Homebrew Question [POLL] What do you want from Nintendo Switch Homebrew?

[DarthDub]

If you actually think that you are only fooling yourself. From what I've seen, a majority of the games that a majority of rom users have they do not own. Back in high school we passed around full rom sets. I even remember halo CE got passed around and we had lan parties when there was a substitute. Most people there didn't even own the system they were emulating, let alone games for it. I'd be willing to bet that everyone who uses emulation has emulated games and systems they don't own.

That and a lot of old developers don't resell a lot of those games.

 

[TheCyberQuake]

That and a lot of old developers don't resell a lot of those games.

And some games are virtually impossible or even actually impossible to get. Starfox 2 was impossible to get a legitimate copy before it was released on snes classic.

 

[Deleted User]

The saddest part is that I don't see any thing that mentions original content. All I see are things that can be used to bypass restrictions set by wanting homebrew.
What happened to the original games? What happened to wanting to boot into the HBL and seeing 50 different, unique, fun games to play?

Here are some factors that might explain it:

• By far, it has gotten way easier to legitimately develop games via official means. Most developers would rather take a bit more effort to go the official route and get more publicity as opposed to making a game for a limited audience. Plus, with consoles constantly being updated, your audience has to go out of their way to hack their Switch just to play your game, a turn-off for many.
  
• Development tools. While we have stuff like GDB Stubs and emulators for the 3DS right now, that took a lot of effort to implement, and wasn't released until near the console's end of life. The Switch, more likely than not, won't have these tools available when Homebrew first becomes widely available. Plus, unless someone takes the effort to port Python or Lua to the Switch, devs will have to program in C or C++. In an age where you don't even need to know programming to make games anymore, this might be a huge turn-off for some devs.
• General lack of interest? A lot of people who would've been into Homebrew games a while back may not be so interested now, having matured quite a bit. They may dismiss such games as childish or amateurish, compared to official titles.
• Smartphones. Back when they weren't a thing, the idea of using your DS as an alarm clock or calendar was novel, and enticing to many. Now that smartphones are predominant, not many people want to hack their Switch consoles just to get them to do what smartphones do best. Because of this, probably less people are in the hacking scene as a whole.

With all that said, I do see how you feel. Coming from someone who first learned to program using a small DSi app called Petit Computer (you may remember it), I miss the days where people could release weird and wonderful Homebrew apps to at least mildly interested audiences. It's sad, but times are changing.

 

[Deleted member 388531]

even russian overkill.

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

Gamecube and wii emulator

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

Here are some factors that might explain it:

• By far, it has gotten way easier to legitimately develop games via official means. Most developers would rather take a bit more effort to go the official route and get more publicity as opposed to making a game for a limited audience. Plus, with consoles constantly being updated, your audience has to go out of their way to hack their Switch just to play your game, a turn-off for many.
  
• Development tools. While we have stuff like GDB Stubs and emulators for the 3DS right now, that took a lot of effort to implement, and wasn't released until near the console's end of life. The Switch, more likely than not, won't have these tools available when Homebrew first becomes widely available. Plus, unless someone takes the effort to port Python or Lua to the Switch, devs will have to program in C or C++. In an age where you don't even need to know programming to make games anymore, this might be a huge turn-off for some devs.
• General lack of interest? A lot of people who would've been into Homebrew games a while back may not be so interested now, having matured quite a bit. They may dismiss such games as childish or amateurish, compared to official titles.
• Smartphones. Back when they weren't a thing, the idea of using your DS as an alarm clock or calendar was novel, and enticing to many. Now that smartphones are predominant, not many people want to hack their Switch consoles just to get them to do what smartphones do best. Because of this, probably less people are in the hacking scene as a whole.

With all that said, I do see how you feel. Coming from someone who first learned to program using a small DSi app called Petit Computer (you may remember it), I miss the days where people could release weird and wonderful Homebrew apps to at least mildly interested audiences. It's sad, but times are changing.

