Ninjapass allows flash cart-less homebrew on Nintendo DS

If you've been waiting around for an easy way to play homebrew swag on your Nintendo DS or DS Lite, then prepare yourself for the stealthily-named Ninjapass. Like a handful of other solutions already on the market, this device lets you load up your games and play them directly from the DS cartridge slot -- no flash cart required. There's only 64MB of onboard memory, but you do get passcard functionality to boot content from the GameBoy Advance slot, along with a multi-game menu, convenient system for saving games, and bundled USB 2.0 adapter for hassle-free file transfer. The Ninjapass is currently available to pre-order -- it will ship when "stock arrives" at an unspecified date -- for $52, or a little less if you order in bulk.

[Via DS Fanboy]

[Daviel @ Jul 13th 2006 11:18AM]

That's.............. interesting.
So, could you put video clips or audio clips on it in addition to games? Can it only do Homebrew? How do you Homebrew?

[Gaz @ Jul 13th 2006 11:35AM]

I do homebrew in the following order.

1. Boil water
2. Put t-bag in mug
3. Pour boiling water into mug
4. wait 2-3 minutes to 'brew'
5. Remove t-bag and add milk to taste

I do this mostly at 'home' but I've heard it can be performed elsewhere given the correct equipment. I guess with this I can homebrew on the train or bus as well....brilliant!

[Permanent4 @ Jul 13th 2006 11:40AM]

Will it be able to serve up fresh apple pies to whales every week?

[JC @ Jul 13th 2006 11:47AM]

I still prefer my M3/Passcard combo. WIth a 2 gig Mini SD in there, I can have 50-60 games, and take just that on the road. Imagine having to lug a laptop just to change games, or even sillier, to buy multiples of these at $52 a pop just to have different games.

[CharlesV @ Jul 13th 2006 12:06PM]

Agreed, I've got a flashed dsl (via MML) and supercard mini-sd and it's nice to knowif I ever do need more storage i can buy another minisd card for peanuts instead of having to buy a whole shebang. If they had one of these that TOOK minisd or transflash or somethin,, now that would be pretty rad.

[Dan @ Jul 13th 2006 12:47PM]

Now we can have rumble features with homebrew!!!

[confused @ Jul 13th 2006 12:50PM]

what's the best and cheapest way to do homebrew, video, mp3, etc. on the nds? and, coming from someone whose never done homebrew, where do u get it from and put it on the ds and stuff like that?

[tc @ Jul 13th 2006 3:03PM]

Perhaps it will be possible to just rip the software they use on the ninja and apply it to your own 2gig flash?

[anonymous coward @ Jul 13th 2006 4:26PM]

They are currently working on an mini or micro SD version.

[Istrancis @ Jul 13th 2006 7:37PM]

Sweet, hopefully it'll lend to the development of the DSLinux project!

[Hector Garcia @ Jul 13th 2006 8:04PM]

I just bought my DS Lite and its amazing, i love it... but is it just me or is it getting the same staining problems the white macbooks have? Mines already smudged and ive bearly had it a week.

[ben @ Jul 13th 2006 9:32PM]

what is two or three of the best nds homebrew how-to sites oout there?

[JBGUY2K @ Jul 13th 2006 11:44PM]

Hector Garcia: Wash your hands, maybe that could help...

I'm gonna have to get this when I get some moneys. Maybe then I can start making my own games for my DS...

[JBGUY2K @ Jul 13th 2006 11:50PM]

I really must apologize for a double post, but I just found something cheaper that can handle the same thing as said gadget does and some other stuff.

It's by Codejunkies, so I really don't know everyone's opinion on this company. It's called the Max Media Dock and you can run homebrew code from a compact flash card.

here's the URL to the thing:
http://us.codejunkies.com/shop/product.asp?c=US&cr=USD&cs=$&r=0&l=1&ProdID=750

[rf @ Jul 14th 2006 3:05AM]

the website seems to be selling one with 512mb memory, whilst stating that there is also 128mb, 256mb and 1g versions, so i'm not sure where engadget is getting "only 64mb" from

[Gwyn @ Jul 14th 2006 5:43AM]

rf - those numbers are in megaBITS, not megaBYTES. Divide those numbers by 8 to get a better idea of their size.

ie: 128mb = 16MB, 256mb = 32MB, 512mb = 64MB, 1gb = 1024mb = 128MB.

[rf @ Jul 14th 2006 6:57AM]

oh right, cheeky swines

[Jay Vaughan @ Jul 14th 2006 7:52AM]

well .. you could do away with all this hacky hardware nonsense and just get yourself a GP2X (http://gbax.com/) which doesn't require any sort of nonsense to get home-brew code up and running on it, is cheap, and already runs thousands and thousands of interesting ROM's from Nintendo, Sega, Sony, et al.

That said, I'm gonna get me a DSLite+Elektroplankton soon as I can ..

[wii-mods @ Jul 15th 2006 12:17PM]

Cool to have no flash card - until you realize that you needed the gba flash for playing gba games and now with a ds only pass card you cant play them :(

[Nawfal @ Jul 18th 2006 6:25AM]

Isn't this much cheaper then the M3/Passcard combo?

[Kaz @ Jul 20th 2006 3:48PM]

Are you sure about it being bits instead of bytes? As far as I have seen on the site, there are alot of things that are listed as "Bit". Remember this - The store's logo engrishly says: "we shipping worldwide and offering a low price guarantee." 'Nuff said.

[darthjaiz @ Aug 11th 2006 12:15PM]

nah, not much wanted level.

if it has SD, miniSD, microSD support it would be great.

maybe its just meant only for DS games thats why it has a passcard support for the homebrews,emus,DSlinux.

Oh the confusion!!!

this could lead us to a new level or maybe more complicated.