Homebrew Discussion Why does the Switch scene feel so stagnant these days?

[SecureBoot]

I check this site pretty much everyday.
This habit started towards the beginning of the Switch's life because everything was developing so quickly. From the discovery of the first exploits, to some PoC emulators, to themes, sys-modules, media players, and more, there was a ton of stuff to follow daily. Within the past year though, it feels like things have fizzled out. It seems that most projects are either abandoned, updated at an alarming slow rate, or no longer supported. The most significant example of this in recent memory is nx-btred, a program that lets you pair bluetooth headphones to the Switch. It was created, got a couple releases in a few days, and then disappeared. Same thing seems to have happened with emulators like Citra and Mupen. I know that m4xw is still working on those, but I can't remember the last time a significant update was released for either. I know that the dynarec made most n64 games playable, and when overclocking was added, that was even more so the case, but there are still a ton of incompatibilities, instabilities, and general slowdowns. This may be nostalgia goggles, but I feel like the Wii U, or even the Wii homebrew emulators ran much more stably than what we have now. Another example are all those game streaming programs. Things like sky-nx, in-home-switching, and moonlight-nx are awesome in concept, but still have a ton of bugs and haven't been updated in ages.

I want to make it clear that I'm not here to shit on devs. If I here one "stop being entitled" I'm gonna be not a happy camper. The point of this thread is simply to ask "why?" I understand that this doesn't apply to every bit of homebrew. I'd like to give special props to catlover007 for their incredible work on melonDS recently. I do not expect any of these devs to deliver a fully polished, or even fully functional product. That would be entitled. I just feel as if previous Nintendo consoles have gotten much more developed homebrew, and I would like to know what happened.

 

[Aheago]

I check this site pretty much everyday.
This habit started towards the beginning of the Switch's life because everything was developing so quickly. From the discovery of the first exploits, to some PoC emulators, to themes, sys-modules, media players, and more, there was a ton of stuff to follow daily. Within the past year though, it feels like things have fizzled out. It seems that most projects are either abandoned, updated at an alarming slow rate, or no longer supported. The most significant example of this in recent memory is nx-btred, a program that lets you pair bluetooth headphones to the Switch. It was created, got a couple releases in a few days, and then disappeared. Same thing seems to have happened with emulators like Citra and Mupen. I know that m4xw is still working on those, but I can't remember the last time a significant update was released for either. I know that the dynarec made most n64 games playable, and when overclocking was added, that was even more so the case, but there are still a ton of incompatibilities, instabilities, and general slowdowns. This may be nostalgia goggles, but I feel like the Wii U, or even the Wii homebrew emulators ran much more stably than what we have now. Another example are all those game streaming programs. Things like sky-nx, in-home-switching, and moonlight-nx are awesome in concept, but still have a ton of bugs and haven't been updated in ages.

I want to make it clear that I'm not here to shit on devs. If I here one "stop being entitled" I'm gonna be not a happy camper. The point of this thread is simply to ask "why?" I understand that this doesn't apply to every bit of homebrew. I'd like to give special props to catlover007 for their incredible work on melonDS recently. I do not expect any of these devs to deliver a fully polished, or even fully functional product. That would be entitled. I just feel as if previous Nintendo consoles have gotten much more developed homebrew, and I would like to know what happened.

Maybe it wouldn’t so stagnant if you learned to program and contributed something

 

[SecureBoot]

Maybe it wouldn’t so stagnant if you learned to program and contributed something

That doesn't answer my question at all

 

[Detroitguy22]

Its being entitled, not even your fault there was so much done so early on that now there isntbthat just left to do, wii u didn't even get retroarch started til 4 years into its life, the same life as switch now, so would you rather not much now or not much forbthe last 4 years

 

[SecureBoot]

Its being entitled, not even your fault there was so much done so early on that now there isntbthat just left to do, wii u didn't even get retroarch started til 4 years into its life, the same life as switch now, so would you rather not much now or not much forbthe last 4 years

I get that, but it still doesn't explain why everything just stopped all of the sudden. As far as new utilities go, I agree that there isn't a lot to do, but there is a ton of work to be done on what is there. I would think that having a headstart would lead to faster development and refinement. That's why I'm confused. I still don't think it's entitled because I'm not expecting anything from anyone. It just didn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

[Lightyose]

Well, I am no developer. But... Each person has its own set of responsibilities and situations. There are people affected by family problems, financial problems, natural disasters, toxic relationships, toxic fanbases, clash of ideals. If I recall correctly, a developer that had worked on a SNES emulator committed suicide not too long ago.

