Hacker Strongly Warns Nintendo Switch Owners Not To Pirate Games

A leading and prominent member of the hacking community, SciresM, has released his findings on the anti-piracy measures he has found on Nintendo Switch. This comes the same day as our report on the state of piracy on Nintendo Switch.

Here’s what happens in the background when someone tries to play online in a Nintendo Switch game:

1. Your console verifies that it can connect to the internet.

2. Your console verifies that it can get a device authorization token to go online — that it is not banned.

3. Your console authorizes the Nintendo Account being signed into.

4. Your console obtains an application authorization token for the specific title being played.

The first three points should be self-explanatory, but what makes things interesting is point 4. According to SciresM, Nintendo is able to detect whether a user is playing a pirated copy of a digital game or Game Card by simply checking the game’s signed ticket/certificate.

Signed tickets/certificates contain information about your game, version, some unknown information, and for digital games even the Nintendo Account used to purchase it.

As signed tickets/certificates are encrypted and couldn’t be easily forged, Nintendo has perfected a way to filter out pirates. If they choose, they could ban every pirate who goes online automatically when a ticket or certificate doesn’t match.

Of course, pirates could choose not to go online, but they would be missing out playing against others online in games such as Splatoon 2, Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, Pokemon Let’s GO Pikachu/Eevee, and many more.

SciresM ended off his findings with a single piece of advice – don’t pirate games.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.