In recent hours, a rumour has been circulating that the game Cooking Mama: Cookstar for Nintendo Switch can be used for crypto mining. Because of this, the game has been removed from Nintendo’s online store, but it’s fake news.
How did this fake news spread?
Halfway through last summer, the software house behind the saga, Planet Entertainment, issued a statement saying that one of its games would include a private key system based on blockchain.
- Unique Blockchain Private-Keys – Each purchased copy of the game will have unique IDs which will be managed directly through the game’s internal wallet storage. Players will be able to focus on Cooking Mama’s user experience rather than cryptographic key management.
- Private-Key Enabled Balanced DRM – Traditional DRM limits the ability to copy games, while private-keys on blockchain protocols allows easy registration. These combined items provide greater proof of ownership to legitimate owners of a game, while also allowing them to resell games both digitally and in traditional retail outlets.
- Enhanced Multiplayer Experience with Dual Expression – This feature, when enabled, makes every copy of a game subtly different and personal to a user. It utilizes the private-key to change expression algorithms for characters, ingredients and cooking methods.
- Securing Online Events – For promotional events, player records and participation can be tracked while maintaining privacy. In addition, hashes of the running game can be recorded to ensure the game has not been altered to create an unfair advantage.
- Digital Assets, Rewards, Recognition – Users will be rewarded with in-game currency (or points, experience, and other items) or earn recognition and certificates. These could be provided by the game, other players, or third parties that host tournaments or other promotions.
The fake news probably came out of this link, assuming that this was the game that contained the option of crypto mining.
And yet the game was actually removed from the store. But for what reason?
As revealed on Twitter, there is in fact no mention of crypto mining in the game code.
https://twitter.com/OtherEhm/status/1246946944884318209
Basically, it would have been a misunderstanding: the game hadn’t been well checked and these rumours made it go offline.
It is therefore expected that it will soon be possible to play Cooking Mama again.
But is it really possible to do crypto mining with consoles?
An attempt to run a bitcoin node on the Switch was made some time ago, but the console has never been tested for mining and it’s definitely not a powerful enough piece of hardware to successfully mine BTC.
