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Gateway 3DS: First working 3DS flashcart? [Still region locked]

Parallax

best seen in the classic "Shadow of the Beast"
And that would be a better option than a FlashCard.

I just don't think nintendo cares enough (about their users, that is), to tell you the truth.

Honestly, yeah. An account system would be the best thing to combat this. I refuse to DL games from the store for that very reason.
 
And that would be a better option than a FlashCard.

I just don't think nintendo cares enough (about their users, that is), to tell you the truth.

They just seem so out of touch with the conumers. They make fantastic products, I got a 3DS XL and a ton of games and a Wii U in May, and I love both, they are insanely fun. But, if they would change a few things, I'd be throwing a ton more money at them. Mainly, a unified account, let me play my 3DS VC purchases on my Wii U, and for the love of Luigi, put some fucking super nintendo games on the 3DS(that again, I can play on my Wii U.) It seems like it should be a no brainer.
 

Labrys

Member
I was hoping this wouldn't happen. Guess it was inevitable.
It may be good for backups and homebrew, but it's most likely use for people is going to be piracy.
 

Lasdrub

Member
Yeah it's definitely not a good situation and I hope they change it when they put the accounts on 3DS but I don't understand how it can aggravate people enough to swear off eshop altogether.

After my Wii broke and Nintendo wouldn't let me transfer my 25 or so games to a new system, I stopped buying digital from them.

(I did end up saving those games by moving them over to my Wii U)
 

Pooya

Member
if the region info is stored in some file that is not digitally signed, this should work for region free. If it's stored in the game's executable, then it can't be done ever with this as that definitely is digitally signed, unless someone reverse the signature which is unlikely with this development. Pretty useless. Though this might open the way for game exploits (say, by modifying the files that aren't signed) and have the game load them into memory and open the system somewhat, now that can lead to interesting development.
 

drizzle

Axel Hertz
Honestly, yeah. An account system would be the best thing to combat this. I refuse to DL games from the store for that very reason.

They just seem so out of touch with the conumers. They make fantastic products, I got a 3DS XL and a ton of games and a Wii U in May, and I love both, they are insanely fun. But, if they would change a few things, I'd be throwing a ton more money at them. Mainly, a unified account, let me play my 3DS VC purchases on my Wii U, and for the love of Luigi, put some fucking super nintendo games on the 3DS(that again, I can play on my Wii U.) It seems like it should be a no brainer.

I don't think that a Unified Account is enough. The alternatives (Microsoft and Sony) provide unified accounts, and I refuse to digitally buy things on their systems. (things that are available otherwise, that is).

Why you ask? Because their pricing is, again, ridiculous.

I already said this before, but unless Nintendo straight up steals Valve's Steam MO (Constant Respectable sales and, hell why not, pre-order discounts), why would I buy something digitally when I can get cheaper brand new on Amazon two weeks later?
 

CDX

Member
yeah but what about this? :
From the video you'd think you'd only be able to load a single game at a time, however, someone close to the team mentioned this: "And for those asking, it is 'early video' before the 'game manager' was finished in coding by the homebrew developers, reason for 3 microsd one for each rom."


.
Probably BS.

They might be working on a "game manager" but I highly doubt they have one already working because if they did they would've just showed it off in the video. And it's very likely they could never manage to get one working and they are just trying to sell this thing with promises. SHOW THE PROOF, don't just make promises.

So right now as the youtube video showed it's 1 microSD for everygame, not only that each microSD has to be the same file size as the game cartridge. If it can do anything more I'll believe when I see it.

From reading another thread/forum it appears save data is likely stored on the flashcard itself, not the microSD. Inserting a new game would overwrite the old save data, and you'd need an additional tool to back up your saves.

Since they're the only ones with this flashcart, it'll probably be expensive, maybe $100 or more. The first DS flashcarts were expensive too, before more companies started making them.

Even though its a 1:1 copy of the game Nintendo still has various ways they could detect it and block it, the most obvious being to compare the read/write speeds to the legit cartridge.





