Nintendo faces legal action over ability to brick Switch 2s whenever they want
Nintendo faces legal action over ability to brick Switch 2s whenever they want

Nintendo faces legal action over ability to brick Switch 2s whenever they want - Dexerto

Nintendo faces legal action over ability to brick Switch 2s whenever they want
Nintendo faces legal action over ability to brick Switch 2s whenever they want - Dexerto
This has been illegal in the EU since 2011 (with extra clauses in 2019).
A lot of the Switch 2's UA is also illegal in Brazil. For example, check section 7 (Dispute Resolution) - IIRC law protection is considered an inalienable right in Brazil, you can't simply sign it off.
However Nintendo has been shielding itself by saying "ackshyually, we aren't conducting business in Brazil". That's why São Paulo's Procon is calling it out.
Nintendo lost my interest. I stopped playing the Switch 1 back a couple years ago. I still have it... but I no longer feel like it will even work later, so I should sell it and any games I have.
I've lost every penny on any download only titles. The physical carts are the only ones GameStop will by for pennies.
Too bad, as I loved playing Mario multi-player with friends kids all the time. Now I just feel like there are better things to do.
Nintendo started phoning it in about halfway through the Wii's lifespan and never quit. Every game is now a huge sandbox and playing with the physics is the game. I'm on edge with Odyssey. I think there's some fine Marioing to be had in it, but a lot of it feels very empty, surface-level and rushed... like everything they do since, I dunno, BOTW.
Do people really use the term "brick" to refer to consoles with permanent online bans? To me they're very different and a brick is much worse.
For the switch 2 it’s far more restrictive from the few videos I’ve seen where people have used flash carts and gotten banned. For one, a good deal of the games don’t exist on physical media even if you purchase physical copies. So an online ban means that if the console is ever reset for any reason those games are done. No updates obviously.
Though I do think some physical games will work without needing a digital “receipt” at least to activate and play, so you are correct in that the console isn’t entirely useless after being banned, just significantly limited in functionality and restricts you from playing a majority of your game library (even if 99% of those games have no online component)
That last point is the kicker for me. There should be regulation on this. If you’re sony/nintendo/microsoft and you’re pissed I modified my console and want to ban me because I might cheat online? Fine, I guess. If you want to ban me from making purchases because you’re afraid I spoofed the purchasing system? Ban me from making purchases, I guess. But you should never be able to ban me from redownloading titles I have purchased legitimately.
Frankly the 3ds freeshop fiasco (which, unlike switch freeshops that rely on external servers, was a system that spoofed nintendos purchase authentication ticketing system and allowed downloading directly from their servers) has likely made nintendo overly wary. The counterpoint to this though is that nintendo handled that situation terribly. The freeshop worked for years. They sent a dmca takedown almost immediately for the software but obviously people kept hosting copies. It took them almost 2 years to patch and at that point the 3ds was basically dead.
Imagine sony or microsoft in the same situation: their console is exploited with a softmod. They’re already probably working on a hardware revision to stop the softmod. But then an exploit comes out that allows modded users to download literally any game, update, or dlc from their servers, for free? They’d have that patched in weeks, maybe days (though tbf they’d probably also issue tons of bans here)
So essentially nintendo is overcorrecting because in the past they’ve made boneheaded security decisions and responded to people exploiting them like idiots. That’s not anyone’s fault but nintendos and it doesn’t mean they should be allowed to be super hostile to consumers. Fuck the switch 2
Without online functionality, the system might as well be bricked. I'm not 100% so someone can fact check but I'm reasonably certain it will refuse to let you play any software you've downloaded and only allow you use physical carts without the option to update them. When 90% of a console is built around online activity, being able to remotely disable that makes the console useless.
Thats bullshit. The switch 1 also had all of this functionality and nobody complained...
Physical media ftw btw
First lookup what youre saying, seriously. None of what you said is true. If it was, a system that had no internet could not start any downloaded content, which it can...
Backwards comparability obviously might not work because it needs the title update to get possible fixes if not big part of the gpu shaders that were recompiled for switch 2 ( which is needed because the switch 1 and switch 2 gpu's are not compatible ). Iirc from my sources within the switch homebrew community it tries to trans compile them but might not always work, hence title updates.
And if you got the console banned, you did some serious bad shit haha
You are correct. A banned Switch 2 is severely limited in what it can do, but it is not "bricked."
If the banned system is reset like in a trade-in then even offline games will not work.
Get a Steam Deck, or any of the other PC handhelds out there.
I accidentally purchased the OLED switch right before getting my steam deck. I never touch the thing.
Same. I got a Switch so my partner and I could play games with their sister. It collects dust as it turns out my partner has no interest in learning to play games and I can play modded Switch games with better graphics on my PC.
Yeah, that's how my divorce started too.
Same situation for me. Buying a switch was a big regret after getting a Steam deck.
The only thing my switch is good for is playing the Nintendo archive games for N64 or Game Boy or whatever
all the new games I've tried suck, and that's a tough pill at the price. to be fair, I haven't tried that many
Emulation on a pc is so so so easy. You could get a handheld and have access to everything made for 40 years with practically the snap of a finger.
I bet the automotive industry is taking notes right now. Imagine modifying your car only for GM or Ford to brick your vehicle.
Procon-SP is a state customer protection organ. It's more like "São Paulo's watchdog" than "Brazil's watchdog". However since the state in question is populous and has relatively high purchasing power per capita, typically megacorpos beeline towards it anyway.
I'll coarsely translate here the news from Procon-SP's site. Emphasis mine in all cases, as I want to highlight something.
See the bolded parts? São Paulo's Procon is basically telling people "Don't buy stuff from Nintendo, it's an irregular business in Brazil."
Am I correct in seeing a similarity between this and the Xitter drama from 2024? Something about X not having a physical presence in Brazil to sue for damages, and Brazil was going to block it as a result.
In both cases you have businesses using the lack of legal representation to avoid following local laws. But that's it; everything else is quite different.
I don't think Procon organs have the power to ban the sales of an imported good within their states. But even if they do, note that this would only apply to the state (in this case São Paulo). Plus Nintendo is being considerably more tactful than that braindead idiot called Musk.
Not Gaming, but smartphone manufacturers can remotely brick your device...
Yea, shit's fucked.
Fuck Nintendo, but restricting a console from downloading and updating games is not the same thing as "bricking" it. That's when a console is made unable to function at all. A banned Switch 2 can still get firmware updates and play physical games (what few there are on Switch 2). The legal action is justified, but the terminology being used in these articles is incorrect.
When the physical games require downloading to start using them, I think that starts crossing lines into bricking territory even if it's not entirely accurate.
You pirate one game -> nintendo restricts your console to only play pirated games. Funny
It seems to be worse than that. Get a second hand console and it maybe already bricked as it looks like they only ban the console not the account. As per the lawsuit.
Sony and microsoft have also done that for like a decade+. 2nd hand market was filled to the brim with people selling bricked consoles that couldn't go online. Walmarts warranty changed over xbox' because people would but a new 360, swap out the internals with their bricked consoles or broken consoles, and then return the "new" console back to Wal Mart.
No. If you happen to try to fix it by doing a system wipe you play zero games. It's literally a brick. Can't do anything.