Nintendo Switch consoles can now support homebrew

While many of us are happy with our Nintendo consoles as they are, and content with the apps and games that are officially released for them, there are enthusiasts out there who like to be slightly more experimental.

Using in-game exploits, these hackers have been able to create emulators and unofficial apps for the Wii consoles and the 3DS but now they’ve turned their attention to the Switch.

According to some notes posted on the Wololo homebrew community, after months of tinkering, an update to the Pegaswitch toolkit has made it possible for the Switch to support homebrew applications on firmware 3.0.0.

Homebrew hopefuls

There are, as always, a few catches with this breakthrough. First of all, the Nintendo Switch is currently on the 4.0.1 version of its firmware so anyone with auto-updates enabled is long past the necessary 3.0.0 niche.

Those on a version older than 3.0.0, however, will be able to get the update they need by using a copy of Pokken Tournament DX.

A second issue is that because the breakthrough is so recent, there aren’t actually any homebrew apps or games available yet. This could change fairly quickly, though, if developers decide to support the 3.0.0 exploit.

The team behind the RetroArch emulator has committed to working on it, which could be all the encouragement other hackers need to get started on their own projects.

It’s worth noting that Nintendo doesn’t support any homebrew apps or hacks that make them possible. As such,if you do have homebrew on your Switch, your warranty will be void.

This is a big risk to take given that there’s always the possibility when running homebrew software that it could break your Switch system. There's also the fact that if you're running 3.0.0 you wouldn't be able to play Super Mario Odyssey and that's really missing out.