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Mass Market DS Homebrew Cart Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-isn't-that-special dept.

Croakyvoice writes "Datel has finally released the Games n Music Homebrew cart for the Nintendo DS, this mass market entry level cart features a 128mb Micro SD card and comes with a 25 game CD of the best of DS homebrew games." Games 'n' Music contains everything you need straight out of the box. It even comes bundled with a 25-game CD, offering some of the best games the DS home brew scene has to offer, as well as a video conversion program."

14 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm by Trip+Ericson · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, here's hoping Slashdot doesn't take down DCEmu today...

    I think it's a good start, though I can't say I like all of the Slot 1 solutions yet. They still don't have a way to play games that need GBA mode, which is a bit of a deal breaker for me. The only way to play GB/GBC games on the DS is through a Slot 2 adapter with the Goomba emulator on it. (It's much easier to do that than to carry around my GBA SP with a ton of cartridges.

    I myself have an M3 Adapter with a Passcard 3, which does the same thing that this does except it requires both a Slot 1 and Slot 2 cartridge. It takes standard SD cards but sticks out of my DS Lite a lot, though I'm probably going to get myself an M3 Lite soon which will require Micro SD, just like the one in the story does.

    I will say, though, that this is a great way to show people what the DS is capable of doing. I use DS AIM fairly frequently, and DS2Key is great for war driving. MSN users will like BeUP, and there's all sorts of other applications for it, such as text writers, calculators (TI-85 emulator), and so on. Moonshell is an excellent audio player. That's not even mentioning all of the wonderful homebrew games, most of which I haven't played with much. Among my favorite are DSudoku, a clone of Text Twist, A Touch of War, and there's a Civ-like game whose name slips my mind at the moment. All are completely free and run well.

    I hope that this particular release further encourages the DS homebrew community.

    1. Re:Hmm by B1ackDragon · · Score: 2, Informative

      Many of the applications being written for the DS are really quite awesome. I have to say though, it's kind of rough because I own a new DSLite, and many of the wifi-aware homebrew apps don't work with it because they haven't been compiled against the more recent wifi drivers. (Newer DS Lites have an updated wifi chipset or something.) On the other hand, development is quite active, so (I hope) it shouldn't be just too long before most things are working. (I did attempt to compile one app against the new libraries myself, but the hours spent were fruitless.) Also, I should note that I have a Supercard DS(One) (a slot one solution) and DSlinux doesn't boot at all with it. (Well, as of a couple weeks ago.) Anyway, totally off topic, but I just thought I'd put some information and an anecdote out there in case it's of use to anyone.

      --
      The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
  2. Don't buy a DS-Xtreme by edwdig · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just a little advice... there's a DS flash cart called the DS-Xtreme. I bought one, and it worked great for about a month or two. After that it started freezing up randomly. I left a message on their support site, and after about two and a half weeks they replied with a new firmware update to try. Loading it completely hosed the unit. 9 times out of 10 the DS doesn't recognize the card at all. On the rare occasions that it does recognize the card, attempting to use it freezes the DS instantly.

    The problems look to be rather common. It seems like the manufacturing plant slightly tweaks each batch, causing unexpected problems each time.

    The DS-X is also $125 for a 512 MB cart. This Datel product is $40, so it's looking pretty good to me right now.

    1. Re:Don't buy a DS-Xtreme by FreakyGeeky · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have a "batch two" DS-X and liked it so much I bought a "batch four" unit for my wife. Both have been flawless. It sounds like you gave up after the last firmware update. I can't imagine that Aphex or Guru left you with a bricked unit. Besides, most problems people have with 1.10 are because they didn't follow the instructions.

      You say these problems are "rather common." What leads you to that conclusion? Yes, there was a change at the plant once. That caused the infamous "qkin" problem that was fixed in about a week.

      Yes, the DS-X is $125 for a 512MB cartridge. However, it is the only cartridge able to play Nintendo download play games with un-flashed DS units. Features are more important than capacity to some people.

  3. Re:Royalties? by hansamurai · · Score: 2, Informative

    Though it still requires a credit card, SuperCardStore ships from the UK to Europe and the US. I've never actually ordered from them myself but have heard pretty good things about their delivery time and service.

    --
    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  4. Re:Royalties? by crazyprogrammer · · Score: 2, Informative

    I ordered my supercard from www.realhotstuff.com. They accept money orders, credit cards, and Paypal. They ship from within the US too. I used Paypal when I ordered and recieved my supercard in about a week.

    --
    "the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
  5. Re:SDK??? by aliquis · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.devkitpro.org/

    I don't know, google around a little =P

  6. SuperCard and M3 by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    Uhm, doesn't atleast one of them work for GBA games to? I don't remember which one thought, I guess the M3 simply doesn't. SuperCard CF, SuperCard SD, SuperCard miniSD, and SuperCard Lite work for GBA homebrew. (SuperCard Rumble does not work in GBA mode, and SuperCard DS One is for DS homebrew only.) CycloDS is a rebadged SuperCard. All "M3 Perfect" cards work for GBA homebrew. (M3 Pro has reduced features, and M3 DS Simply is for DS homebrew only.) The original GBA Movie Player works for GBA homebrew developed to run in multiboot mode, such as most of my own projects.
  7. Try devkitARM by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    Do any of these kits come with and SDK? What are the development tools for the DS like and how can one came by them? Most homebrew developers use DevkitARM. It's a GCC cross-compiler targeting the DS. The site also carries libgba, libnds, and some example projects.

    Are they on par with the tools from Nintendo? Not yet.
  8. This has been released for MONTHS...recalled even! by Ichinisan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Datel released this months ago. I have seen it in my local Best Buy for a couple months at least. No, I am not confusing it with their Action Replay or Max Media products. In fact, this very product was recalled because one of the homebrew titles could show something "inappropriate" (probably pornography). Information about the recall:
    http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=14541

  9. "Mass Market" Pass-Me? DMCA? by RiffRafff · · Score: 3, Informative

    If this is truly a mass market device, I wonder how Datel has out-maneuvered the DMCA, since this thing has to have a Pass-Me or equivalent mechanism for bypassing the DS' RSA code...

    --
    "I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
  10. Re:"Mass Market" Pass-Me? DMCA? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Informative

    First off, the DMCA applies to circumvention devices for encrypted content. Last I checked, this thing wasn't a decryption device.

    Second, this thing doesn't "bypass" the DS startup handshake. It implements it (it was cracked some time ago, as I understand it).

  11. The homebrew authors diden't get much... by cbeley · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some people are asking whether the homebrew games were made by Datel and if not, how were the authors compensated...well, I'm one of the authors of one of the games on that disc, Super Snake DS. Everyone got $180 worth of stinky Datel products...honestly...i'm starting to wish I never gave them permission to include my game, even if it is freely downloadble already.

    Though, it's not like anyone gave them full rights to the games, there "contract" over e-mail basicly just allowed them to include the game and that's it, otherwise the original authors can do whatever they want. Though, then again, it's not like I can technically enter into a legally binding contract to begin with, so I guess the little e-mail I sent them means nothing further more.

    Though, I'm sure the fact that I wrote a game for the Nintendo DS at the age of 17 that got onto a commerically aviable product that can be purchased at your local Best Buy will look good somewhere...so it's not all bad.

  12. the encoder uses ffmpeg by jshriverWVU · · Score: 2, Informative

    I noticed after converting the d3v is really just a mpeg stream and nothing special. If you look in the install directory it has ffmpeg :) I ran the converter under wine and you can see the ffmpeg arguments. So you can convert these easily under linux with native ffmpeg.