The Nintendo Switch is easily Nintendo’s best console to date. It has all the makings to go down in history as one of their most innovative consoles right after the Wii. Homebrew was recently discovered to be possible on the system and with that a lot more customization options also became possible.
Unfortunately, Nintendo frowns upon doing anything with the OS or the hardware. Which is why Nintendo immediately bans system with tampered OS’s.
What is a shame, however, is how the Homebrew Switch offers so many more features when it comes to making the console up to the mark of its competitors, the PS4 and the Xbox One.
These Nintendo Switch Homebrew Features Are Truly Remarkable
The Nintendo Switch offers so many features that are being held back by Nintendo. Features that are already offered on competing consoles like external hard drive support, themes, backing up saves locally, and most importantly, a media player.
Local Save Data Backup
Nintendo has offered a solution to backing up saves but offers it behind the online program which costs $20 a year. Locally backing up saves to the SD card or another place offers peace of mind to people who have 100’s of hours of play time on a particular game like Mario Kart or Legend of Zelda.
With homebrew you backup your saves to the SD card in seconds and then transfer them to your PC for safe keeping.
Emulation – Old School to New School
Emulation is also offered on the Nintendo Switch but that’s also bundled in the $20 subscription and the library of games is mandated by Nintendo. You can’t play any game as you choose.
With Emulation on the Switch you can play a large variety of the classic 8-bit and 16-bit games with ease on the system with friends.
External hard drive support & Video apps
External hard drive support is something a lot of fans would love to use and themes will actually help give the system a new life.
The feature is on the Nintendo 3DS, so it is possible to bring the experience to the Switch. The system also lacks some basic apps that are now standard with electronic devices. The system already has Hulu but the lack of Netflix and YouTube is disappointing.
Homebrew IS piracy, BUT also features galore!
Yes, Homebrew is also what leads to piracy. But Piracy doesn’t necessarily affect a video game consoles sales. This is proven through the sales of the PS2, PS1, Nintendo DS, and the Nintendo Wii. All of these consoles were capable of running pirated games but their lifetime sales crossed the 100 million mark.
The Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii were truly capable Homebrew machines and they allowed for more features to be added that Nintendo didn’t offer. The DS got emulation, a music and media player and so did the Nintendo Wii. Features that weren’t on the system by default.
If you are willing to try out Homebrew, we recommend you do it on a console you don’t plan on taking online and one where you don’t plan on using your Nintendo ID on.
While Nintendo is very hush when it comes to bringing new features to their firmware, we can hope that they take a page from the Homebrew community and adapt at least some of these features into a future update.
What are your thoughts on the homebrew options for the Nintendo Switch? Let us know in the comments section below.