I'd say it's unrealistic to expect much now due to pandemic. (We are all affected by it directly or indirectly). I'm actually impressed we are getting anything at all these days. Also, emotional and mental health are very important, and it should be taken very seriously. Some problems may last some days or weeks. Others for months or years. Even decades or whole life in this world...

I'm not a developer myself, but I try to think how would one feel.

 

[Detroitguy22]

Also not being able to easily get a hackable switch now limits who can even work on it, when everyone's wii or ds was exploitable then there were many more devs

 

[hippy dave]

There's been a second, and apparently significantly better, Moonlight streaming app released recently by a different dev than the old one. Citra apparently had an update with a huge performance increase in the last few months. I haven't followed Mupen, but N64 emulation is notoriously difficult to reach full compatibility and isn't a fully solved problem on any platform.

IDK about nx-btred, but maybe the dev hasn't been able to make any significant improvements. It works by combining an official firmware feature that Nintendo have put in but haven't made public use of themselves yet, which doesn't give any info of how reliable it is, and unofficial Bluetooth module hacks by a different dev, which are still experimental and may be out of the first dev's direct control.

There's always stuff going on. Retroarch has had Switch-specific fixes recently as well as its general improvements. UI stuff like custom icons, and the complete home menu replacement ulaunch, have seen updates recently. Unofficial GTA ports have seen progress here and there in spite of the obvious push back from Take Two. What more do you feel like you're somehow missing out on? Maybe it's just because the scene is more mature, most platforms that can realistically be emulated already are, etc, so it doesn't have the exciting pace of a young and growing scene any more?

 

[Impossible_Igntiz]

Honestly i feel very content of what we got on the Switch homebrew scene, shoot the PlayStation 3 homebrew scene BARELY even has the large majority of cool PC ported games or even a Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, and/or Sega Dreamcast, or Nintendo DS emulators that the Switch has much moreso.

Dude if you were part of the PlayStation community back in the days, i guarantee you'll be even MORE devastated of how even much slower devs were at the time than the Wii was or prehaps much MUCH worse with the Xbox 360 homebrew scene! (outside the Xbox Live Indie Games section stuff that completely made up for it)

 

[Jayro]

Because we have everything we could want on the Switch, except for an XCI loader that everyone with talent is too pussy to release anonymously.

 

[Reploid]

I dunno, feels alright to me

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Because we have everything we could want on the Switch, except for an XCI loader that everyone with talent is too pussy to release anonymously.

We could use coldboot solution

 

[FFTW]

Also not being able to easily get a hackable switch now limits who can even work on it, when everyone's wii or ds was exploitable then there were many more devs

this is the big one. Now that the hardmod option is pretty much gone less than a quarter of the switches in the market (far less even I would say, especially considering how long I had to work to find one at a decent price) are hackable. The vast majority of switch owners can't hack it even if they wanted to. With the Wii and Wiiu every single system was hackable, with coldboot too.

 

[Jayro]

We could use coldboot solution

Very true.

Same goes for the Wii U as well in that regard.

 

[linuxares]

this is the big one. Now that the hardmod option is pretty much gone less than a quarter of the switches in the market (far less even I would say, especially considering how long I had to work to find one at a decent price) are hackable. The vast majority of switch owners can't hack it even if they wanted to. With the Wii and Wiiu every single system was hackable, with coldboot too.

Well at the moment, we/us that got hackable Switches do sort of have coldboot thanks to the AutoRCM.

 

[Jayro]

this is the big one. Now that the hardmod option is pretty much gone less than a quarter of the switches in the market (far less even I would say, especially considering how long I had to work to find one at a decent price) are hackable. The vast majority of switch owners can't hack it even if they wanted to. With the Wii and Wiiu every single system was hackable, with coldboot too.

I have a hackable Switch that hasn't been exploited yet, but if a real Switch Pro ever happens, I'll gladly sell it to a GBAtemp member for a fair price.

 

[hippy dave]

We could use coldboot solution

Untethered coldboot literally isn't going to happen without a modchip

 

[Aheago]

I dunno, feels alright to me

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We could use coldboot solution

A trinket m0 is the best we are going to get and honestly isn’t even a bad solution

 

[mrcroket]

I think that the only reason that is slowing down the switch scene today is that only the old ones models can be easly hackable. If you look the state of the vita scene, now being all models and firmwares hackables or downgradeables it is more lived than ever.

 

[blawar]

Scene politics drives away many good developers.

 

[Jokey_Carrot]

Scene politics drives away many good developers.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I can't be homophobic anymore WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa