Tiny Cartridge

This could be the first 3DS flashcard

I say “could” because who knows if this is legit, what with this news coming out of nowhere from a company no one’s heard of, but this demonstration video looks credible. Gateway says its device supports both standard and XL 3DSes, and works with any back-up ROMs. It’s disappointing that the first product of this sort seems geared more toward piracy (which, we must once again remind you, we absolutely do not support) than homebrew purposes…

MaxConsole claims this video was put together before the Gateway team created some kind of “game manager” for the device, hence all the MicroSD switching you see here. However, there is also speculation that Nintendo could easily cripple the flashcard with a firmware update due to the presumed nature of its workaround (which doesn’t look like it would even circumvent the system’s region-locking). 

BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases

Rad Super Mario Land graphics patch

No need to spend another night’s prayer on wishing for a Super Mario All-Stars-style graphical overhaul for Super Mario Land — Arne Niklas Jansson created one and released the patch! It reminds me a lot of Minitroid, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

BUY Super Mario 3D Land ($30), upcoming games
  • Source androidarts.com

The Legend of Zelda, starring Princess Zelda

Shin Zelda Densetsu is an old homebrew project, released back in 2004 by Aesirraven and Lord Steak, but the ROM hack suffered a game-breaking bug in one of its dungeons. Chris Miller has just released a patch that should finally fix the issue and allow people to complete the game now!

It’s a complete overhaul of the original Zelda game, and from what I hear it’s quite good. Miller summarizes the changes:

“In a novel twist, the player must guide Princess Zelda on a quest to rescue Link from the forces of evil. The overworld is completely revamped, with few if any recognizable landmarks or routes from the original game. It is superbly designed, and won’t bore the player. The same goes for the dungeons. Instead of numbered levels, the dungeons are identified by symbols of the zodiac.”

I love that the list of classic games hacked to offer playable female protagonists is growing.

PREORDER The Legend of Zelda: LTTP2, upcoming releases

Super Mario Crossover 3.0

How does Exploding Rabbit/Jay Pavlina do it? How does he top himself with every Super Mario Crossover release and put out something completely unexpected but so fun (from what I can tell in this trailer, at least)? You’ll get to play this around May/June 2013 when it releases for PC.

It’s a travesty Nintendo will likely never make anything like this, or allow someone to put out this remix on its consoles. The fact that this is of questionable legality means our legal system is worthless. This should be not only legal, but mandatory.

BUY New Super Mario Bros. 2, upcoming games
New Virtual Boy game!: Advanced Pasta Cooking Simulator I’m happy to post about any new Virtual Boy homebrew project, but I was extra motivated to share this one with you after reading HorvatM’s description: “The goal of this game is simple: just cook pasta. But be very careful: your neighbors are terrorists and they want to make sure you don’t get to taste any of it. Can you cook yourself lunch while they shoot at you through the windows?” You can download Advanced Pasta Cooking Simulator here. BUY Virtual Boy stuff, upcoming games

New Virtual Boy game!: Advanced Pasta Cooking Simulator

I’m happy to post about any new Virtual Boy homebrew project, but I was extra motivated to share this one with you after reading HorvatM’s description:

“The goal of this game is simple: just cook pasta. But be very careful: your neighbors are terrorists and they want to make sure you don’t get to taste any of it. Can you cook yourself lunch while they shoot at you through the windows?”

You can download Advanced Pasta Cooking Simulator here.

BUY Virtual Boy stuff, upcoming games

Hope for running homebrew 3DS games/apps

While we’ve no news about efforts to hack the 3DS and bring unauthorized homebrew development to the system, we understand work is continuing on that front. Meanwhile Goodbye Galaxy Games’ Hugo Smits, maker of DSiWare titles like the Flipper series and Color Commando (watch latest trailer here), has an alternative solution that likely wouldn’t lock you out of the eShop and future firmware updates.

Hugo has built a framework, tools, and an emulator for creating/prototyping commercial 3DS titles, and he’s now proposing the idea of releasing free software that enables others to make games. Now what’s really interesting is he’d put out a cheap (around $2), complementary eShop app/emulator that allows people to run those games on their 3DSes, similar to Petit Computer for DSiWare:

Read more

  • Source goodbyegalaxygames.blogspot.com

3D Portal homebrew for the DS

While we wait for more news from the 3DS hacking front, the DS homebrew development scene continues to put out the occasional release, like this impressive prototype inspired by Portal. By the way, someone also put out a 2D Portal remake for DS several years ago, and it was pretty awesome!

The French coder behind this project, Smealum (who you might remember for  his work on the Minecraft DS project), says PortalDS is “nowhere near playable yet,” but that he’ll eventually add other updates including audio. You should note that the above video was shot with an emulator, so you’ll see some graphical glitches not present in the actual game.

