Hacking through game cartridge

[NintenNate]

IS HACKING THROUGH GAME CARTRIDGE POSSIBLE?

I've been hacking Nintendo 3ds and Nintendo dsi's lately and someone suggested that I should just use an R4 instead and that got me thinking of Nintendo cartridges and how some of them have 32gb of storage so why not make a custom cartridge carrying over the essentials like dolphin,citra and RetroArch we would need something to connect switch cartridges to a computer

 

[CeeDee]

To put it simply:
Game cartridges have security checks. It has to be a legit cartridge by Nintendo for it to run.
DS games had minimal security, so R4 type cartridges worked well there.
An R4 would not work as easily for the Switch, due to the greatly enhanced security. You would have to mod the system to trick it into reading a fake cartridge - and at that point, you just wouldn't need the cartridge.

tl;dr: nope

 

[KleinesSinchen]

This is a general problem with newer systems: They won't run software unless it is digitally signed. My half-knowledge screams something like asymmetric cipher as well as public/private keys. The signature is verified with the public key but created with the private key. If implemented correctly¹ it is not possible to create a signature without the private key which – ideally – is not on a system connected to the internet (as well as other measurements to ensure it stays private).

Even on the older 3DS (to a lesser extend due to backwards compatibility with older games also DSi and DS mode in 2|3DS) only signed software can be started on unmodified consoles. This is why we never saw something like R4 for 3DS mode: The console wouldn't boot custom code. The only thing that could be achieved was the "mimic retail game" method of Sky3DS(+)/Stargate 3DS. This allows booting unmodified game images from the same region. No homebrew, no romhacks.
I've never looked into Nintendo Switch at all, so I don't know what Nintendo implemented to stop the Sky3DS method.
https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Cartridge
https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Lotus3

My personal two cents:
The upwards spiral towards mega-DRM will continue. People will still buy it.


_____________________
¹ Luckily Nintendo failed a few times at implementing signature checks correctly in the past. Wii "Trucha Bug", Wii old boot1 allowing boot2 to be changed, 3DS Sighax (which is the Holy Grail in console soft modding). Early Switch models: Fusée Gelée (which to my knowledge isn't a Nintendo, but an NVIDIA bug).

 

[mathew77]

IS HACKING THROUGH GAME CARTRIDGE POSSIBLE?

Nintendo Switch? No.

 

[Draxzelex]

IS HACKING THROUGH GAME CARTRIDGE POSSIBLE?

I've been hacking Nintendo 3ds and Nintendo dsi's lately and someone suggested that I should just use an R4 instead and that got me thinking of Nintendo cartridges and how some of them have 32gb of storage so why not make a custom cartridge carrying over the essentials like dolphin,citra and RetroArch we would need something to connect switch cartridges to a computer

You haven't been hacking anything. You've been using other people's hard work and research to mimic hacking. You don't understand what you're doing with these devices so don't try to suggest ideas that you don't even comprehend.