Ghost eShop NX Public is open again
Ghost eShop NX Public reopens early with a rebuilt infrastructure, one catalog across Tinfoil, CyberFoil and the web, and clear eligibility rules designed to keep free access sustainable.
Hello everyone 👋
Ghost eShop NX Public is available again today, June 28, 2026, at nx.ghostland.at.
Earlier this month, we announced that the Public Shop would return before the end of August. The new infrastructure became ready sooner than expected, so there is no reason to make you wait any longer. The service is now open through Tinfoil, CyberFoil, and a new web catalog.
No Ghost Land account, Pro subscription, username, or password is required.
Why did the Public Shop close?
The previous Public Shop had grown beyond what its infrastructure could sustain reliably. At its peak, it generated more than 6 PB of traffic per month, with daily traffic around 200 TB. Bandwidth, caching, servers, networking equipment, electricity, and maintenance all carried a real cost.
Several temporary access and download limits were tested during 2025, but limits alone could not fix the underlying architecture. We therefore chose to keep Public NX offline until the chunk network and the rest of the delivery stack had been rebuilt and could provide a stable, fair service.
This was also a volunteer-led project going through periods of burnout, health concerns, and personal difficulties. Abuse directed at team members made that period harder. Thank you to everyone who remained patient and respectful while we took the time to rebuild properly.
A new shared Public Shop
The new system uses one automatically generated catalog across all supported clients. The same eligibility rules apply whether you connect from Tinfoil or CyberFoil, while the website lets you browse the catalog from a phone or computer.
When a console connects, the server identifies it through its UID and creates a secure session. The same console counts only once, even when both Tinfoil and CyberFoil are used. Client activity remains distinguished for technical monitoring and reliability.
The session key generated for your console is private. Never share your NXKey or download token, including with support. If you need help, only provide the official support team with your session identifier.
How a Public Shop request works
Here is a simplified view of how requests move through the new shared infrastructure:
Tinfoil CyberFoil Web browser
| | |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+
|
v
Ghost eShop NX Public API
|
+------------+-------------+
| |
v v
Console identification Web catalog request
and secure session (search / filters)
| |
+------------+-------------+
|
v
Shared catalog engine
|
v
Eligibility rules and abuse protections
(age, file size, content type, session)
|
+------------+-------------+
| |
v v
Catalog response Download request
|
v
Token and session validation
|
v
Distribution infrastructureTinfoil and CyberFoil use the same catalog and eligibility engine. The API adapts its response to the client and language, while each download request is checked separately before access to the distribution infrastructure is granted.
Public catalog rules
To keep free access sustainable, the public catalog currently follows these rules:
- DLC is not available for now; how it could be offered through the public catalog is still under consideration;
- each file must be no larger than 2 GiB**;
- games must have been released at least six months ago;
- games without a known release date may be included;
- an update is available only when its base game also meets the public catalog rules.
These checks are automatic. A recent game that is restricted today can therefore enter the public catalog once it reaches the six-month threshold.
These limits are not necessarily permanent. We may adjust them over time according to observed abuse, infrastructure capacity, operating costs, and how the service is used. Depending on how Public NX evolves, individual restrictions may be tightened, relaxed, replaced, or removed entirely. Any important change will be communicated to the community.
There is no general bandwidth quota specific to the new Public Shop. This replaces the monthly limit model discussed in our June 16 roadmap. Technical protections still apply to prevent abuse, session sharing, and excessive automated use.
Public does not replace Pro
We want to reassure our Pro members: Ghost eShop NX Public is not intended to replace Ghost eShop Pro. The two services have different purposes and will continue to evolve alongside each other.
Public NX is primarily a gateway into the Ghost Land ecosystem. It gives everyone a simple way to discover and use our services, while ensuring that people who cannot afford a subscription are not excluded. Even with its content age, file size, and DLC restrictions, the public catalog is designed to provide free access to more than 70% of the Nintendo Switch library.
Pro remains the service for members who support the project and want the broader experience without the Public Shop’s catalog restrictions. That support funds the infrastructure behind both Pro and our free projects. Public access expands the community; Pro support gives the entire ecosystem the stability and resources it needs to continue.
A status update for Pro members
We have seen concerns about the lack of new content over the past few weeks. This situation is only temporary. It is part of the work required to improve our chunk system and make the infrastructure safer and more reliable.
