Nintendo DS flash cart on the way
By Barb Dybwad 
posted April 19th 2005 4:30PM
posted April 19th 2005 4:30PM
Move over, PassMe, there's something leaner. Hot on
the heels of the Wireless Boot Method comes word that a
Nintendo DS flash cart is in the
works. The specs as we have them so far: it's a DS / GBA / SP 3-in-1 flash cart with memory sizes from 512MB to 1GB.
It's going to support DS cart saves as well as directly supporting a number of file formats, including TXT, HTML, JPG,
GIF, BMP, PNG, NES, Sega GG, PC-E, GB/GBA and NDS (NEO). No word on when, where or how much but that's apparently a
shot of the box, above.
[Thanks, Hackthe DS]
Excellent news albeit the limited information.
And remember that in this case its probably MegaBits and Gigabits.... not BYTES ;)
Great! now you can bootleg all those great DS games! Oh yeah, there aren't any.
Aahhh, the wit and wisdom of pspimp! Truly one of the great thinkers of our time has arrived!
That picture is extremely unconvincing. It seems CG'd to me.
You know pspimp I was going to get a PSP for the games, then I realized....I already beat all these games at home on PS2 2-3yrs ago!
First off, yes they are megabits not bytes. Second, the biggest ds game I think is 512k. Third, yes that box is most likely cg'd, most likely because they haven't boxed any yet. Neo is a well known group, they have made several ps2 chips and made one of the first xbox mod chips but they never released it due to legal concerns. I have no doubt that it is legit because it is from neo and I have heard from other places that this is coming. I'm not sure of any tech details, but it may be a special flash cart/passme combo. We still need ds roms tho to play commercial games.
pspimp is a POS poster.
DERF on my part, that should be 512megabit not 512k, my bad!
4:
There's plenty more where that came from, E!
Don't get me wrong, dude, I love Nintendo, I just hate the DS. Hate is a strong word. I am indifferent to it.
That took longer than I expected.
Man, you waste a lot of energy on something you are simply indifferent to.
My take on this is: bogus. I sent an email for info and recieved nothing. We've all been burned before.
if you look, they sad MB and GB above, so that would be bytes. It would make much more sense for them to do 512MB so you could put several games on the same cart.
All nice and well... but when do we get a Mac OSX-friendly version?
Guys?
*crickets chirp*
A Linux version would be good too. The current GBA cart I have works under Linux, so anyone who thinks they're designing the next best thing has to at least meet that much compatibility.
And yeah. The news story should say "512Mb to 1Gb", not "512MB to 1GB". Actually, I suppose it should be "512Mib to 1Gib". ;-)
i'm sorry, but what exactly does this allow you to do? Could this replace a DS?
thanks
The NDS does not fit in the mainstream industry, which is afraid of taking risks with innovative products that may not sell hundreds of thousands of copies. If homebrew developers take the platform seriously, the DS has the potential to explode.
You are totally blowing smoke yo yer ass if you think Brian that a hacker cart and some crappy homebrew games are gonna spark the DS and the system will take off. You are right though that Nintendo is taking a risk with the unit. But I am afraid it isn't big enough. The same went with the Cube and the N64. Big N hasn't had a hit in a while for home consoles and the PSP blows the DS out of the water. Expect Nintnendo fans to say otherwise but it's the truth. The sales figures don't lie.
>>18.
It happened with XBOX, it could happen with the DS. Plentiful homebrew software, a powerful system and an easily accessable passing software could just as easly turn the DS into a dual-purpose system.
After all, how many people refused to even TOUCH an xbox before the modding community turned it into an emulation / media center system?
Jesse, I'm not sure if you're just way insecure or what, but the DS has a much bigger user base than the shoddy built PSP. In other words, the DS has taken off, it's now the PSP's turn to try and catch up, and seeing as Sony has been selling a shiney black malfunction, it could take a long while.
Richard Moriarty, VPC should work fine.
acemillo,
the ds cards are all 1 gb, wether or not the games use all available resources to power them i am not sure. but if mario64ds fit on 512 with thoes graphs. then we have some really good stuff comin.
Mario 64 on the N64 was a 64 Megabit or 8 Megabyte ROM. The Mario DS game with all the additional content in characters and minigames is at least as large.
Nintendo's current upper limit for the DS is 1 Gb or 128 MB. This isn't a limit of the DS but just the largest size Nintendo expects any publisher to need any time soon. That should be more than sufficient to allow for some excellent games. For instance, Resident Evil II on N64, which was noticeably improved over the PS1 version, fit in a 64 megabyte (512 megabit) cartridge. Cartridge capacity is not a limiting factor on the DS unless you have a great need for extensive use of FMV.
