[STEAM] Switch 2 users report online console bans after running personal game “backups”

[Steam 0]

Earlier this week, the makers of the popular Mig Flash cartridge, which allows users to play Switch games loaded via an SD card without modifying the console itself,

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enabling the cards to run original Switch games on the Switch 2. Since then, though, multiple Mig Flash users are reporting that they've seen their Switch 2 consoles banned from Nintendo's online servers, even in cases where the devices were only used to run backups of legitimate games the users purchased themselves.

"My Switch 2 test has been banned after using the Mig [Flash] with perfectly legal dumps of my own cartridges, so it would seem that Nintendo can detect something," popular hacking news account Switch Tools

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(along with

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they said they had backed up using the device). "I strongly recommend that you do not use the Mig [Flash], it was already very risky to use but it is even more so on Switch 2."

My Switch 2 test has been banned, after using the mig switch with perfectly legal dumps of my own cartridges, so it would seem that Nintendo can detect something
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are starting to come in.

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I strongly…

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— SwitchTools (@SwitchTools)

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The insistence that the ban came while using "perfectly legal dumps of my own cartridges" is important here. Nintendo has

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to identify when individual copies of Switch games are being shared for the purposes of piracy. If Nintendo notices the same cryptographic signature on security certificates being used by hundreds of different consoles and accounts, for instance, the company can be relatively sure that all those users are engaging in piracy.

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