Hacking New Switch owner needs help

BL888

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Hi All

I just got a switch with 4 games. I understand that version 3 firmware is ideal for homebrew potential.

What is the best way to update the switch to version 3 firmware?

current games:
mario oddesy
mario kart
lego undercover
mario and rabbids

many thanks
 

spotanjo3

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BL888

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The only game that we know 100% sure off that it has the update for 3.0.0 is Tokken Tournament DX.
But if you can play Mario Oddyssey you are probably on 3.0.1 already.


Thanks. I am still on 2.3 firmware. If i put in mario oddessy will that update me to 3.01?
 

jt_1258

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The only game that we know 100% sure off that it has the update for 3.0.0 is Tokken Tournament DX.
But if you can play Mario Oddyssey you are probably on 3.0.1 already.
Pokken Tournament
it's a spinoff of Pokemon, not Tokemon XD
 

H1B1Esquire

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This might sound bad, but.....keep that Switch and get another. I can guarantee you that you'll thank yourself later for holding out on the upgrade. Actually, if you look on ebay, you can get a replacement console (just tablet) for about $200.00, which isn't that bad.
 

V-Temp

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Thanks All.

Is 3.01 the same as 3.0?

Ie best held for home brew? Or can I only go on 3.0?

There are several delineations for 'homebrew' on the Switch, and they are fairly hard ones due to the inability to roll back but also because Nintendo has routinely completely revoked access information:
  • 1.0.0-2.3.0 - Early Switch OS, kernel, and general and inevitable launch jank. This is the most broken firmware set with all sorts of quirks as is normal for early launch but its almost non-existent at this point. Things may or may not come from this baseline but its also very likely to be 'trapped' there as well as a lot of the issues have been patched out and not-forward-reproducible. Again, this is going to be a fairly rare firmware set going forward especially because...
  • 3.0.0 - Nintendo accidentally goofed and created a hole for ROhan (https://reswitched.tech/rohan), this is where the most current mind-share is for interest for people, it has basically all the necessary functionality accessible for effective homebrew even though its not a full-on kernel compromise (kernel compromise would be ROhan but better). A lot of 1.0.0-2.3.0 (even here) have transitioned to this firmware as the 'hot topic'. It is also the easiest to get and can be achieved from below by the Pokken cart update. Effectively, with ROhan we already have homebrew, we're just in the phase of developing the tools for use within.
  • 3.0.1 - Patched ROhan, generally far more stable than anything under it. Interest here has minimal public mind-share. This has been the general publicly known hard-cutoff as even dumps stop at this point.
  • 4.0.0 - Patched *something* and is as far as I am aware currently secure.
Also because of HackerOne, in general, the higher the firmware goes the more holes will get plugged as they are reported... until Nintendo runs out of fuse material for downgrade protections.

That's where we stand. ROhan is the general advised 'goal' that is also not absurdly difficult and/or luck dependent to find at this point.
 
Last edited by V-Temp,

ZoNtendo

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There are several delineations for 'homebrew' on the Switch, and they are fairly hard ones due to the inability to roll back but also because Nintendo has routinely completely revoked access information:
  • 1.0.0-2.3.0 - Early Switch OS, kernel, and general and inevitable launch jank. This is the most broken firmware set with all sorts of quirks as is normal for early launch but its almost non-existent at this point. Things may or may not come from this baseline but its also very likely to be 'trapped' there as well as a lot of the issues have been patched out and not-forward-reproducible. Again, this is going to be a fairly rare firmware set going forward especially because...
  • 3.0.0 - Nintendo accidentally goofed and created a hole for ROhan (https://reswitched.tech/rohan), this is where the most current mind-share is for interest for people, it has basically all the necessary functionality accessible for effective homebrew even though its not a full-on kernel compromise (kernel compromise would be ROhan but better). A lot of 1.0.0-2.3.0 (even here) have transitioned to this firmware as the 'hot topic'. It is also the easiest to get and can be achieved from below by the Pokken cart update. Effectively, with ROhan we already have homebrew, we're just in the phase of developing the tools for use within.
  • 3.0.1 - Patched ROhan, generally far more stable than anything under it. Interest here has minimal public mind-share. This has been the general publicly known hard-cutoff as even dumps stop at this point.
  • 4.0.0 - Patched *something* and is as far as I am aware currently secure.
Also because of HackerOne, in general, the higher the firmware goes the more holes will get plugged as they are reported... until Nintendo runs out of fuse material for downgrade protections.

That's where we stand. ROhan is the general advised 'goal' that is also not absurdly difficult and/or luck dependent to find at this point.
Does that mean what we could achieve on 1.0 would work on 2.3 ?

Since I have heard that 1.0 is the golden firmware for some reason I am trying to get one and that a pain to find, 2.X will propably be easier to find.
 

duffmmann

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Thanks. I am still on 2.3 firmware. If i put in mario oddessy will that update me to 3.01?

Yeah, unfortunately, there currently is no way to play Mario Odyssey on 3.0 or earlier firmware. So if you want to play that game you'll have to sacrifice your ability to hack (currently anyway, perhaps new exploits for later firmwares will drop in the future, but there is never any guarantee for something like that).
 