  • It's inconvenient
  • probably expensive
  • potential to be blocked.
Right now, this only being made known a few hours ago, with the info I've seen about it, I personally don't really think this flashcart will amount to much. But who knows I could be wrong.
 

DonMigs85

Member
I don't think that a Unified Account is enough. The alternatives (Microsoft and Sony) provide unified accounts, and I refuse to digitally buy things on their systems. (things that are available otherwise, that is).

Why you ask? Because their pricing is, again, ridiculous.

I already said this before, but unless Nintendo straight up steals Valve's Steam MO (Constant Respectable sales and, hell why not, pre-order discounts), why would I buy something digitally when I can get cheaper brand new on Amazon two weeks later?

But really, who are we to decide what a game should be priced at?
Though I understand the disparity between retail and online can be... aggravating.
 

drizzle

Axel Hertz
But really, who are we to decide what a game should be priced at?
Though I understand the disparity between retail and online can be... aggravating.

I'm not saying that "a brand new game at 49,99" is too expensive.

I'm saying that "a Digital Version of a game being 49,99 when everybody can find the same game, physically, brand new for 29,99 or less on Amazon/Target/Gamestop" is fucking idiotic.
 
Yeah, I really hope this doesn't catch on. I'm very fond of the 3DS and would rather see its success continue.

A lot of people are using Nintendo's DRM as an excuse to pirate games, which is stupid. All it does is hurt devs.

Now, I think it would be nice to have backups of your games in case you lose your 3DS.
 
Isn't Nintendo supposed to be able to brick consoles if they have some kind of unrecognized software? Not sure how they could identify said cases though.
A lot of people completely missunderstood that statement. Nintendo was basically saying that if you update, unauthorised things might not work and Nintendo is not liable. Such as the flashcart.

Its only in rare circumstances like Korean Wiis modified to run US firmware (they were much cheaper than US consoles) being updated which bricking occurred (from what I can gather Nintendo services charged the naughty boy fee of $220 for repair and were unapologetic to those who bought unawares because after all "if you looked at the serial number of the bottom you would see KOR meaning Korea").

Otherwise it is not normally in their interest to break hardware.
 
I've been salty over this news but I don't think I have much to add to the discission.

This can only bring harm, some of us would use it for region locking and back up... but a 99% of consumers would use it for piracy. I live in Mexico and we have stores that sell you hacked consoles with like a million games, this will be the same.

I want the 3DS to succeed, it's my favorite fucking console, I hope this doesn't bring it down.
 

Hasney

Member
Was quite excited when I saw this before bed last night. I now notice the "Still region locked" addition and now it can fuck off.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
this is pretty easy to "fix" if nintendo introduces an extra way to check if you're using the real cartridge in future games and a firmware udpate

question is wether the flashcart will be updatable as well

Of course not. If it's blocked they'll release a "new" version and make more money.

Edit: Nintendo could implement a new feature

Allow new games to be stored on an SD-card of your choice
Lock it with your 3DS'es signature
Add a read only switch in new gamecarts
Activate the switch when you use Flash-Store
If the 3DS can't write to the gamecart it won't boot it.

Presto! You can carry your 3DS games digitally and Nintendo doesn't risk people copying their games to friends!
 
No region unlock, one game per mini sd card and not one hint of homebrew.
This device is for pirating only. Nothing else

There is no excuse for purchasing this other than pirating. You won't be able to even transfer all ur games on a single sd card.

Hopefully nintendo updates the shit out of the 3ds to block that crap
 

Shahadan

Member
I just want region-free!!!! :-(


Gjf1zDt.gif
 
A lot of people completely missunderstood that statement. Nintendo was basically saying that if you update, unauthorised things might not work and Nintendo is not liable. Such as the flashcart.

Its only in rare circumstances like Korean Wiis modified to run US firmware (they were much cheaper than US consoles) being updated which bricking occurred (from what I can gather Nintendo services charged the naughty boy fee of $220 for repair and were unapologetic to those who bought unawares because after all "if you looked at the serial number of the bottom you would see KOR meaning Korea").

