
Mere hours after the release of Nintendo‘s new online service, crafty gamers have already hacked the shit out of it, allowing them to upload and play an extended range of NES games on the console’s emulator.
[jwplayer ufxzSg8Y]
Nintendo Switch Online comes with a catalogue of 20 classic games – with more to be added down the track – but with a couple of cheeky internet searches, fans can allegedly follow a few easy steps to add more themselves.
The first video of the trick shows someone launching the classic game, Battletoads, within the Switch’s own emulator. It doesn’t show how it was all set up, but it shows it’s possible.
It didn’t take long for others to add their own videos of custom games running on the Switch.
https://twitter.com/KapuccinoHeck/status/1042274968963301376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1042274968963301376&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.polygon.com%2F2018%2F9%2F19%2F17879042%2Fnintendo-switch-onlines-nes-emulator-hacked
The Twitter user above, @KapuccinoHeck, told Polygon that uploading your own ROMs can be a pain to set up initially, but once it is, swapping out and adding new games is a total piece of piss. Even those with limited experience could do it with the right set of instructions, they said.
But just because it can be done doesn’t necessarily mean you should be. Nintendo could easily turn around and ban any user caught illegally uploading games to its platform, so you’re probably best off just waiting for them to add the game themselves.
And no, there’s likely no security threat that comes with this oversight.
“I have serious doubts that it points to any vulnerabilities, I’d say it’s just a side-effect of making it easy on them to add more games as they officially release more, thus making it easy for modders as well,” @KapuccinoHeck told Polygon.
https://twitter.com/KapuccinoHeck/status/1042430939970920448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1042430939970920448&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.polygon.com%2F2018%2F9%2F19%2F17879042%2Fnintendo-switch-onlines-nes-emulator-hacked
You gotta hand it to ’em folks, that didn’t take very long at all.