And homebrew isn't even exclusively used to facilitate piracy! Like, yeah, obviously it's a big draw. But installing CFW on your 3DS opens a whole world of other cool stuff too.
Oh, for sure. I just mean there's a level of plausible deniability since CFW != piracy. I personally really enjoy the ability to take screenshots with CFW tools, which most 3DS games don't support natively.
Results in the used market become blurry as to whether a 3DS will be hackable or not, which is probably enough of a barrier to block off anyone who'd consider getting one for homebrew that doesn't 100% know what they're at.
Basically an effort to lock 3DS games into a vault until they can find a use for them.
It happening so late into the 3DS life with basically anyone who wanted a hacked 3DS already having one it potentially reduces the amount of manpower that will go into finding an exploit too. I'd say they intentionally waited until after the eshop was closed to release this.
I really doubt it. The switch came out in 2017. The 3ds is a forgotten relic to the generation of kids who are growing up on the switch and getting their parents to buy the first party games. There’s certainly a niche for retro gamers, but if I were Nintendo I’d be more worried about the steam deck taking that audience.
Yeah, I am not sold that it's a real financial threat to Nintendo. It could be! or not. I don't think there's enough public information to be able to say.
However - having followed Nintendo for many years - I feel confident that that is their thinking in pushing this update.
Except.. you can't. There isn't a way to just buy the retro games anymore outside of Nintendo's subscription service for the Switch, and even then it's only a few hand-picked games. And you can forget trying to play 3DS games on the Switch.
