News: [Rumour] Team Xecuter have been able to hack newer Switch and Switch Lite consoles; David-Ox shares VitaDock 3D printing files for anyone who wishes to create their own dock

During the last few days, console hacking scenes have been jam-packed with news and the trend continues as today, we have some potentially huge news for the Switch and a bitter-sweet release related to the PlayStation Vita!

Switch Rumour: TX Reseller claims that Team Xecuter have been able to hack newer Switch and Switch Lite consoles

The fusee gelee exploit uses a vulnerability found in the Tegra X1 SoC but Nintendo swiftly patched it out meaning that many Switch units are currently unhackable

As most readers of this website know, the Nintendo Switch has been hacked for over 1.5 years when Kate Temkin released the Fusée Gelée exploit and this led to the creation of many homebrew, CFWs and even an Android port. However, this exploit made use of a hardware vulnerability found in the Switch’s RCM mode (similar to Recovery Mode) and shortly after its release, Nintendo started producing ipatched Switch units which had the vulnerability closed meaning that the Fusee Gelee exploit was unusable on them. As a result, ipatched, mariko (new Switch units with a better battery) and Switch Lite units are effectively unhackable with the exception of ipatched units running FW 4.1.0.

While a GBATemp admin received confirmation that it’s true, you still shouldn’t go sell off your hackable Nintendo Switch for a mariko unit just to get better battery life.. yet 😉

Now, everything might just be about to change as GaryOPA posted some pretty shocking news relating to currently unhackable models on his website MaxConsole and respected gaming/hacking website GBATemp. This news states that MaxConsole got in touch with a trusted reseller of Team Xecuter’s offerings (such as the Xecuter SX PRO) and were told that Team Xecuter have come up with a hacking solution that works on all currently available Switch models including the Switch Lite, ipatched models and the recently-released mariko units which are tougher to hack. While this sounds like excellent news, it’s important to note that there seems to be no proof of this new hack so this rumour should be taken with a grain of salt for now but Costello, a GBATemp administrator, received confirmation from SX Team that the hack is indeed real so only time will tell.

As per MaxConsole, the trusted reseller said the following: “TX has recently taken the time to demonstrate to us some of their Work-In-Progress. Notably for ‘patched’ and ‘mariko’ units which is very advanced, and works flawlessly. We were not given a firm date or prices yet, but knowing TX we know the price will be very reasonable. We also saw early beta for Switch Lite console as well.”

PSVita News: David-Ox shares 3D printing files for VitaDock

Unfortunately, the VitaDock campaign didn’t go well but enough things have been released so that one could create their own dock

Moving to the PSVita scene, folks who worked with xCorra to make VitaDock a reality have shared even more stuff following his disappearance from the internet. This time, Reddit user ‘David-Ox’, who was the 3D designer for VitaDock, has publicly shared the 3D designs for the ill-fated hardware accessory allowing individuals to create their own dock even if they don’t have a 3D printer thanks to services like NinjaPrototype.

The files, which are shared on Thingverse, include STL files created by CAD software which can be printed and some previews in PNG/JPG format so that you can better see what you’re printing. If you decide to print the dock, you’ll also need to have a Raspberry Pi 3B+ (other models will work but require you to set up stuff on your own) to use the VitaDock software which has been shared by Crash-Cortez who helped develop it.

The 3D printing files can be found here. David-Ox notes that xCorra owes him a good deal of money for his work on VitaDock so he’s currently accepting donations to his PayPal account which can be found in this link.

Conclusion

Thanks to the 3D printing files shared above, somebody else might pick up the VitaDock project and perhaps could start selling them on eCommerce websites such as eBay that have some form of buyer protection so maybe, we’ll be seeing a revived version of the VitaDock sometime in the future! When it comes to other news, Cxbx-Reloaded (original XBOX emulator) received an Aug-Oct progress report and a pre-release demo disc of TLZ: Wind Waker has been released which might be of interest.

Featured images uses content from MaxConsole.