Nintendo Switch Latest Patch Removes Secret Golf Game According To Hackers

By Nathaniel Artosilla, Christian Post Contributor Tuesday, December 26, 2017

The Nintendo Switch hidden emulator and its NES "Golf" game are now gone according to hackers. The company has reportedly overwritten the code that let owners access the game as of the 4.0.0 firmware update removing the tribute to former President of Nintendo Satoru Iwata who also served game's programmer.

According to Switchbrew, the firmware update effectively gutted the code used to launch the game.

"Flog was stubbed: official code for launching it was removed from the home menu, and *all* code was overwritten with garbage," reads revision notes. "Thus, even attempts to launch it manually will result in loader returning error 0xA09."

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"Flog," or golf spelt backwards, was a portion of the Switch's home menu code dedicated emulating NES "Golf" when certain conditions were met namely using the Joy-Con to do Iwata's Nintendo Direct sign-off gesture on July 11^{th. Doing this would then cause the game to boot up and be playable using motion controls.}

While it's definitely disappointing that the game is now unavailable, its circumstances suggest it wasn't intended to be permanent, or playable for that matter. Aside from the complicated requirements necessary to access it, the game could only be accessed on older versions of the Switch which means it was inevitable for it to be removed by later firmware updates.

The game was originally discovered a few months ago by dataminers. The specifics required to access the game and the fact that it was Iwata's suggested that it was a tribute to the late Nintendo President. However, Nintendo seemed reluctant to comment on the discovery seemingly leaving Switch owners to enjoy the game without causing much buzz.

Nintendo recently pushed back the highly-anticipated paid online service which is now slated for fall 2018. The company said that they will be releasing more details about the delay later this year but seeing that there's barely a week left before the New Year, fans are anxiously waiting for any word about the service.