The Nintendo Switch 2 has been jailbroken for the first time — and the exploit that did it was largely written by an AI. On October 22, security researcher Sammy “pepsipu” Hajhamid, a Caltech undergraduate, published ns2jb and posted proof on X: Mario Kart World running with Cinnamoroll, Peter Griffin, Hatsune Miku, and more modded in as custom characters on the Switch 2 exclusive.
How Codex Cracked the Switch 2
Per Hajhamid’s account, they set up a harness that let OpenAI’s Codex — an LLM built for software engineering — send controller inputs to the console and receive its video output, with a Bluetooth light switch flicking the power button whenever the console crashed. The goal, in their words, was to “ideally, jailbreak the Switch 2 without me.”
Codex first tried the Switch 2’s browser engine, WebKit, but that only granted execute-only memory. So it targeted SmileBASIC, a legacy Switch 1 programming game that still runs on the new hardware and costs $25 on the eShop: the LLM spotted a counting mistake in its BASIC interpreter that opened up memory read and write access, then found a buffer overflow in the way file paths are handled, redirecting cached data to reach protected files. From there it achieved native code execution with ordinary sysmodule permissions — dumping sysmodule code and manipulating IPC handles along the way, as KitGuru’s technical breakdown explains.
What ns2jb Can — and Can’t — Do
“ns2jb is a software-only, tethered jailbreak for the Switch 2,” Hajhamid writes. “It allows running arbitrary native code as any ordinary sysmodule, and as the built-in fs sysmodule. This lets us run homebrew, reverse engineer and mod Switch 2 games, back up save files off the Switch, and access most of the Switch 2’s peripherals through MMIO. To my knowledge, it’s the first such exploit for the Switch 2.”
The limitations are just as important. It’s tethered — the hack resets when the console powers off, so you have to redo the entire process after every shutdown — and the instructions are, in Polygon’s words, “incredibly hard to parse for the average gamer.” It’s not a full jailbreak: no custom firmware, no piracy. And Nintendo has an obvious counter — patch or delist SmileBASIC and the chain is plugged, which is why everyone expects this to be short-lived.
Part of a Bigger AI Wave
The Switch 2 is the second ironclad console to fall to AI-assisted hacking this year. Sony has spent months fighting a wave of PS5 jailbreaks that keeps outpacing its firmware updates — the same acceleration behind projects like the Xbox emulator running Halo 2 on a jailbroken PS5. KitGuru notes Switch 1 piracy was rampant in part because jailbreaks surfaced in the console’s first year, and warns that “with AI now being used to find vulnerabilities all over the digital landscape, it is only a matter of time before more exploits are discovered.”
For now, though, this one mostly means Cinnamoroll can race in Mario Kart World — if you’re willing to buy a $25 BASIC interpreter and never turn your console off.