Nintendo takes action against 3DS game with homebrew-enabling exploit

The 3DS game with an exploit that apparently enables homebrewed software on the handheld has been pulled, by Nintendo, from the eShop where it was for sale.

Earlier this week, a hacker showed how Cubic Ninja, by AQ Interactive (published by Ubisoft), could be used to run homebrew games, although the exploit did not enable pirated software.

Revelation of the exploit sent prices of the game soaring on the gray market, from $3 before the discovery, to listings between $40 and $500 on eBay.

The game was only available for digital sale on the Japan eShop, perhaps helping drive the resale price for physical copies. Tiny Cartridge reports it has been removed.

Cubic Ninja, a puzzle game, launched for the 3DS in the spring of 2011 and had been listed on the Japan eShop since March 2013.

Piracy was a constant problem for Nintendo during the run of the original DS. The R4 cartridges that enabled piracy were outlawed in a number of nations in response.

In an in-depth interview yesterday with Eurogamer, the hacker who discovered the exploit, Jordan Rabet, said he expects Nintendo to patch it out "as soon as they can.

"I've already been talking about this for a couple of months, so it's possible they may have figured out what I've been doing," he told Eurogamer. "It's just a vulnerability in a game to access a vulnerability in the system firmware. All they'd really need to do is patch the firmware, and then the game doesn't even matter."