Hacking Question Why are there nearly no homebrews for the Switch?

[fenomeno0chris]

First of all I don't want to offend someone, but just by looking around Ive noticed that there are barely any native homebrews for the Nintendo Switch. Im just curious if all coders out there are waiting for CFW to develop something.

Do homebrews for firmware 1.0-3.0 even work on the upcoming atmosphere CFW?
If yes, why is there no progress in that regard?

I mean there are hundreds of great things, which Im sure the Switch could handle very well like:
- YouTube App
- PDF-Reader
- Streaming Steam, PS4 or Xbox One to the Switch
- Netflix App
- Spotify App
- Philips Hue App
- Lot of Homebrew-Games
- Lot of Emulators

If atmosphere CFW would be released today, the average user actually wouldn't benefit that much right now, since there are "no" homebrews to use.
What do you think?

 

[Deleted User]

u cray cray

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1UteP5tw2HS1H3UntbdohdKYRmS1UDuO

 

[VinsCool]

Hey there friend, give them time. Code doesn't write itself

The scene is still in it infancy, it only recently it exploded, and things are coming at the speed of light.

I'm pretty sure that in a few months, there will be plenty of homebrews done.

 

[Technicmaster0]

-People wanting to write native homebrew need a switch with 1.0.0-3.0.0
-Public ways to test homebrew are only out since a small while, so no real examples etc. are avaible
-GPU rendering doesn't work yet

 

[smilodon]

Yeah, making homebrew isn't as easy as installing a .exe on windows. That's why developer is a paid job you know.

 

[windhazard]

1. HBL is not available for firmware > 3.0.0 yet
2. Consoles with FW <= 3.0.0 are hard to find/costly.
3. It's only 10 days since the bootrom exploit was revealed, and only one year since launching. In comparison to other scenes things are moving so fast here already.
4. Devs don't create homebrews for any one in particular. They do it when they want do.

 

[fenomeno0chris]

I know that its not just an eye-blink to develop an App.
I don't know exactly when homebrew development was enabled for Switch, but more or less half a year?

Am I the only one who thinks, that this should be more than enough time to see more apps?
I haven't even saw a page/threads where someone started for example a Kodi port.

Mostly I see people asking when will CFW be released.
And others show there Linux stuff, but "nothing" really happened natively for the switch.

 

[JaRocker]

First of all I don't want to offend someone, but just by looking around Ive noticed that there are barely any native homebrews for the Nintendo Switch. Im just curious if all coders out there are waiting for CFW to develop something.

Do homebrews for firmware 1.0-3.0 even work on the upcoming atmosphere CFW?
If yes, why is there no progress in that regard?

I mean there are hundreds of great things, which Im sure the Switch could handle very well like:
- YouTube App
- PDF-Reader
- Streaming Steam, PS4 or Xbox One to the Switch
- Netflix App
- Spotify App
- Philips Hue App
- Lot of Homebrew-Games
- Lot of Emulators

If atmosphere CFW would be released today, the average user actually wouldn't benefit that much right now, since there are "no" homebrews to use.
What do you think?

If there's no cfw there will be nothing to run the unsigned codes on so you'll just here to wait a bit I don't think you'll have to wait for long because they are lot of Developers just waiting to get on it

 

[M7L7NK7]

I've always struggled with patience and this whole situation is really teaching it to me, everyday I have to not stick a paperclip in my Switch for no reason and it's killing me

 

[cots]

Most homebrew authors have moved to open systems like Android. The 3DS doesn't have much homebrew either. What you should expect to find on the Switch is emulators, utilities and probably a few ports of games that you will find on nearly every system. The PSP/Wii/NDS was the last generation of great homebrew.

 

[JaRocker]

I've always struggled with patience and this whole situation is really teaching it to me, everyday I have to not stick a paperclip in my Switch for no reason and it's killing me

Lol I know exactly how you feel it's killing me also I'm all over the internet just looking what's new all day everyday if you want some Homebrew right now you'll have to buy a switch with a low firmware

 

[hiroakihsu]

I know that its not just an eye-blink to develop an App.
I don't know exactly when homebrew development was enabled for Switch, but more or less half a year?