Anyone know of such a product for Genesis? I'd love to throw on 300 roms, I mean legally purchased games, for use with my Nomad... Odd, it took companies this long to finally surpass its graphics...
Now how exactly do they fit DS Game Card in cartridge slot on GBA SP -- another adapter?
USB Enabled - so where the heck do you connect the USB cable to? Will there be a seperate writer?
Is it only for freeware games?
Looks like there is too litle info to make me think this is REAL :(
And in the picture there is no cartridge in the GBA Game Slot on the NDS so the 2 part set thing has no evidence.
Sorry, I agree with PSPimp's assertion. I've got a DS and a PSP, and I've got lots of disposable income for games. Problem is, I have yet to buy a really worthwhile game for the DS. PSP has some retreaded games, sure, but at least the technology's somewhat advanced. PSP's launch kicked the crap out of the DS (much to my chagrin- remember, I'm rooting for both of them). I'm a little pissed that the DS I was in such a hurry to buy on the day it came out has shown me so little justification for my love. My PSP, on the other hand, is really REALLY hard for me to put down.
Does that even look remotely true to people? Or am I still too stoned? Honestly, I highly doubt that all of a sudden a flashcart for the DS will pop out that can store all these files and roms. Anyone remember the online service that was supposed to come on April 11? Yeah, I bet that was real too...
As always... I'll doubt first then see later. And honestly enough. I'm willing to bet the price of a new PSP to anyone, that when this thing comes out sales for Nintendo DS won't increase. Pfft who cares about bootlegging. The homebrew scene will take over... Think not. Besides as Mitch Incognito said the xbox scene look at what happened to the dreamcast. People still haven't gotten rid of them. Alot mainly into the homebrew scene. Heck I'm not going to lie. That's the reason I got a DS in the beginning.
gong you idiot. you just spit out blanket statements. shoddy psp? lol, if you believe everything you see on the internet...
you practically have to break the psp to make it spit out cartridges. only an idiot like you would do that. it's like saying a car is poorly built if you're going 100mph, make a hard left, and then flip over.
I for one hope that this comes around. It seems like a possable thing (though it's not the MOST likely out there). I'd like to see this come about.
From what I have read on DSLinux it is a combo passme and gba cart with "special features." It also isn't a bare, hand soldered pcb. That way your friends won't get the wrong idea and think you are a geek. :)
You can checkout more info at http://www.neoflash.com
zAix - From what you said it sounds like you are trying to uncover a seedy underside of the NeoFlash makers.. perhaps u are calling them "Fakers".... what you failed to realise is that the information on that page about the PhotoShop Edited FlashCart was provided by the NeoFlash designers... they TOLD the guys at gameboy-advance.net that it was fake because they don't have a version to take photo's of... this is in development and scheduled for release.... unfortunate that you think it is a BAD thing that these guys dare to say they WILL release a flashcart.... as for the PSP v. DS argument.... I own both... but I also look at the sales figures and the DS has outsold PSP's worldwide sales numbers in Japan alone.... PSP has alot of work ahead of it... NDS carts = possibly piratable... UMD = Secure... i vote DS.
Timbobsteve told they don't have a version to take photo's of - According to neoflash site they do have a working version...
"To all the site affilaites, we've already sent out our first batch of the neokit."
So how can they send out neo flash kits but have no pictures of a real unit? Looks awfully suspicious!
I hope they sent one to engadget!
There's so many NEO things that I'm confused and have no idea what I would be buying, how much it costs, etc.
Is this product here (USB loader) the same as this?: http://www.xgflash2.com/usa1/html/2005/show-8.htm
Is the usb loader an actual writeable ds game card, which no longer requires a passme, to which I can transfer data? Or does it just read data from a ds game card?
http://www.ic2005.com/html/2005/show-10.htm
Is this a gba flash cart and a passme? Looks a bit pricey for that, since I can get a fairly spacious flash cart for $40 and a passme for about $15...
The latest of Neo creations sounds cool - NDS MK2 with integrated SD/MMC adapter so games can be stored on that plug-in-flash card and not in GBA cart. Look here:
http://www.gameboy-advance.net/nintendo_ds/magickey2-mk2.htm
SD memory is cheap these days and priced at around 40 dollars it would be the most affordable DS backup kit.
This MK looks great but do we still need a gba flash card to run this thing?