If you follow the homebrew scene recently like literally in the past couple hours a thing called "sighax" was released.

Sighax is the code name for an exploit that affects the systems bootrom aka the hardware.

Because of this Nintendo can't fix it and people can have Custom Firmware for life now once installed.

Only requirements is to have arm9 access which is really easy if on a version <= 11.3.

It is expected to work on every model of the 3ds including the 2ds and is speculated to work on the new2ds when it releases.



Nintendo said support would continue for the next couple years with a few big name games also releasing during this time.

Do you think this would hugely affect game sales now that CFW can be permanent?



What are your opinions on this? Good, Bad, Something else?





Personally find it cool that they managed to get a hardware exploit to be exploited via software means even though the area is normally locked off early in the boot sequence. Because of that it became a gray area in legal terms since the makers of the exploit didn't release the bootrom but allowed you to dump it yourself.



Edit

Explanation about a thing called "Boot9Strap" the more end user friendly but achieves the same thing Sighax does.

https://sciresm.github.io/33-and-a-half-c3/

It was like 1-2AM when I was posting so I forgot the link to that.

Oof...Well, that's really good to know I'm gonna install all this right away--I mean it is really bad for Nintendo. I wonder how they aim to deal with this, or if they are going to try to avoid this level of a mistake with the Switch.

A user of this : I know one of the people that work on homebrew was doing homebrew stuff on 3ds looked at the Switches syscalls and it uses a lot of the same things. Because of that I feel like Nintendo messed up some but not enough for homebrew level I think. Then again I know nothing about switch related things.
Also installing took me max 1 minute but my 3ds already had A9LH.

I don't know exactly how to feel about it. It'll make things a lot easier for homebrew developers and users since Nintendo won't be able to cut off their access to their CFW, but it won't stop them from trying. Will it affect game sales? It's too early to tell, although it might. If piracy is easy and cheap/free, it's going to be a very attractive option for a lot of people, which is why the original DS had such a high piracy rate. 

pokemon x : Really? Dang...Well that's just unfortunate. Although I think it'll be a few years before people can go full ARRRRGH ME HARDYS and emulate the Switch too. The Wii U just got an emulator like 5 months ago.

Nintendo being so easy to exploit is one of the reasons a lot of third party developers don't care for Nintendo, it's because they will lose sales. I don't get what's wrong with buying an Android device or something like that for emulation, the 3DS is severely underpowered for a start...

I happen to be very into the 3ds hacking scene, and yes this is a severe issue for Nintendo. Now you can buy an 8 dollar flashcart and install a exploit called "ntrboot" and install it on any version. This is in the bootrom so Nintendo can't patch it, which is honestly the final nail in the coffin for them. I use boot9strap (a branch of Sighax) and while it has it's benefits, it is really hurting Nintendo a lot.

This will definitely make for an interesting future for the 3DS homebrew scene. With the DS line being predicted to lose support in the near future homebrew hackers will be delighted to know, well, I should know, I'm an experienced CFWist, (if you can even call it that.) myself.

Personally, after CFWing my 2DS I had no interest in the new hacks. After the complete mass ban was a failure for Nintendo itself, (due to the scene finding a way to get around that.) I think they've pretty much lost hope of continuing support for the line of systems, especially have the release of the Switch.

Let's just hope that nothing bad happens out of this experience.

Would someone mind teaching me about 3DS homebrew? I only know about Wii homebrew, and might be interested in homebrew for my 3DS.