Nintendo Switch without internet

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shmupsrocks
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Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by shmupsrocks »

I'm getting close to breaking down and buying a Switch for the great selection of physical release shmups. Do I have to connect it to the internet to set it up? Is there a version without wifi/bluetooth?
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NoAffinity
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by NoAffinity »

I dont think you have to connect to the internet, but why wouldn't you want to ensure you have the latest updates, patches etc? Nintendo updates not only the main unit, but the joy cons as well. And nintendo online and online expansion are pretty great. Plus...mario kart!

That aside, if you don't have wifi and are limited to hard wired, there are hardwire adapters available.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
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Naramgamjan
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Naramgamjan »

No, you do not need an Internet connection to play. It'll ask you to connect when you first set it up but AFAIK, you can just skip that and go straight to playing it. If you buy it brand new, it should have a recent firmware installed on it by default. I don't think you can disable WiFi and Bluetooth altogether though, those services probably always run in the background.
All versions of the Switch have WiFi, and the new one has an Ethernet port on top of it (The OLED)
spmbx
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by spmbx »

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BazookaBen
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by BazookaBen »

shmupsrocks wrote:Is there a version without wifi/bluetooth?
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Lord of Pirates
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Lord of Pirates »

I have mine set to airplane mode and all wireless settings off without any trouble. I don't recall needing internet to set up the console but it's been too long to say for sure.
NoAffinity wrote:I dont think you have to connect to the internet, but why wouldn't you want to ensure you have the latest updates, patches etc? Nintendo updates not only the main unit, but the joy cons as well. And nintendo online and online expansion are pretty great. Plus...mario kart!

That aside, if you don't have wifi and are limited to hard wired, there are hardwire adapters available.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Some people don't care about updates unless they provide noteworthy improvements or bug fixes.

Edit: Changed actual to noteworthy to clarify my meaning.
Last edited by Lord of Pirates on Fri May 06, 2022 5:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Joelepain
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Joelepain »

Lord of Pirates wrote:Some people don't care about updates unless they provide actual improvements or bug fixes.
Because usually updates provide something else than improvements or bug fixes...
Lord of Pirates
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Lord of Pirates »

Joelepain wrote:
Lord of Pirates wrote:Some people don't care about updates unless they provide actual improvements or bug fixes.
Because usually updates provide something else than improvements or bug fixes...
I edited my previous post for clarity. Patching out an exploit or removing features? If someone wants to update they're welcome to do so. I offered a reason as to why someone might not.

For example, I don't consider this to be notable:

Code: Select all

Ver. 14.1.1 (Released April 18, 2022)

General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Word of warning, the card slot's a pain in the ass to access and open (at least on the OLED model). It's a struggle with my fingernails to pop it open and if you're popping it open to swap games frequently because you're keeping it in Airplane Mode all the time and don't have anything downloaded it might be a nuisance.

You can leave the plastic tab that covers the cards open though I guess, once it's open the cards pop out easily thanks to a spring by pressing down on the card.
Issac Zachary
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Issac Zachary »

If a person knew what they were doing, you could technically open up any device, find the Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth antennas and replace them with a suitable dummy load soldered in there. Ideally you want the dummy load resistor's resistance to match the antenna's impedance. I would guess 50 ohms but am not sure if all small antennas have a 50 ohm impedance or not. You could get a vector network analizer for as little as $50 to figure it out.

Power capacity and heat dissipation are something else to factor in.
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Guspaz
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Guspaz »

Many Switch games put much of the game in a download to save money on cartridge manufacturing (carts are made up to 64GB but to save costs most games would rather put 16 or 32 GB on the cart and make you download the rest), and in this day and age, games often ship incomplete or broken with day-one patches that get it to a hopefully working state. As such, you can't really avoid the Internet for at least the initial setup/installation of games. Oh, sure, many games will run just fine with nothing but the information on the cart (and even some not-all-data-on-the-cart games will have some sort of crippled partial game mode you can use that is missing a lot of the game), but many games won't. Heck, some games ship in a broken state and then don't get properly fixed until a ways down the road. Performance problems and frame pacing issues and the like. IIRC that was the case for Crysis, which had pretty bad stuttering issues at launch that got significantly improved later.

