…the way Switch carts are made there is no difference at all between a cart used on a console and the same cart resold for a different console.
IIRC every cartridge has its own cryptographic key and can be uniquely identified. When it became possible to dump game cards and load them on a flash card, there were reports, that it is possible, that this might lead to a detection - as the flashcards need to replicate this key. Now, Nintendo might have no way to tell if you lend the game to someone, of the other switch that uses it bought the game from you, etc. BUT if it is pirated, it’s possible to detect, when the original and the copy are played at the same time, as the cartridge cannot be physically in two switches simultaneously. There were never any reports, that someone really got banned because of this, though…
Yes, maybe the seller dumped the cart and is still using it via emulation. Now, the buyer used the same cart with the same crypto key and Nintendo detected two uses at the same time.
Both the carts and the digital downloads are signed, but the cart signature is not stored with the account or associated to it, to my knowledge.
With digital games you can run them on two Switch consoles at once and, while that has been complicated by the “virtual cards” it would not ban you, it’d just kick you out of the game.
I can’t promise that they aren’t flagging physical cards showing up in two places at once. That is possible, as I said above. I am just not aware of that being a thing that they do, and it would not be Switch 2-specific, so it’d be surprising we only hear about it now.
It could be that this guy got himself a bootleg cart, but that sounds expensive to create for how cheap used Switch games are, and you’d get dinged on the flashcart, period, it wouldn’t necessarily require the game to appear in two places at once.
So it’s not that I’m saying this didn’t happen, I’m saying I don’t know what happened or why just from what is currently being reported.
They’ve been flagging physical carts showing up in multiple places at the same time since the very moment the first Switch flashcart appeared (so likely before we ever had our hands on any). Places discussing the flashcart had been talking about increased detection and bans for a year or so.
It was even done on the 3DS before that. The 3DS had a whole tiny niche ecosystem of people selling “private headers”, dumping only the unique per cartridge info and selling it with the promise that they’d only sell any given header to one person. That too had a few instances of normal people complaining about bans with pre-owned games.
Right. I think the confusion stems from the linked article framing this as someone getting banned for using a second hand Switch 1 game on a Switch 2.
What actually seems to have happened is someone bought a dumped cart, got their account banned when it was flagged for not being unique and then had a relatively easy time of getting customer support to unban them when he called to explain he actually did own the physical cart.
From that perspective it all makes some sense, it’s just not what Metro decided to report, I’m assuming due to being swept into reports of resold bricked Switch 2s.
IIRC every cartridge has its own cryptographic key and can be uniquely identified. When it became possible to dump game cards and load them on a flash card, there were reports, that it is possible, that this might lead to a detection - as the flashcards need to replicate this key. Now, Nintendo might have no way to tell if you lend the game to someone, of the other switch that uses it bought the game from you, etc. BUT if it is pirated, it’s possible to detect, when the original and the copy are played at the same time, as the cartridge cannot be physically in two switches simultaneously. There were never any reports, that someone really got banned because of this, though…
Yes, maybe the seller dumped the cart and is still using it via emulation. Now, the buyer used the same cart with the same crypto key and Nintendo detected two uses at the same time.
Both the carts and the digital downloads are signed, but the cart signature is not stored with the account or associated to it, to my knowledge.
With digital games you can run them on two Switch consoles at once and, while that has been complicated by the “virtual cards” it would not ban you, it’d just kick you out of the game.
I can’t promise that they aren’t flagging physical cards showing up in two places at once. That is possible, as I said above. I am just not aware of that being a thing that they do, and it would not be Switch 2-specific, so it’d be surprising we only hear about it now.
It could be that this guy got himself a bootleg cart, but that sounds expensive to create for how cheap used Switch games are, and you’d get dinged on the flashcart, period, it wouldn’t necessarily require the game to appear in two places at once.
So it’s not that I’m saying this didn’t happen, I’m saying I don’t know what happened or why just from what is currently being reported.
They’ve been flagging physical carts showing up in multiple places at the same time since the very moment the first Switch flashcart appeared (so likely before we ever had our hands on any). Places discussing the flashcart had been talking about increased detection and bans for a year or so.
It was even done on the 3DS before that. The 3DS had a whole tiny niche ecosystem of people selling “private headers”, dumping only the unique per cartridge info and selling it with the promise that they’d only sell any given header to one person. That too had a few instances of normal people complaining about bans with pre-owned games.
Right. I think the confusion stems from the linked article framing this as someone getting banned for using a second hand Switch 1 game on a Switch 2.
What actually seems to have happened is someone bought a dumped cart, got their account banned when it was flagged for not being unique and then had a relatively easy time of getting customer support to unban them when he called to explain he actually did own the physical cart.
From that perspective it all makes some sense, it’s just not what Metro decided to report, I’m assuming due to being swept into reports of resold bricked Switch 2s.