A Switch 2 owner has warned fans to be careful when buying second-hand games, after their console was banned by Nintendo.
Since the Switch 2's launch, reports have surfaced of Nintendo's new anti-piracy tactics leaving users of the MIG Switch flash device with 'bricked' consoles — unable to access any online functionality, including numerous key console features such as the ability to download and play digital games.
But, amongst this, there have also been reports of innocent fans getting caught in Nintendo's crossfire — and the latest example of this is a user who says they received a similar console ban for playing legitimate physical games they had bought second-hand, from a prior owner who had apparently cloned them.
In a lengthy thread on reddit, Switch 2 owner dmanthey said their console was banned by Nintendo after loading up a selection of Switch 1 cartridges they had bought on Facebook Marketplace. But while the games were legitimate, they still triggered a console ban.
Discussing the matter with Nintendo's customer support, dmanthey realised they had unwittingly played games whose cartridges had previously been cloned onto a piracy-enabling device — such as a MIG Switch — whose licenses were now marked as pirated.
"Basically, a thief buys/rents a game. They make a copy for themselves using the MIG dumper," dmanthey summarised. "They resell the original game and keep a copy for themselves on their MIG. Then both of you get banned when the Switch 2 goes online. Only one of you has the carts, so that's the person that will be unbanned."
Thankfully, dmanthey says that the process of talking to Nintendo was straightforward, and their console was unbanned shortly after providing Nintendo a conversation of the seller behind the Facebook Marketplace listing, and a verification photo that showed were in possession of the legitimate cartridges now.
Seeing Nintendo act to unban the user is an interesting development, after other users previously reported being told that such bans were permanent.
"The amount of info they had is crazy," dmanthey said of his experience chatting with Nintendo. "They could see my ddwrt endpoints, the brand of my memory card, they even knew that I had an EVGA mouse and keyboard plugged into my Switch 2."
While a rare situation (for now), dmanthey raised the point that this matter will only become more common as more people purchase Switch 2 consoles, and more cloned second-hand games enter the used game market. Indeed, there has already been the suggestion among fans that word spreading of Nintendo banning Switch 2 consoles will only increase the rate of game pirates ditching copies of games they have cloned.
A similar situation came to light last month when a Switch 2 owner who bought a second-hand console at Target found the console had already been banned by Nintendo. That user said they wanted to share their story in order that others avoid a similar scenario.
IGN has previously contacted Nintendo to ask for more detail on the bans, but has not received a response.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