There's also no way to copy/save/backup your save games without an Internet connection (and, annoyingly, an online subscription), so if that exact Switch console ever has any issue that has to go in for repair, all your save games since you got the console will be gone. It's really dumb that Nintendo makes you pay extra for that, but the reality is that it's the only way to back up your saves. They're only stored to internal memory and can't be copied to SD.
ldeveraux
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by ldeveraux »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Word of warning, the card slot's a pain in the ass to access and open (at least on the OLED model). It's a struggle with my fingernails to pop it open and if you're popping it open to swap games frequently because you're keeping it in Airplane Mode all the time and don't have anything downloaded it might be a nuisance.

You can leave the plastic tab that covers the cards open though I guess, once it's open the cards pop out easily thanks to a spring by pressing down on the card.
Why would anyone need to swap out the card? That's what DBI and a USB cable are for.
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bobrocks95
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by bobrocks95 »

ldeveraux wrote:
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Word of warning, the card slot's a pain in the ass to access and open (at least on the OLED model). It's a struggle with my fingernails to pop it open and if you're popping it open to swap games frequently because you're keeping it in Airplane Mode all the time and don't have anything downloaded it might be a nuisance.

You can leave the plastic tab that covers the cards open though I guess, once it's open the cards pop out easily thanks to a spring by pressing down on the card.
Why would anyone need to swap out the card? That's what DBI and a USB cable are for.
Congrats on your unpatched launch Switch and piracy, do you want a medal?
PS1 Disc-Based Game ID BIOS patch for MemCard Pro and SD2PSX automatic VMC switching.
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orange808
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by orange808 »

Yep. Video games are about the games. They don't grow on game trees and game bears don't shit them out.
We apologise for the inconvenience
Issac Zachary
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Issac Zachary »

Ironically the more people pirate games, the more problems result from attempts to thwart piracy.

Just look at some of the PS5 games that you have physically and yet you can't run them without an internet connection.
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bobrocks95
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by bobrocks95 »

Issac Zachary wrote:Ironically the more people pirate games, the more problems result from attempts to thwart piracy.

Just look at some of the PS5 games that you have physically and yet you can't run them without an internet connection.
Oh absolutely, we end up with always-online DRM, Denuvo, any number of anti-consumer measures that barely slows down pirates and instead hurts legitimate users.

Coming into a thread on a current system just to point out "why change games out when you can just pirate them all" is helping exactly 0 people though.
PS1 Disc-Based Game ID BIOS patch for MemCard Pro and SD2PSX automatic VMC switching.
Issac Zachary
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Issac Zachary »

Eventually there will be a day when we all own hollow devices that only receive video and sound and send out our controls. The real computer or console will be in some cloud server building somewhere, who knows where, in a computer language that isn't compatible on anything we can get our hands on.
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Unseen
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by Unseen »

Issac Zachary wrote:Eventually there will be a day when we all own hollow devices that only receive video and sound and send out our controls.
Like Google Stadia or certain Switch "ports", for example Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil 7 and others?
ldeveraux
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Re: Nintendo Switch without internet

Post by ldeveraux »

bobrocks95 wrote:
ldeveraux wrote:
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Word of warning, the card slot's a pain in the ass to access and open (at least on the OLED model). It's a struggle with my fingernails to pop it open and if you're popping it open to swap games frequently because you're keeping it in Airplane Mode all the time and don't have anything downloaded it might be a nuisance.

You can leave the plastic tab that covers the cards open though I guess, once it's open the cards pop out easily thanks to a spring by pressing down on the card.
Why would anyone need to swap out the card? That's what DBI and a USB cable are for.
Congrats on your unpatched launch Switch and piracy, do you want a medal?
Sure I'll take a medal. That doesn't answer my question though smart ass. I own a launch day Switch and i don't ever remove the sd card. Not sure why anyone would.

Edit: it now occurs to me he meant the game cartridge slot, not the sd card slot. My bad, I'll show myself out.
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