You hit the nail on the head. It's quite futile to develop homebrew for functions that smartphones do much, much better, and also futile to develop a game for a very limited audience when you only have to pay $100 to immediately get your game on the Steam storefront. I remember that kind of homebrew back during the DS days, but nowadays there's no longer a need or a demand for such things.

Homebrew now will only serve system and game-related functions such as save backups/editing or game mods. That's all I see homebrew really good for now, besides the obvious emulators and maybe a door to piracy. Those who are in it for piracy have different priorities, and emulation will take a while. The amount of things you can do with a hacked Switch is gonna be limited for a while once more exploits go public. Adding to the conversation as a whole, those who wish to hack their Switch will have to decide between higher firmwares to play newer games or a trickle of homebrew applications once the Switch is fully hackable, at least until a better solution comes around to get the best of both worlds.

 

[TheCyberQuake]

I didn't do this to my switch just to have it sit for a while after I get bored of 3.0.0 games.

Spoiler

If I did stay for homebrew though, I think one useful tool would be a way to have a computer pick it up as a USB capture card. You could capture switch handheld-only games or even just stream/record without a capture card. Probably would require a cfw though.

 

[merlin555]

1. Cheating, POKES, Gecko.
2. Save Manager

 

[RamTheSecond]

• FTP
• Save Manager
• Theme Manager
• Maybe something like a Memory Reader/Writer (wich is probably unlikely)

 

[pinkupi13]

i was going to respond to this months ago but guess i forgot.

- the ability to dump game files, might count as piracy idk i'm interested in datamining a specific game not really playing it
- maaaaaybe save backups
- maaaaaybe themes
- possibly tiny cheats to mess with

can't really think of anything else

 

[wangtang32000]

custom themes and a media player. and even a homebrew plugin that makes apps streamable to video sites like twitch (if nintendo doesn't do it 1st)

 

[Pluupy]

I feel insecure without a way to back-up my saves.

 

[Baoulettes]

Homebrew Launcher
Way to access Eshop on 3.0.0 xD

 

[Wurztha]

Emulators and a way to patch efuses for custom fw on up to 3.0.0 would be nice. Being as not many 1.0.0 machines out there I think this will come eventually

 

[LightOffPro]

Give me PS1 Harry Potter and im good.

 

[guily6669]

Playing, modding triple A current games over crap unfinished android games...

For emulators I can just simply play any classic on my current Nvidia Shield tablet and I don't care...

I love unlocked hardware, something like XBMC on the original Xbox would be pretty crazy on-the-fly with the Switch to make it do everything on the fly.

I specifically love save game hex editing\offline hacks and mods.

 

[orangy57]

Emulators, i don't want to have to lug around a switch a 3ds and like a vita just to emulate all my consoles

 

[Ferris1000]

One reason is the same I have for all consoles...I want to be able to play backups.

I don’t like the Nintendo tax so I would never buy a digital game because it’s more expensive than the cartridge and you also need to buy a micro SD card.

On the Wii U I downloaded all games and tried them (it’s just about 100 games).
I bought the games I liked.

I also hate that Nintendo release incomplete games (like activision and EA) and sell the the game as full price and the update to complete the game cost money because they doesn’t call it update, the name for it is DLC.

 

[Noctosphere]

One reason is the same I have for all consoles...I want to be able to play backups.

I don’t like the Nintendo tax so I would never buy a digital game because it’s more expensive than the cartridge and you also need to buy a micro SD card.

On the Wii U I downloaded all games and tried them (it’s just about 100 games).
I bought the games I liked.

I also hate that Nintendo release incomplete games (like activision and EA) and sell the the game as full price and the update to complete the game cost money because they doesn’t call it update, the name for it is DLC.

what do you mean by "Nintendo Tax"

 

[Kioku]

I've come to the conclusion that I just want an option for homebrew. Watching the 3DS and WiiU scenes, there's not a whole lot I personally care for. Just having the option of installing and testing homebrew as necessary would be great.