Buying your Switch games second-hand is a great way to minimize the Nintendo tax, but it’s about to get riskier. Thanks to the arrival of some new hardware, buying used Switch games could land you in hot water with Nintendo. Here’s what you need to know.
Introducing the MiG Switch Card and ROM Dumper
The MiG Switch card is a flash cartridge designed for all models of Nintendo Switch that allows you to play Switch games directly from a microSD card. The MiG Switch Dumper is a device for “dumping” software copies of games (known as ROMs) to an SD card for use with the MiG Switch card.
It’s been possible to dump Switch ROMs for years using a modified Switch that’s running custom firmware. Dumped ROMs typically consist of a single file that can be played using modified Nintendo hardware or on an emulator. While emulating a platform isn’t necessarily illegal, creating ROMs may be, and disseminating them certainly is.
Until now, it wasn’t possible to spit out an exact replica of a game cartridge. Notably absent was the ROM certificate, a file that identifies each Nintendo Switch cartridge as a unique entity. This is what makes it possible to claim Nintendo Rewards once per cartridge.
The MiG Switch changes that. Thanks to the presence of a cheap, sub-$10 ESP32 microcontroller and an FPGA—a type of chip that can be reprogrammed on the fly—the MiG Switch dumper can grab all of the data from a Switch game cartridge, including that all-important unique ROM certificate.
With these files, the MiG Switch card can perfectly emulate a unique cartridge. The Switch console cannot tell the difference between the original game card and the MiG Switch with a microSD card in it. In the US, the MiG Switch card and ROM dumper cost around $70 each at retail.
These devices are marketed at those who want to create backups of their physical game cartridges so that they only need to carry a single cartridge with them to access a range of games. This sounds great in theory, but you can probably already see where this is heading.
You May Unwittingly Buy Cloned Games
There’s no point pretending that Nintendo Switch piracy doesn’t exist, but until now it has largely been a pursuit that requires technical know-how and care. Switch pirates playing on original hardware know all too well that their consoles could be banned by Nintendo, which is why playing pirated titles in an offline state is so important.
But now the game has changed. Switch games and Nintendo titles, in general, are notoriously expensive. Buying second-hand is a great strategy for anyone looking to save some money. Cartridges are more durable than the optical media used by Sony and Microsoft consoles, so there’s been relatively little risk in doing so until now.
The website gametalkz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
GameStop is currently offering a buy two, get one free sale on its entire catalog of pre-owned titles. Add three eligible games to your cart, and the cheapest one will be free. The pre-owned prices on most of these games aren’t much lower than what you’d pay for a new copy, but the inclusion of a free game and plenty of new releases to choose from makes this worth checking out.
In 2023, Strange Scaffold released El Paso, Elsewhere, a horror-tinged throwback to the likes of Max Payne that also told a deeply personal and unsettling story about a toxic relationship. Its next game, Life Eater, puts players in the shoes of a serial killer seeking out new targets to kill and sacrifice to a god he’s starting to question the existence of. This isn’t a Manhunt- or Hitman-style stalk-and-kill game; it offers a feeling of detachment by having players parse through timelines to learn everything they need to abduct and properly sacrifice a target.
History would tell you that 2024 isn’t a year where you should expect a lot of new game consoles. We’re smack dab in the middle of a console generation and we’ve already seen the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series S get upgrades during it. A wave of brand new consoles is likely four years away if the precedent set by previous generations holds up.
Harold Halibut, a unique narrative game developed by Slow Bros. is releasing day one on Xbox Game Pass, and subscribers will also be able to upgrade for free to Grounded: Fully Yoked Edition. Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass continues to offer an appealing library of games for members to enjoy, and the selection changes every month as new titles are added and others are removed.
A dedicated Nintendo fan has shared photos of their incredible collection with dozens of Amiibos, Switch editions, and other items. Nintendo's fans have a well-known love for the brand, and they often show it off in different ways. One common way Nintendo fans show how much they appreciate the company's consoles, and the games released for them, is by putting together impressive collections.
Nintendo has announced the arrival of three old-school games cominf to. Members can now try out the Super Famicom games Wrecking Crew ’98 and Amazing Hebereke and the SNES title Super R-Type. Of the three games, only Super R-Type was previously released outside of Japan.
The Nintendo Switch Online service has added three games for subscribers to play, with two of these games previously being Japan-only releases. The three games added to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service are Super R-Type, Amazing Hebereke, and Wrecking Crew '98. These three retro titles are underrated games that were released on the SNES.
Dicefolk, a highly rated creature collector roguelike, is coming soon to the Nintendo Switch, where it's looking to find a new audience after quickly racking up great reviews on Steam. Games that market themselves as new approaches to the Pokemon formula are starting to sprout up more and more as they seemingly try to replicate the success of Palworld from earlier this year.
Fans of cozy games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons have a new game to keep an eye on as Amber Isle has been announced for Nintendo Switch and Steam. This in-development game with Animal Crossing vibes puts an intriguing and adorable spin on the genre by placing players on an island full of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life.
Many users report that their Amazon pre-orders for physical copies of two anticipated Nintendo remakes, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, have been unexpectedly canceled. Fortunately, Amazon users still have time to pre-order physical copies of the games through other retailers before they release later this year.