Why do you hack your consoles (except piracy)?

[toolazytosearchitmyself]

For the Switch overclocking, 60FPS and higher resolution mods and Retroarch are perfectly good reasons to hack it. Save editing is either cheating or time saving depending on your opinion. Region locking is an issue on older systems. In the past, hacked consoles were good media players but these days almost everyone has a smart TV.

 

[godreborn]

I do not own a smart tv. I don't have the money.

 

[subcon959]

I enjoy modding things to make them do stuff they weren't meant to do. Just for the fun of it.

 

[caipora]

Custom home screen. My 3DS has a really cool EarthBound theme and it is pretty easy do download this kind of thing.

 

[raging_chaos]

To add additional QOL improvements and functionality that aren't included by default. In some cases, it's to restore a feature that was removed, like what Sony did with "Other OS". Customization is a very valid reason.

 

[AngryCinnabon]

Custom themes are a big deal for me, especially on the Switch because for some damn reason they've not made any. I also enjoy overclocking on consoles that feasibly support it, getting that little bit of extra power is something I like. Then there's emulators, that's always a good reason. Lastly QoL like raging chaos said, that's always good.

 

[aea]

To run ancient ms-dos software, of course: just imagine an apocalyptic event that fries all electronics except the ones protected against emp, if my ds/i survives and I have still installed a spreadsheet with dsx86, I would become god emperor Doom!!

 

[RyanTheArchivist]

For the Switch overclocking, 60FPS and higher resolution mods and Retroarch are perfectly good reasons to hack it. Save editing is either cheating or time saving depending on your opinion. Region locking is an issue on older systems. In the past, hacked consoles were good media players but these days almost everyone has a smart TV.

I use my Switch for game mods and dumping my cartridges.

 

[pokota]

In my case, it's because that lets me use it at an impromptu media machine. My switch in particular doubles as an audiobook player when I need it to.

Also, ftp access is super convenient and lets me use my console as a backup space for... well, stuff like the aforementioned audiobooks.

 

[rcpd]

In my case, it's because that lets me use it at an impromptu media machine. My switch in particular doubles as an audiobook player when I need it to.

Also, ftp access is super convenient and lets me use my console as a backup space for... well, stuff like the aforementioned audiobooks.

I have a 3DS that I removed the magnet from the top screen casing specifically so it would not go into sleep mode when I closed it so I could use it to listen to audiobooks. It would no longer shut off the displays but it didn't matter because I could close it and stuff it it a pocket and walk around listening to music or audiobooks. I had an iPhone 3G with 8Gb of storage space and my 3DS had a 16Gb microSD card with an adapter, essentially tripling how much music and audiobooks I could walk around with me. (On the 8Gb iPhone, iPhoneOS took like 4Gb so I only got about 3.75Gb to play with.)

 

[NostalgicMillennial]

Cause fuck NIntendo

 

[mrmagicm]

Of course!!! I Said it a very long time ago......Tablet are nearly dead since Android TV since it's much better playing on a BIG TV screen than a tablet, playing on a phone (except in transports or on vacation).
One day, Retro will be delivered directly with TVS like Retro is proposed in planes!! But even....Powerfull Android tv will replaces even consoles!! And SONY Cannot even understand it's important to make their Gamepad on all android TV they sell even old ones! Nintendo will get Fucked because of this.
I Don' t UNDERSTAND why GBATEMP don't understand this.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Originally I used to look into hacking consoles for homebrew apps and games, maybe the occasional romhack. The PSP, PS3, Wii, and DS all had excellent homebrew apps and games that would far extend the stock use of those consoles, piracy just ended up being a nice extra in the end.

These days though it's really just for piracy. The homebrew scene is pretty much dead for the most part, you never see people actually develop their own games or software anymore, it's all just Retroarch ports or DOS game engine ports. Not that these aren't impressive or anything, it's just I'd rather see original content than the 100th port of Retroarch to XYZ console.

 

[raging_chaos]

you never see people actually develop their own games or software anymore

That's because these days indie devs don't have to when it comes to modern consoles. They can release their work onto official shops and charge $1-$5 bucks, this isn't like a few generations ago when dev tools were closed off behind huge developer paywalls and indie devs had no choice but to homebrew and write their own engines/tools from scratch.

The Sega Saturn/Dreamcast and other retro scenes are still alive and kicking though.

Unreal Demo using XL2’s custom Sega Saturn engine:

 

[boot3]

To play cool homebrew games made by the community, to customize my system to my liking, and to use discontinued services via fan servers.

 

[eyeliner]

Piracy, like 100% of people.

Don't try to fool anyone. You go through all the trouble of modding for a custom menu, or colors, when the device is in that screen for a few seconds at a time.... Yeah... Right...

Despite all that, my non modded switch is used heavily. And despite legit, I still managed to create a backlog still with legit games.
Go figure.

 

[Sphaa]

Same as Subcom 959 - I enjoy modding things to make them do stuff they weren't meant to do. Just for the fun of it.

 

[darksweet]

cheats

 

[CoolMe]

Just to piss off Ninty of course..

 

[Kwyjor]

Access to my save data. I might have never gotten into this at all if my SD card hadn't gone bad and nearly consumed my Pokemon Shuffle save file. And there's hope for my dying Smash Bros cart as well.

I can understand why these things shouldn't be completely accessible, but when you put that much effort into a saved game, there really ought to be an easy way of backing it up.