Homebrew WIP aoc-mitm PoC, intercepting Switch's Add-on content services

[XorTroll]

So, this is the result of a random thought I had a few weeks ago:

Since some games already contain their DLC's contents within the game itself or with the latest update, thus the DLC content users install is empty so they aren't mounting any content from it... what if I intercepted Add-on content services (services used for games to check which DLC is installed)?

The result is that for some games, like Smash Bros., this makes them insta-unlock all their DLC contents, without even having them in your system.
Link to the source code of the PoC: https://github.com/XorTroll/aoc-mitm

Unlocking DLC without even thinking of title installers or NSPs... is this considered piracy? I'd say it's on a grey area, thus I'm not directly making a proper release of this work (at least for now) and I'm just showing it here as a PoC. In the end, it's just a simple mitm telling the game that it has tons of DLC contents instead of zero / real DLC count.

Note that games whose DLCs do contain contents (even if it is a single text file with DLC information) will crash when being used with this mitm, result of the game failing to mount DLC contents since they do not actually exist.

To compile the work you will need master libnx, and you can control it with its overlay - select a title to be intercepted next time it's launched.

 

[falcorr]

Seems like a great idea but I don't think it's ideal to just unlock everything, e.g. sometimes I don't want immersion-breaking costumes.

 

[gnze796]

I consider this game modding, like unlocking a level that is there but cannot be played right away.

 

[hippy dave]

AOC says it's fine, don't worry about it.

 

[Mirian]

Hello,
I've been trying to compile this for hours now and can't seem to get it right. Please, help!

 

[ghjfdtg]

Probably more fraud than piracy. Since you still bypass the paywall but you are not pirating anything. It's not easy to tell but i doubt courts would rule against the game studios here.

 

[DocKlokMan]

Interesting. Reminds me of the 3DS days where all the DLC was in one file so you could spoof unlock all the DLC easily.

Suggestions if you're open to them:

Instead of having a master titles.list instead make it so there's something like an aoc.list file in the game's /atmosphere/content/ directory. Inside the file is a list of DLC IDs you wish to spoof.

What it would do is get the list of currently installed DLC, add the contents of the aoc.list IDs, then send that. This way you won't crash by spoofing DLC that has content and you can simply check if the aoc.list file is in the directly to decide whether to activate the MITM or not.

It also satisfies those that want to pick and choose their DLC. Just take the code you have for reading the contents of titles.list and instead have it read DLC IDs from /atmosphere/contents/{app_id}/aoc.list and if that file doesn't exist then the MITM won't execute.

 

[mathew77]

Seems veeeeery interesting and useful, too!