Hacking My thoughts on loading unpacked NCA to SD

[scottgl]

I've been following the Atmosphere project for a while and I've been curious about backup loading support. I did a bit of research, and found that games downloaded from eshop are just basically NCA files which are repacked / encrypted for console specific downloading from the eShop. The file format is called NAX0:

http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=NAX0

This format seems to be supported by hactool, but I haven't seen any usage examples of successfully unpacking an NAX0 file. Now I'm not sure if this still supported with newer firmware versions for the Nintendo Switch since I haven't been able to unpack one of these files. Anyway the point is, it would be just as straight forward making a NAX0 packer. So why isn't there already a tool that: takes an unpacked NCA, uses our console specific SD seed, and builds an NAX0 file while we can drop on our SD card and play the game backup even without CFW? I really don't see any problems with this approach, and I'm just curious why this isn't being done? Considering the majority of keys are no longer unknown, and the Nintendo file formats are well understood. If I'm missing something here please weigh in, and I'd appreciate leaving out any discussions on "why you shouldn't".

 

[Giga_Gaia]

Eventually, we're gonna be able to install those files directly on your SD card and run them like any other titles. We'll be able to install updates and DLC as well. Files being tied to a console or account won't matter, it won't really slow down pirates.

We're probably gonna get an app like WUP Installer on the Wii U not long after the CFW releases.