Am I the only one who thinks, that this should be more than enough time to see more apps?
I haven't even saw a page/threads where someone started for example a Kodi port.

Mostly I see people asking when will CFW be released.
And others show there Linux stuff, but "nothing" really happened natively for the switch.

Patience my friend...It took years for the 3ds homebrew scene to get to where it is today, so the switch scene will likely take just as long (if not longer).

 

[fenomeno0chris]

Don't get me wrong, Im absolutely able to wait and have patience.
Its just I don't see useful threads here on the "Switch Hacking & Homebrew" corner. There are barely new threads where some developers start a homebrew project for example.

I know its totally stupid to say, but if I could develop, than the first thing I would do is to create a new thread here to showcase my project and generate some help and listen to feedback.

 

[JaRocker]

Patience my friend...It took years for the 3ds homebrew scene to get to where it is today, so the switch scene will likely take just as long (if not longer).

I don't think so it told the Nintendo 3 DS that long because it didn't have the access that the switch has now

 

[hiroakihsu]

I don't think so it told the Nintendo 3 DS that long because it didn't have the access that the switch has now

Just because it got hacked earlier than 3ds does not mean homebrew will necessarily come earlier...As someone else said above, it takes time (and effort) to develop homebrew apps. Things don't happen automatically.

 

[DogParty]

An actual answer is that the sdk just isn't there yet. There's no documentation to libnx, it's being actively developed each day, and it's really barebones. There isn't a proper SDK that would allow developers to easily create Switch apps (a la iOS' UIKit or Android's Views) so everything has to be done by hand. There is a preliminary port of SDL2 but most SDL games are written in SDL1.2 which was developed and then went MIA. I think there's a branch on devkitpro's github that should sorta function but it's missing joystick support and lacks the other libs like SDL_Image, SDL_Mixer, etc. Oh, and the fact that the Switch runs a proprietary OS means porting a lot of libraries won't be simple. We also don't have any hardware acceleration in either libnx or these SDL ports. That would lead to a huge increase in functionality but we're just not there yet. Once we get that going then maybe we will see OpenGL support which would vastly increase the amount of homebrew accessible to the device.

As it stands, making a YouTube client would mean:

1. Writing your own UI code nearly from scratch (buttons, thumbnails, animations, menus, etc).
2. Writing the networking code to interact with their API.
3. Writing the code or porting a library to parse the JSON response
4. Porting something like ffmpeg to process a video file
5. Writing a Video view that interacts with ffmpeg and handles drawing each frame and syncing the audio.
6. Thennnnn you have the other YouTube things like playlists, search, user accounts, home page, reviews, etc, etc.

People need to understand just how fucking early it is in this device's lifecycle. A lot of you are acting as if developers can just open Xcode and make a fun app but are just choosing not to.

 

[JaRocker]

Just because it got hacked earlier than 3ds does not mean homebrew will necessarily come earlier...As someone else said above, it takes time (and effort) to develop homebrew apps. Things don't happen automatically.

That's not what I'm saying I'm just saying it's not gonna be as long as the 3sd that's all

 

[hiroakihsu]

That's not what I'm saying I'm just saying it's not gonna be as long as the 3sd that's all

Anyways what I'm trying to say is...Just be patient.

 

[DarthDub]

Can't you wait for 1 more month? Atmosphere CFW will be out in the summer.

 

[garyopa]

As @DogParty points out, the biggest problem is 'SDK' -- homebrew authors to be legit, still a gray area, want to at least use a open-source SDK, and one has not existed that is good since the days of PS3 scene. -- otherwise you have to use highly illegal leaked nintendo official sdk, and then if homebrew made with it, you could not be able to link to complied binary or source code of it.