Careful: Nintendo is banning hacked 3DS systems

Nintendo banned a bunch of hacked Nintendo 3DS systems from accessing online services. The 3DS hacking community is, unsurprisingly, freaked out about it.

On places like Reddit and GBATemp, 3DS hackers who modified their systems' firmware started realizing yesterday their systems could no longer access most online services including the Miiverse, the friends list, and apps like Netflix and YouTube. Some people report that the eshop and web browser are still working, though.

Nintendo confirmed to us that it issued bans to 3DS systems that were modified, played pirated games, or connected to servers in a way that violated Nintendo's terms of service.

As a result of a number of users making unauthorized system modifications, playing unauthorized versions of one or more games and/or connecting to the game servers in violation of our terms of service, Nintendo has banned those users’ systems from accessing its online network, effective immediately.

You can tell if your 3DS has been banned if you get this error message when trying to access some online services: "This device's access to online services has been restricted by Nintendo. For help, visit support.nintendo.com."

According to some people on 3DS hacking forums, not every hacked system has been banned, and there's no clear correlation between what causes some systems to be banned and others to fly under the radar.

Nintendo did not specify how long these bans would be in effect, but it wouldn't be surprising if Nintendo never lifted them.

H/T: Kotaku.