We are currently working on particularly sensitive components, including a secure encrypted backup system. While this work is in progress, we cannot safely add new entries to the databases or chunk servers. New content should begin being added again within two to three weeks at most.
At the same time, we are developing and improving our next ingestion system. Its goal is to verify scene releases and add them automatically, reducing delays and manual work once the new pipeline is ready.
We are also aware of the current delay in Pro support tickets, and we are actively working through the backlog. Over the past few weeks, a large part of our time has gone into improving the stability of all Ghost Land systems. This work is less visible than new content or ticket replies, but it is essential to make the services more dependable for everyone.
Tinfoil support
Public NX supports Tinfoil natively, including:
- automatic console-linked sessions;
- catalog content and messages adapted to the client language;
- reuse of a recent session whenever possible.
Access remains public and does not require Pro credentials.
CyberFoil support
CyberFoil now receives a native, client-specific experience with:
- a welcome message;
- Latest Games and All Content sections;
- compatible title, Title ID, version, type, size, date, and artwork metadata;
- multilingual support;
- download links generated under the same rules as Tinfoil.
Because both clients use the same source and eligibility engine, public content in one client will also be public in the other after the local catalog refreshes.
How to get started
Use the following configuration for both Tinfoil and CyberFoil:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Protocol | https |
| Host | nx.ghostland.at |
| Path | / |
| Username | Leave blank |
| Password | Leave blank |
| Title | Ghost eShop NX Public |
Make sure you select https and not http. No username or password is required for the Public Shop.
If you are not sure how to use Ghost eShop NX Public with Tinfoil, follow our step-by-step installation and configuration guide:
A dedicated CyberFoil guide will be added to our wiki soon. The Public Shop is already compatible with CyberFoil; in the meantime, you can learn more about the client and obtain it from its official website:
Browse from the web
The new web catalog makes it easy to explore the library from desktop or mobile.
Restricted content may remain visible for information, together with its status and the reason it is unavailable. Being listed on the website does not necessarily mean that a title can be downloaded from the Public Shop.
Privacy and security
We retain only the technical information required to operate sessions, produce statistics, and prevent abuse. Console UIDs, IP addresses, NXKeys, and session data must all be treated as sensitive information.
For your safety:
- never publish or send anyone your NXKey or download token;
- never share your session details;
- use only addresses officially published by Ghost Land.
Built to evolve
This reopening is more than bringing the old service back online. Public NX now has one foundation for Tinfoil, CyberFoil, and the web, making it easier for us to improve compatibility, performance, and reliability over time.
The catalog will continue to evolve automatically as release dates pass, files become available, and the Public Shop rules change. We will keep listening to your feedback and improving the service step by step.
Our long-term vision for free services
Our objective for Ghost Land’s free services has evolved. Alongside providing strong Pro services, we want projects such as Ghost eShop NX Public to become secure, reliable, decentralized, and ultimately managed with the community.
This will not happen overnight. Building a system that can be operated safely by a wider community, distributed across independent infrastructure, and remain dependable over time requires a great deal of technical and organizational work. The new Public NX architecture is one of the first foundations for that longer-term goal.
We will introduce this model progressively: first by making the projects and their infrastructure more robust, then by creating the tools, processes, and safeguards needed for greater community participation and decentralization. We would rather build those foundations carefully than promise a transition before the system is ready.
About funding and recent controversy
We also want to address a recurring misconception clearly: our goal is not to be personally paid for the work we do. We build these projects because we enjoy doing it, and everyone involved contributes on a volunteer basis.
The project began personally for me around 2018-2019. Until 2024, its services and projects were paid for out of our own pockets. Our objective has always been simple: provide good services, then raise enough funding to improve them while creating the financial stability required to keep every server and the wider infrastructure running over the long term.
Every Pro subscription helps pay for servers, bandwidth, storage, networking equipment, domains, protection, and the other infrastructure behind Ghost Land. Pro is not intended as payment for our volunteer time: it is what gives the projects the resources and stability they need to operate and grow.
Today, all of Ghost Land’s free projects are funded by the Pro members who support our work and believe in this vision. Their support keeps the free services available while we continue working toward a model that can one day be sustained and managed more broadly by the community.
Thank you for being part of Ghost Land, and welcome back to Ghost eShop NX Public! 👻
Useful links
Your Ghost eShop Team