CheckMag | A Nintendo Switch flash cart could be the best thing to happen to the ageing console

Historically, most Nintendo handheld consoles have had flash carts. From the Gameboy Advance to the 3DS, various flash carts have enabled people to play homebrew and pirated games during the console's lifespan. 

The Nintendo Switch (aside from its first generation unpatchable hardware exploit), has remained relatively secure. Mod chips have existed for some time for all models of the Switch, but require fairly intricate soldering to install making them inaccessible for the majority of homebrewers or those unwilling to pay someone else to void their consoles warranty.

However, rumours circulating on the internet would suggest that a Switch flashcart may be coming in 2024. While this might seem to be too little too late as the console approaches “end of life” and rumours of a Switch 2 begin to ramp up, this could be just what the original Switch needs to give it a new lease of life.

Allowing users to install homebrew on their consoles opens up a world of emulation opportunities. Homebrew development on the Switch is already fairly mature thanks to that day one exploit discovered on the first generation switch, with emulators for all the major consoles from the PSP and Dreamcast era and earlier being very playable. Similarly some old school PC classics such as Half Life 2 are also playable on the Switch.

Applications such as Moonlight can allow you to stream games from your full fat gaming PC, software that enables users to stream modern triple A games to the console without the need to purchase games at full price from the Nintendo eShop.

While piracy is never good for the industry, having this potential looming on the horizon may force Nintendo to evaluate its game pricing. With 10 year old games such as Red Dead Redemption (Available on Amazon*), Skyrim (Available on Amazon*) and  L.A. Noire (Available on Amazon*) fetching upwards of $50 this kind of pricing is optimistic at best and daylight robbery at worst, with the latter two of these fetching less than $10 in the Steam winter sale.

At this stage a Switch flash cart is a rumour at best and should be taken with a pinch of salt, but this could be just what the console needs to keep them in peoples hands and not relegated to the bottom draw or landfill. The opportunity for homebrew may even increase sales of the console or at least stimulate the second hand market for used consoles.