather than push out, push in, and no more major OFW updates.

Post automatically merged: Feb 4, 2024

On various Telegram channels I hear the Mig might be postponed due to shortages

I suggested on another forum a month ago that we'll never actually get the "Russian" cards but Chinese "clones" will quickly appear (but initially just from one particular supplier, wink, wink).

 

[SylverReZ]

Dumper tool was just released on their website.

 

[impeeza]

I sincerely respect sciresm and his abilities but never say never. People thought that also with the Sega Saturn which was hacked after 20+ years. New people come with new tactics, skills, tools, new scientific findings and thus new exploits.

If you look at the recent iPhone and Playstation hacks these have been adapted from Google Security Team CVE's. Facebook a billion dollar company was in the past years exploited while they have the funds to hire the best in class developers to protect their systems. I think you vastly underestimate the power of young developers.

Exactly, you can believe everything you like, you can hope, and on the next few years will never happen, As said so many times before, Big N learned well from the past. they separated everything, so if you attack a part the others are safe.

All that "20 years later" has been hardware attacks and the console already have one, which also has been upgraded to cheap and small versions, even there is a version using ONLY a RP2040 chip and a very small mosfet, nothing else.

So as my granny used to say: Tomorrow will sunrise and we will see.

 

[3DgameShop]

We might be the first reseller to receive them as we are in the Russian federation, so I just wanted to share those pictures. They sent them to us unassembled, so we will start to ship to our preorders only Wednesday we believe. So first Russian customers will soon be able to give you more reviews and feedback.
We did not know they were coming like that, but no big deal, just a bit of work.

 

[impeeza]

We might be the first reseller to receive them as we are in the Russian federation, so I just wanted to share those pictures. They sent them to us unassembled, so we will start to ship to our preorders only Wednesday we believe. So first Russian customers will soon be able to give you more reviews and feedback.
We did not know they were coming like that, but no big deal, just a bit of work.

That are a lot of screws to put in.

and seriously, Individual vacuum packed cardboard boxes!!! it's a lot of waste.

By the way, if you can please give some photos of the chips on different devices, so we can play jigsaw with the left of the scratchs.

thanks.

 

[dnogwat]

That are a lot of screws to put in.

and seriously, Individual vacuum packed cardboard boxes!!! it's a lot of waste.

By the way, if you can please give some photos of the chips on different devices, so we can play jigsaw with the left of the scratchs.

thanks.

why would a distributor ever give you those pictures? the sooner you figure it al out, the sooner there will be a copy and the sooner he will stop earning from it

 

[fst312]

We might be the first reseller to receive them as we are in the Russian federation, so I just wanted to share those pictures. They sent them to us unassembled, so we will start to ship to our preorders only Wednesday we believe. So first Russian customers will soon be able to give you more reviews and feedback.
We did not know they were coming like that, but no big deal, just a bit of work.

Am I seeing these pictures correctly, they make you put all this together on your own, shouldn’t it have been given to you assembled, what if that ziplock bag is missing a few screws.

 

[cloud-strife777]

 

[BigOnYa]

Imagine the guy who has the job of sanding all those chips down to hid they're markings.

 

[impeeza]

Imagine the guy who has the job of sanding all those chips down to hid they're markings.