Hacking Question Pre-owned games and cart dumping

[Bertimo]

As far as I understand, all switch games have a unique identifier attached to them. If you dump your own games they can be dumped with these identifiers so that they can potentially be played online and Nintendo wont ban you as you are not playing a pirated copy (correct me if I'm mistaken here). If you then play a cartridge with the same certificate as someone else then you will get banned as Nintendo can then tell that you have backup loaded that cartridge as someone else is running the exact same one.

Now my question is: If someone dumps their cartridge with the certificate, trades it into a shop as pre-owned but keeps playing their backup, if i then buy that cartridge and play it online legit (as I am running my game from the cart) will I also get banned?

I ask this as it creates a difficult situation for nintendo where they wouldn't be able to tell who is the hacker and who is the legitimate owner of the cartridge. They either ban both players, ruining it for a legit customer (and killing the pre-owned market) or they ban neither and let the hacker get away free. What do people think will happen here?

Also, if there is a glaring issue with my understanding let me know!

 

[Ryab]

As far as I understand, all switch games have a unique identifier attached to them. If you dump your own games they can be dumped with these identifiers so that they can potentially be played online and Nintendo wont ban you as you are not playing a pirated copy (correct me if I'm mistaken here). If you then play a cartridge with the same certificate as someone else then you will get banned as Nintendo can then tell that you have backup loaded that cartridge as someone else is running the exact same one.

Now my question is: If someone dumps their cartridge with the certificate, trades it into a shop as pre-owned but keeps playing their backup, if i then buy that cartridge and play it online legit (as I am running my game from the cart) will I also get banned?

I ask this as it creates a difficult situation for nintendo where they wouldn't be able to tell who is the hacker and who is the legitimate owner of the cartridge. They either ban both players, ruining it for a legit customer (and killing the pre-owned market) or they ban neither and let the hacker get away free. What do people think will happen here?

Also, if there is a glaring issue with my understanding let me know!

nintendo would specifically ban the cart itself making the cart have no online ability

 

[Bertimo]

nintendo would specifically ban the cart itself making the cart have no online ability

Would that not then kill the entire pre-owned market? that is a big bad PR move don't you think?

 

[LikeATrollFace]

Would that not then kill the entire pre-owned market? that is a big bad PR move don't you think?

It probably wouldn't even put a dent in the pre-owned market. The amount of people that actually backup purchased games and then continue to use them using a backup loader is much smaller than you might think.

 

[Gedi223]

Nintendo wouldn’t mind if the preowned market disappeared. They get zero profits from it. However, the reseller gets all the profits. That’s why GameStop always offers you the cheaper preowned game when you go to buy new.

 

[nyder]

As far as I understand, all switch games have a unique identifier attached to them. If you dump your own games they can be dumped with these identifiers so that they can potentially be played online and Nintendo wont ban you as you are not playing a pirated copy (correct me if I'm mistaken here). If you then play a cartridge with the same certificate as someone else then you will get banned as Nintendo can then tell that you have backup loaded that cartridge as someone else is running the exact same one.

Now my question is: If someone dumps their cartridge with the certificate, trades it into a shop as pre-owned but keeps playing their backup, if i then buy that cartridge and play it online legit (as I am running my game from the cart) will I also get banned?

I ask this as it creates a difficult situation for nintendo where they wouldn't be able to tell who is the hacker and who is the legitimate owner of the cartridge. They either ban both players, ruining it for a legit customer (and killing the pre-owned market) or they ban neither and let the hacker get away free. What do people think will happen here?

Also, if there is a glaring issue with my understanding let me know!

If 2 carts or more are on the Nintendo Network at the same time, those carts will get banned. Possible the account might, because there is no reason for 2 cart certs to be in use at the same time. This is just common sense.

But Nintendo doesn't care if the same cart cert is used more then once as long as it's not at the same time.

For example, I bought Skyrim used. When SX Pro came out, I used it's cert in my xci dumps. That allowed those games that called in home (like Doom) to do so without throwing up an error screen. Nintendo did not care that I wasn't the original owner of Skyrim and it did not care that I was using that cert on my other carts.

I am going to point out I did not use it to play those games online. You want to play games online, you buy them.

Truth is, these certs in the carts do nothing to stop second hand market. They are purely so they know the first person who bought the cart so they can award coins to and then also if people are using pirated copies of the game.

 

[Reecey]

If 2 carts or more are on the Nintendo Network at the same time, those carts will get banned. Possible the account might, because there is no reason for 2 cart certs to be in use at the same time. This is just common sense.

But Nintendo doesn't care if the same cart cert is used more then once as long as it's not at the same time.

For example, I bought Skyrim used. When SX Pro came out, I used it's cert in my xci dumps. That allowed those games that called in home (like Doom) to do so without throwing up an error screen. Nintendo did not care that I wasn't the original owner of Skyrim and it did not care that I was using that cert on my other carts.

I am going to point out I did not use it to play those games online. You want to play games online, you buy them.

Truth is, these certs in the carts do nothing to stop second hand market. They are purely so they know the first person who bought the cart so they can award coins to and then also if people are using pirated copies of the game.

This is why you should always collect your reward coins on your new physical games before you sell them on or lend them out, it then stamps that game on your Nintendo account as you being the original owner therefore I doubt you would receive the ban others probably will. Once they have been collected you cannot collect them again on any other Nintendo account even if someone else buys it second hand therefore Nintendo can hardly ban your certificate as you not being the original owner for all they know you might still be playing the physical cart someone else might of dumped it and passed it on!

 

[Bertimo]

Very interesting, I had just assumed certs were an anti-piracy device.

With that said, if someone dumped a cert and then continued to use that online after selling the game then it could still get banned for the new owner. I understand Nintendo gets no direct profit from pre-owned games but it may impact switch sales or people buying games of they know they couldn't buy/sell pre-owned games. Its this that I think would be the issue

 

[nyder]

Very interesting, I had just assumed certs were an anti-piracy device.

With that said, if someone dumped a cert and then continued to use that online after selling the game then it could still get banned for the new owner. I understand Nintendo gets no direct profit from pre-owned games but it may impact switch sales or people buying games of they know they couldn't buy/sell pre-owned games. Its this that I think would be the issue

I don't think Nintendo really wants to hurt 2nt hand sales or renting. They can come down on the wrong certs on the wrong carts if they wanted, they have the ability to, but so far they haven't cared.