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V-Temp

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Does that mean what we could achieve on 1.0 would work on 2.3 ?

Since I have heard that 1.0 is the golden firmware for some reason I am trying to get one and that a pain to find, 2.X will propably be easier to find.

I just bunched them up as a general "this is all crap" but 2.3.0 was a fuse-burner patch so it is not necessarily the same as 1.0.0 and they do have differences as things were patched in the launch-day release of 2.3.0, but they are both really early and therefore really bad. I was looking to do the hard breaks which are AlotofJankBad/ROhan/Patched/PatchedEvenMore.
 
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g4jek8j54

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I am trying to get one and that a pain to find, 2.X will propably be easier to find.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-S...876898&hash=item33ddc2e2a5:g:52AAAOSwICpaEcAV :P

Of course, I am joking, and would not suggest paying that amount of money for a 1.0.0 Switch.

There are several delineations for 'homebrew' on the Switch, and they are fairly hard ones due to the inability to roll back but also because Nintendo has routinely completely revoked access information:
  • 1.0.0-2.3.0 - Early Switch OS, kernel, and general and inevitable launch jank. This is the most broken firmware set with all sorts of quirks as is normal for early launch but its almost non-existent at this point. Things may or may not come from this baseline but its also very likely to be 'trapped' there as well as a lot of the issues have been patched out and not-forward-reproducible. Again, this is going to be a fairly rare firmware set going forward especially because...
  • 3.0.0 - Nintendo accidentally goofed and created a hole for ROhan (https://reswitched.tech/rohan), this is where the most current mind-share is for interest for people, it has basically all the necessary functionality accessible for effective homebrew even though its not a full-on kernel compromise (kernel compromise would be ROhan but better). A lot of 1.0.0-2.3.0 (even here) have transitioned to this firmware as the 'hot topic'. It is also the easiest to get and can be achieved from below by the Pokken cart update. Effectively, with ROhan we already have homebrew, we're just in the phase of developing the tools for use within.
  • 3.0.1 - Patched ROhan, generally far more stable than anything under it. Interest here has minimal public mind-share. This has been the general publicly known hard-cutoff as even dumps stop at this point.
  • 4.0.0 - Patched *something* and is as far as I am aware currently secure.
Also because of HackerOne, in general, the higher the firmware goes the more holes will get plugged as they are reported... until Nintendo runs out of fuse material for downgrade protections.

That's where we stand. ROhan is the general advised 'goal' that is also not absurdly difficult and/or luck dependent to find at this point.

If you don't mind, I have a question. This is somewhat off-topic to this thread, but it has to do with firmware updates on games. I'm probably wrong on some of this, but I'm under the impression, for example, that games that have 3.0.1 or higher on them cannot currently be used on Switch consoles that are at 3.0.0 or lower, due to them having different encryption keys (or something like that). However, what about if someone wanted to play, for example, a Splatoon 2 cartridge, which according to this list, has the 2.3.0 firmware, on a 1.0.0 Switch? In that example, once/if hacking/homebrew advances far enough on 1.0.0, how feasible or difficult would it be to get a Splatoon 2 cartridge to run on 1.0.0 without having to update the Switch, how quickly could one expect to see such a thing, or would it even be possible to run it at all? I'm not asking because of an interest in piracy, but mainly because I don't recall seeing much of anything discussed about such a scenario (most discussions are about getting 3.0.1 and higher to run on 3.0.0 and lower), and am just curious.
 

_______

 
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hIf you don't mind, I have a question. This is somewhat off-topic to this thread, but it has to do with firmware updates on games. I'm probably wrong on some of this, but I'm under the impression, for example, that games that have 3.0.1 or higher on them cannot currently be used on Switch consoles that are at 3.0.0 or lower, due to them having different encryption keys (or something like that). However, what about if someone wanted to play, for example, a Splatoon 2 cartridge, which according to this list, has the 2.3.0 firmware, on a 1.0.0 Switch? In that example, once/if hacking/homebrew advances far enough on 1.0.0, how feasible or difficult would it be to get a Splatoon 2 cartridge to run on 1.0.0 without having to update the Switch, how quickly could one expect to see such a thing, or would it even be possible to run it at all? I'm not asking because of an interest in piracy, but mainly because I don't recall seeing much of anything discussed about such a scenario (most discussions are about getting 3.0.1 and higher to run on 3.0.0 and lower), and am just curious.

In theory, yes you can have Splatoon 2 cart dump run on an older firmware (not the updated version that needs new system fw, just the cart that requires 2.3) as its proof to be possible to get keys from anything below 3.0.0. Once the game was decrypted, it should run fine on an older fw, unless it use new system APIs that are not available below 2.3.0. I said the because in SWE general, the minimum system requirements were set only when it's necessary, so as a developer we can max out our costumers aka profits. However, in the game industry, it's a whole new different story as they tend to block older fw for access for the sake of protection (aka profit). You can never know until you really try or look into the binary to verify.