BUY Portal stuff
  • Source gonintendo.com
Bomberman x Link ROM hack This can’t be the first time someone’s done this, right? I mean, this hack seems so obvious — of course someone would think to drop a Link sprite into Bomberman. It just makes sense, what with the green-capped hero’s penchant for bomb-laying. In this case, Moejoe128 hacked Super Bomberman 2 Go for Pro Edition to offer Link as a playable character. He added a few other awesome features, too, like a Stage 1 option with edge tunnels that send you to the other side (like Pac-Man), varied speeds for kicking bombs, and more. BUY Hyrule Historia, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

Bomberman x Link ROM hack

This can’t be the first time someone’s done this, right? I mean, this hack seems so obvious — of course someone would think to drop a Link sprite into Bomberman. It just makes sense, what with the green-capped hero’s penchant for bomb-laying.

In this case, Moejoe128 hacked Super Bomberman 2 Go for Pro Edition to offer Link as a playable character. He added a few other awesome features, too, like a Stage 1 option with edge tunnels that send you to the other side (like Pac-Man), varied speeds for kicking bombs, and more.

BUY Hyrule Historia, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
  • Source romhacking.net
Shit just got real with Retro Game Challenge 2 Here’s something wonderful that popped up in the comments of our Retro Game Challenge post earlier today — Nina Matsumoto (a.k.a. Space Cowboy, a.k.a. Zari-Gani) has joined the fan translation team for Game Center CX 2/Retro Game Challenge 2! Nearly two years have passed since efforts to patch this revered DS sequel started, but it’s faced challenges due to the lack of translators willing to see this project through. That’s why we’re so excited about this news — Game Center CX fans will likely recognize Nina’s name from her involvement with the official Retro Game Master DVD set’s translation, the Game Center CX fansubs released through Something Awful, and the artwork featured on the Game Center CX in USA box! The team is still looking for translators and experienced ROM hackers to help with the project, so drop them a line and help them make this happen please! BUY Retro Game Challenge, Retro Game Master DVD setIMPORT Game Center CX 2

Shit just got real with Retro Game Challenge 2

Here’s something wonderful that popped up in the comments of our Retro Game Challenge post earlier today — Nina Matsumoto (a.k.a. Space Cowboy, a.k.a. Zari-Gani) has joined the fan translation team for Game Center CX 2/Retro Game Challenge 2!

Nearly two years have passed since efforts to patch this revered DS sequel started, but it’s faced challenges due to the lack of translators willing to see this project through. That’s why we’re so excited about this news — Game Center CX fans will likely recognize Nina’s name from her involvement with the official Retro Game Master DVD set’s translation, the Game Center CX fansubs released through Something Awful, and the artwork featured on the Game Center CX in USA box!

The team is still looking for translators and experienced ROM hackers to help with the project, so drop them a line and help them make this happen please!

BUY Retro Game Challenge, Retro Game Master DVD set
IMPORT Game Center CX 2
  • Source forums.somethingawful.com
Not everyone’s happy about the 3DS hacking news Opponents of the Nintendo 3DS’s region-locking and homebrew-blocking welcomed yesterday’s news that hackers have made great strides in working around the system’s security. You can see evidence of that in the above image posted this morning, which shows a custom 3DS notification (with a nod to The World Ends With You). Though hacker Neimod is against allowing his 3DS exploit to be used for loading commercial software, some are worried about the piracy implications of this latest development. Jools Watsham, head of Mutant Mudds maker Renegade Kid, believes this could nonetheless pave the way for 3DS piracy: “Piracy on the Nintendo DS crippled the DS retail market, especially in Europe. … If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games. … The good news is that Nintendo has the ability to put up a good fight against pirates due to 3DS system updates and such. Let’s hope this is enough to stop piracy.” 1UP’s Jeremy Parish voiced similar concerns: “The underlying intent of hacking a machine like this is to open the door for piracy. … The advent of 3DS software piracy seems likely to be the worst possible thing that could happen to the system, especially in the U.S. I can’t help but worry that the only thing helping to prop up the 3DS’s meager U.S. software sales so far has been the fact that you have to buy them to play them. Take away that limitation, and will we see the 3DS market implode the same way the DS market did? It’s hard to imagine otherwise.” NeoGAF’s Duckroll, however, has a great argument for why cheering on 3DS hacking isn’t necessarily wrong, despite its potential ramifications: “If somehow the advent of piracy is tied to something which also makes buying customers who do not pirate rejoice, this means you’re doing something wrong. That does not mean buying customers are cheering for piracy, it means that either the feature set in the base package is not satisfactory, or that somehow in the pursuit of preventing piracy something has been implemented which has an adverse effect on paying customers. Neither of these factors are good. Ideally, a company should keep consumers happy because they are what keeps the company alive. If no one buys anything, then the company dies. It is often better to put resources towards keeping customers who you know exist happy, rather than being stubborn and believing that by preventing piracy completely, you will automatically make money. This is why in general every draconian DRM scheme has largely failed.” As for where we stand on the controversial topic of hacking the 3DS, we’ve decided that we’re neutral on the issue — a brave and bold stance, we know! We’ve mentioned in the past that there is a lot of value to homebrew capabilities and devices add to consoles, but we believe Parish and Watsham’s concerns are valid. Piracy on the DS was no joke, and that likely affected what publishers ended up releasing for the system. So, while we would love a region-free 3DS, we wouldn’t want it to come at the cost of developers abandoning the system because they can’t make a buck off it anymore. BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases

Not everyone’s happy about the 3DS hacking news

Opponents of the Nintendo 3DS’s region-locking and homebrew-blocking welcomed yesterday’s news that hackers have made great strides in working around the system’s security. You can see evidence of that in the above image posted this morning, which shows a custom 3DS notification (with a nod to The World Ends With You).

Though hacker Neimod is against allowing his 3DS exploit to be used for loading commercial software, some are worried about the piracy implications of this latest development. Jools Watsham, head of Mutant Mudds maker Renegade Kid, believes this could nonetheless pave the way for 3DS piracy:

“Piracy on the Nintendo DS crippled the DS retail market, especially in Europe. … If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games. …

The good news is that Nintendo has the ability to put up a good fight against pirates due to 3DS system updates and such. Let’s hope this is enough to stop piracy.”

Read more

More Nintendo 3DS hacking progress Hackers have reportedly made considerable gains in breaking open the 3DS since their breakthrough a week ago, when someone finally managed to breach the handheld’s protections and run custom code on the device. Coder Xcution is showing off homebrew tests like the image above, and now another hacker named Neimod claims to have full control of the system in kernel mode with an unmodified 3DS and an exploit that uses a specific retail game. While he says this exploit could be easily patched, Neimod notes that “with full kernel control, anything is possible,” including circumventing the 3DS’s pesky region lock. He adds that he has no interest in allowing others to use the hack to load pirated software. BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases

More Nintendo 3DS hacking progress

Hackers have reportedly made considerable gains in breaking open the 3DS since their breakthrough a week ago, when someone finally managed to breach the handheld’s protections and run custom code on the device.

Coder Xcution is showing off homebrew tests like the image above, and now another hacker named Neimod claims to have full control of the system in kernel mode with an unmodified 3DS and an exploit that uses a specific retail game.

While he says this exploit could be easily patched, Neimod notes that “with full kernel control, anything is possible,” including circumventing the 3DS’s pesky region lock. He adds that he has no interest in allowing others to use the hack to load pirated software.

BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases
3DS homebrew/hacking progress Noted game console hacker Yellows8 claims to have circumvented the 3DS’s securities and run custom code on the device, according to this photo he took as evidence. He was able to run this code with the latest firmware installed, though technical issues disabled the 3D LED and have so far prevented the system from displaying graphics. I’m uncertain how Yellows8 pulled this off, but GBAtemp member SifJar shared this thought to put the news in perspective: “There are only two known vulnerabilities for code execution, and both would most likely be patched at once, so I’d guess it’s unlikely there’ll be a release unless another, more unique, vulnerability [is] found for Yellows8 (and those he chooses to share with) to use for further exploration once the released exploit is patched.” Nintendo has managed to keep homebrew and pirated 3DS software off its system for nearly two years now, and I imagine its engineers would be quick to release an update that would kill this latest hack. BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases

3DS homebrew/hacking progress

Noted game console hacker Yellows8 claims to have circumvented the 3DS’s securities and run custom code on the device, according to this photo he took as evidence. He was able to run this code with the latest firmware installed, though technical issues disabled the 3D LED and have so far prevented the system from displaying graphics.

I’m uncertain how Yellows8 pulled this off, but GBAtemp member SifJar shared this thought to put the news in perspective:

“There are only two known vulnerabilities for code execution, and both would most likely be patched at once, so I’d guess it’s unlikely there’ll be a release unless another, more unique, vulnerability [is] found for Yellows8 (and those he chooses to share with) to use for further exploration once the released exploit is patched.”

Nintendo has managed to keep homebrew and pirated 3DS software off its system for nearly two years now, and I imagine its engineers would be quick to release an update that would kill this latest hack.

BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases
  • Source gbatemp.net