“Opportunity” by Saitone, in Pop ‘n Music 16. I had totally written off the Wii release of the Bemani music title, given its use of Wii motion controls instead of the nine-button control array that defines Pop ‘n Music, in addition to the few songs I knew about from the soundtrack (like… “Hangin’ Tough” by New Kids on the Block), until Gamasutra publisher and Eric employer Simon Carless tweeted about its inclusion of the Saitone “chiptronica” track (which, strangely enough, does not appear on the track list for the Japanese Wii release of this game). This track makes the game at least a little more interesting!

This clip comes from an arcade version of Konami’s rhythm game, however, and not the Wii version. This was simply the only Pop’n video of this song I could find. The Wii game looks like this:

tags / konami / pop n music / saitone / bemani / jc

Homebrew DS game played on DSi.

Yasu, the same programmer who was able to run unofficial code on the DSi despite Nintendo’s anti-piracy measures, has put up a video showing the new handheld playing Pop’n DS, a rhythm title based on Konami’s Bemani series.

It’s not clear whether he’s running the homemade game through a flashcart or an SD card, but some claim that Yasu is using a “save game exploit,” which Nintendo could potentially patch with future firmware upgrades.

There are supposedly three known save game exploits, all of which can play homebrew games and applications, but not commercial titles. Several groups are actively searching for more possible exploits.

I’ve been meaning to write about Pop’n DS for a while, as it’s great stuff, but I kept forgetting to! You can download the game from Yasu’s Japanese site to play it on a Nintendo DS Lite/Phat.

tags / yasu / homebrew / bemani / bmds / dsi / ec / piracy / flashcart