Otherwise it is not normally in their interest to break hardware.

This. The warning is there in case of modification accidentally causes a brick/crash. The korean wiis (unlike all other regions, because it was released later) used a different set of encryption keys. By default, those keys can't be modified (they are put in read only space) so for custom korean firmware, they had to add the US keys elsewhere and tell the software to manually use those instead.

With a traditional update, the system menu didn't have those directions to "look elsewhere" for the keys, so it tried using the korean keys on a US or Euro firmware, failed, and then bricked (because it knew it was modified at that point).

It's not the first time it happened either. First generation DS slot-1 flashcards needed either a passthrough device (that piggy backed off of a real cart, or had a real cart's ROM chip inbedded on it like second generation flash carts) or a customized DS firmware. When the custom firmware was created, it stored extra data in the empty space at the end of the chip... along came Mario Kart 7 (and other wifi enabled games) which then used that space to store wifi settings, causing DS's to brick (at the time there was a big uproar on forums that Nintendo was intentionally bricking custom firmware DS's till it was determined it was how the custom firmware stored data that did it).

It's just Nintendo's way of covering it's ass in case you do something that causes a brick when updating.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
No region unlock, one game per mini sd card and not one hint of homebrew.
This device is for pirating only. Nothing else

There is no excuse for purchasing this other than pirating. You won't be able to even transfer all ur games on a single sd card.

Hopefully nintendo updates the shit out of the 3ds to block that crap

Maybe the one game per mini card will prove too much hassle for pirates?

Anyways the "back up" reason always amused me. What if I lose my games or 3DS or whatever? Yeah, and there's no chance of you losing that Micro SD card?
 
No region unlock, one game per mini sd card and not one hint of homebrew.
This device is for pirating only. Nothing else

There is no excuse for purchasing this other than pirating. You won't be able to even transfer all ur games on a single sd card.

Hopefully nintendo updates the shit out of the 3ds to block that crap

This.

I honestly don't get why a gamer's community like GAF is so excited about this. More piracy means less sales overall, resulting in less western localisations and less support overall.
 

M3d10n

Member
if the region info is stored in some file that is not digitally signed, this should work for region free. If it's stored in the game's executable, then it can't be done ever with this as that definitely is digitally signed, unless someone reverse the signature which is unlikely with this development. Pretty useless. Though this might open the way for game exploits (say, by modifying the files that aren't signed) and have the game load them into memory and open the system somewhat, now that can lead to interesting development.
There's no such thing as "files that aren't signed" on the 3DS. AFAIK the entire ROM filesystem is signed *and* encrypted.
 
Serious question: whatever happened to keeping morality arguments out of these threads? Might as well rename the thread at this point.
 
Backing up my stuff isn't piracy, but I was thinking about this, too. Am I supporting piracy when I purchase the device for legitimate purposes?

yes you are supporting piracy by purchasing this device for 'legitimate' purposes, you are increasing the demand and therefore the viability of this vile product
 

Mithos

Member
yes you are supporting piracy by purchasing this device for 'legitimate' purposes, you are increasing the demand and therefore the viability of this vile product

Time to cancel the internet subscription then. Supporting piracy/downloading is BAD.
 

-KRS-

Member
No homebrew, then what's the point? I want to see what demosceners can do with the hardware and maybe code something small myself to experiment. I'd love it if someone made a decent Youtube browser with 3D support.

But in the OP it says someone said they're working on a loader? If they have a loader then they must be able to run unauthorized software. I guess it could be bullshit though. Unless I see it I won't believe it.

that's the worst part. DS flashcarts and their custom skins were ghetto as fuck

31212-sc.jpg
[2173]screenshot.jpg


it was like travelling back to the early 2000s

Haha yeah I remember looking for skins for my R4 and just couldn't find anything worthwile at all. Either it was completely hideous or there was something that didn't fit well with the overall theme etc. So I just gave up and used the default. Same with the AK2i and AKAIO. At least the standard AKAIO theme looks decent enough.
 

gngf123

Member
yes you are supporting piracy by purchasing this device for 'legitimate' purposes, you are increasing the demand and therefore the viability of this vile product

The product isn't really any more vile than say, bittorrent. They are both neutral and can be used for good or bad.

false equivalency is a wonderful thing

That wasn't really false equivalence at all. Maybe taking it to the extreme like that does make it harder to see his point, though.

