Nintendo has started to brick the game cartridges coming from consoles that were hacked. So you could buy a game second hand that doesn't work. Nintendo isn't in the clear yet.
Well if you buy a used switch game, that has been banned, you can't cross play online with it. You have no way of knowing if that game has been banned either. So it's related to online play.
My understanding is that each Switch cartridge has a unique key or certificate. People have begun dumping the cartridge ROMs (including certificate) and sharing these online or burning them to writable carts. Nintendo is blocking these keys from online play.
The upset seems to be over the very narrow case where someone dumps a ROM, shares it widely enough that Nintendo blocks it, then sells the genuine progenitor cartridge to an unwitting customer.
I can’t see that happening too often, it only affects online play, and it’s the exact same risk someone takes buying a used console (which are frequently blocked from online play for a number of TOS violations).
I’m fine with this.
While I am generally against DRM and over-reaching copy protection mechanisms, I think this is reasonable. Especially in the context of online play.
They've done no such thing. Blocking online play with the signatures from dumped and pirated carts, maybe. But they haven't actually bricked any systems or carts - "banned from network services" is nowhere near "bricking".
