A 2019 project that repurposed a Nintendo Switch gaming console as a functioning network switch.
Key Takeaways
The Nintendo Switch hardware was reconfigured to route network traffic, turning a gaming device into a packet switch.
The project title is a deliberate pun: Nintendo “Switch” operating as a network “Switch.”
Dating to 2019, this predates the broader wave of hobbyist embedded-Linux networking hacks on gaming hardware.
The project demonstrates that the Switch’s ARM SoC and USB/networking stack are accessible enough to support non-gaming use cases.
Hacker News Comment Review
The single commenter confirms the Switch works as a network switch but is not fast; the community framing is squarely proof-of-concept, not practical infrastructure.
Appreciation centers on the “pig sings” logic: the bar is that it functions at all, not that it performs. Commenters drawn to this kind of hack value the existence of the feat over its utility.