Anyway, I just see this as the first step to a better hack. We have the 3DS running cloned code, now we need to figure out how to make it run non-validated code.

Just like emulation threads, any talk on morals should stay out of the thread.
 
The product isn't really any more vile than say, bittorrent. They are both neutral and can be used for good or bad.



That wasn't really false equivalence at all. Maybe taking it to the extreme like that does make it harder to see his point, though.

Anyway, I just see this as the first step to a better hack. We have the 3DS running cloned code, now we need to figure out how to make it run non-validated code.

i'm sure the makers of this product had these allegedly good uses in mind when they made it

and no this is a piracy device pure and simple so why shouldn't we talk about its morals
 

popinadam

Neo Member
I just hope someone can reverse engineer this thing and actually get some valuable information that may start an actual homebrew scene from it. Other than that the region lock would be cool, provided it's even capable.
 

M3d10n

Member
I just hope someone can reverse engineer this thing and actually get some valuable information that may start an actual homebrew scene from it. Other than that the region lock would be cool, provided it's even capable.

The pirate device makers steal from the homebrew scene, not the other way around. None of the high profile 3DS hackers are involved in this.
 

ALM5252

Member
I'd get me one of these so I could play Multiplayer with my girlfriend on games that require two cartridges (NSMB2, DKCR, etc) would be great since i haven't updated my old Aqua Blue 3DS in forever.
 
I'd get me one of these so I could play Multiplayer with my girlfriend on games that require two cartridges (NSMB2, DKCR, etc) would be great since i haven't updated my old Aqua Blue 3DS in forever.

so you basicly admit that you would use it for pirating?
If you want to play a 2 player multi-cartdrige game, buy your girlfriend another copy of that game.
 

Taker666

Member
This.

I honestly don't get why a gamer's community like GAF is so excited about this. More piracy means less sales overall, resulting in less western localisations and less support overall.

One good thing is at least publishers will have the option of going eshop only to avoid piracy. ..so we may well still get some of those games.

In a way this device will actually force people to buy from the eshop now...as companies just won't release at retail.
 

C.T.

Member
I don't know a lot about 3DS, but can Nintendo simply issue a mandatory firmware update that renders this thing useless? Or at the very least, unable to play newer games that require newer firmware?



If you ever lost your 3DS you might have a use for this, since your digital games are tied to that device alone, if I understand Nintendo's absurd DRM correctly. Unless you don't mind rebuying all your games again.


This argument... You could write down your 3DS's serial number and linking your club nintendo account to your eshop allows Nintendo to see the games you have bought. They could transfer your games to the new 3DS or give you credit to buy them again. And why should you lose your 3DS? Sure it could get stolen, but I doubt this is a common thing. This is just a stupid argument to support pirated games.
 

Inotti

Member
I really hate the people who try to justify piracy because "they don't have money to buy games boohoo". Fuck, does somebody REALLY think it is some kind of civil right to be able to play newest expensive video games without paying anything? If you don't have that much money, you only play the games you can afford or just buy fewer games. It is simple as that! Internet is full of cheap and free games that you can play legally for example free to play games and humble bundles.

People who still decide to pirate games should at least accept that other people might not think so highly of them...
 
If this leads to region unlocking and legit homebrew being made then I'll support it. Otherwise, its nothing more than a piracy tool that deserves to be blocked asap after release.
 
If this lead to region unlocking, it would be absolutely amazing. I'm contemplating purchasing an EU 3DS just to be able to play Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate with my brother.

Why is multiplayer region locked?
 
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