But again, if we already have access to 2.3.0 keys, means we already have pwned 2.3.0, why stay on 1.0.0? The problem here is not get games running on old fw possible or not, but you need the newer fw to be pwned first to have the keys to decrypt the games.

As PS4 1.76 has been pwned for a very long time and 5.03 is still vulnerable in private, we are not yet see any new games running on 1.76, so guess they were actually somehow use some other things besides the crypto key?
 
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V-Temp

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If you don't mind, I have a question. This is somewhat off-topic to this thread, but it has to do with firmware updates on games. I'm probably wrong on some of this, but I'm under the impression, for example, that games that have 3.0.1 or higher on them cannot currently be used on Switch consoles that are at 3.0.0 or lower, due to them having different encryption keys (or something like that). However, what about if someone wanted to play, for example, a Splatoon 2 cartridge, which according to this list, has the 2.3.0 firmware, on a 1.0.0 Switch? In that example, once/if hacking/homebrew advances far enough on 1.0.0, how feasible or difficult would it be to get a Splatoon 2 cartridge to run on 1.0.0 without having to update the Switch, how quickly could one expect to see such a thing, or would it even be possible to run it at all? I'm not asking because of an interest in piracy, but mainly because I don't recall seeing much of anything discussed about such a scenario (most discussions are about getting 3.0.1 and higher to run on 3.0.0 and lower), and am just curious.

Encryption is a big part of it. There are many ways to dump a cart, but to dump it unencrypted or to decrypt the dumped contents is a little more difficult (the former requires an exploit on a firmware that can already decrypt the game for you, see: the dump thread on this forum). Decrypting the contents yourself requires either acquiring keys (fairly difficult) or brute forcing it (fairly impossible unless you happen to have a qc in your pocket).

But there's another part of this that makes things not super clear cut (in fact, I even made a very similar mistake on this a few days ago by over simplifying it in my own head!). That being the API/development kit tools used. While we're worrying about the user-end firmware, in the background the dev kits are also evolving with their own patches. As the kit matures, the new games from the new kit are only tested on new firmware and so old firmware trying to run new games may not be stable or result in constant crashes to the point of being unplayable. (I am sure there is also a layer of protection in the dev tools for old/unrecognized firmware to cause errors.) So there's going to be breakdown points where an old, blown-open firmware is just not going to run a new game very well. Now, for Splatoon 2 between 1.0.0 and 2.3.0 it probably won't matter too much because I doubt any of the things I mentioned happened in any serious degrees as they are early deployments.

That said, Splatoon 2's a fairly small package, honestly not sure the single-player is worth such a hassle or time for concern.
 
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qaz015393

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If you are looking for a Switch tablet, I have a spare I'm selling but it's on 4.01 so you don't need to update yours if it's still on low firmware. I'm selling it for $200
 

g4jek8j54

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In theory, yes you can have Splatoon 2 cart dump run on an older firmware (not the updated version that needs new system fw, just the cart that requires 2.3) as its proof to be possible to get keys from anything below 3.0.0. Once the game was decrypted, it should run fine on an older fw, unless it use new system APIs that are not available below 2.3.0. I said the because in SWE general, the minimum system requirements were set only when it's necessary, so as a developer we can max out our costumers aka profits. However, in the game industry, it's a whole new different story as they tend to block older fw for access for the sake of protection (aka profit). You can never know until you really try or look into the binary to verify.

But again, if we already have access to 2.3.0 keys, means we already have pwned 2.3.0, why stay on 1.0.0? The problem here is not get games running on old fw possible or not, but you need the newer fw to be pwned first to have the keys to decrypt the games.

As PS4 1.76 has been pwned for a very long time and 5.03 is still vulnerable in private, we are not yet see any new games running on 1.76, so guess they were actually somehow use some other things besides the crypto key?

Encryption is a big part of it. There are many ways to dump a cart, but to dump it unencrypted or to decrypt the dumped contents is a little more difficult (the former requires an exploit on a firmware that can already decrypt the game for you, see: the dump thread on this forum). Decrypting the contents yourself requires either acquiring keys (fairly difficult) or brute forcing it (fairly impossible unless you happen to have a qc in your pocket).

But there's another part of this that makes things not super clear cut (in fact, I even made a very similar mistake on this a few days ago by over simplifying it in my own head!). That being the API/development kit tools used. While we're worrying about the user-end firmware, in the background the dev kits are also evolving with their own patches. As the kit matures, the new games from the new kit are only tested on new firmware and so old firmware trying to run new games may not be stable or result in constant crashes to the point of being unplayable. (I am sure there is also a layer of protection in the dev tools for old/unrecognized firmware to cause errors.) So there's going to be breakdown points where an old, blown-open firmware is just not going to run a new game very well. Now, for Splatoon 2 between 1.0.0 and 2.3.0 it probably won't matter too much because I doubt any of the things I mentioned happened in any serious degrees as they are early deployments.

That said, Splatoon 2's a fairly small package, honestly not sure the single-player is worth such a hassle or time for concern.

Thanks for the responses. I'm not a programmer, so the API/development kit issue is not something that I had really considered.
 

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