If you get the error message, head to the contact page
- by Gavin Lane
It’s come to light since Switch 2 launched that Nintendo is cracking down on people who make copies of its software — legitimate or otherwise — by ‘banning’ consoles it detects playing copies of Switch 1 games – a worry for anyone considering a secondhand Switch 2. It seems that owning an official, secondhand S1 cart can also create problems if a previous owner ripped it and has been running it elsewhere via a flashcard.
This headache-inducing scenario has been highlighted by dmathey on Reddit (thanks, @carygolomb), who claims to have had their Switch 2 banned after buying Switch 1 games from Facebook Marketplace. Fortunately, a trip to Nintendo’s contact page and a chat with a human saw the ban lifted.
Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube827k
So what’s happening here exactly? Well, it seems that in this case, the seller of the games — or some “bad actor” who once owned or had access to the cartridge — dumped the contents for use with the MiG flashcard on Switch 1 before it was sold on.
The new owner of the legit game card has then loaded it on Switch 2, downloaded the latest patch, and soon encountered an error code (0x1F727C — 2124-4025), effectively blocking access to the eShop and all online services. Nintendo monitored the cart’s unique key being played on multiple consoles and issued the ban(s).
If there’s a silver lining here, dmathey describes the process of getting the Switch 2 unbanned as relatively “fast, painless” after heading to Nintendo of America’s Contact page and opting to talk to a human. “My picture of my purchased legit carts and my purchase history off Facebook” was apparently enough to convince the Nintendo rep to unban the console. “I even gave them the chat history I had with the pirate.”
We’ve reached out to Nintendo to verify if this is standard policy now and we’ll update the article with any response we receive. The platform holder has never been shy about its stance on flashcards and it seems they’re stepping up a gear with this new generation of hardware, resulting in potential inconvenience for secondhand buyers.
In the meantime, it’s probably a good idea to screengrab listings and save any relevant chat history, links, and receipts if you’re buying secondhand Switch 1 games – just in case.
[source reddit.com, via x.com]
Gavin first wrote for Nintendo Life in 2018 before joining the site full-time the following year, rising through the ranks to become Editor. He can currently be found squashed beneath a Switch backlog the size of Normandy.
