Well, that didn’t take long — depending on your definition of long. Sixteen months after launch, the Nintendo Switch 2 has its first public software jailbreak, and the story of how it happened is almost as wild as the jailbreak itself.
Security researcher Sammy Hajhamid, who posts online as pepsipu, revealed the exploit on October 22. It’s called ns2jb, and it runs on system firmware 23.0.1, the console’s latest version at the time. Unlike the original Switch’s early days, there’s no modchip to solder and no hardware to crack open — this one is software-only.
The way in is wonderfully unlikely. The exploit chains a 32-bit integer overflow in the Switch 1 version of SmileBASIC 4 — a programming app from the eShop that runs on Switch 2 through backward compatibility — with a buffer overflow in the console’s filesystem service. The result is native code execution with system-module-level permissions, which opens the door to homebrew development, game modification, save-file backups, and further security research.
To prove it, Hajhamid modded Mario Kart World, a Switch 2 exclusive, adding custom characters that have no business being on the starting grid: Peter Griffin, Hatsune Miku, Cinnamoroll, and Red from Angry Birds, all racing alongside the usual roster. Fellow developer Gezine, who recently revealed a separate exploit affecting the original Switch and Switch 2, has said the work “seems legit.”
Here’s the part everyone will be talking about: AI helped find the way in. Hajhamid says OpenAI’s Codex assisted the vulnerability research over roughly two weeks, running inside a custom harness that gave the model direct control of a Switch 2 — sending controller inputs, reading the video output, and even using a Bluetooth-connected switch to physically press the power button when the console crashed. An early attempt through the Switch 2’s WebKit browser failed first, so this wasn’t a chatbot being handed a console and returning a finished jailbreak before lunch. It was a human researcher directing an AI tool at a hard problem, for a fortnight, with a very patient robot finger on the power button.
Before anyone rushes to try this at home, the caveats matter. This is a tethered jailbreak, not a full custom firmware solution: reboot the console and the exploit leaves memory, returning everything to normal. It’s a foothold, not a finished jailbreak for the masses — and Nintendo has already reacted, pulling SmileBASIC 4 from the eShop.
I have no plans to crack my own Switch 2 — metaphorically or otherwise — but as a preservation and homebrew story, this is genuinely huge. The original Switch’s homebrew scene gave us fan translations, emulation front-ends, and save tools that outlived the console’s official support. If ns2jb grows into something persistent, the Switch 2’s second life starts here.
Would you ever jailbreak a console for homebrew, or is stock-firmware life for you?
Sources: Digital Trends, Notebookcheck, GamesHub, KeenGamer