Nintendo DSi Gets Its First Flash Cart

ak2i_power_on

A month ago, we reported that Nintendo’s new DSi portable didn’t work with any of the current crop of flash cartridges. Things didn’t look good for homebrew. Here we are a month later and looking at the release of the Acekard 2i. It’s the first DSi compatible flash cartridge. The features appear to be identical to previous versions and we expect other manufactures will be updating their product lines in short order. You can find a video of the Acekard 2i after the break.

These carts may exist because of pirates, but we happily use them for homebrew. There are a lot of great programs out there; here’s a list of 24 apps that are dedicated to music creation. You can run Linux on it too. It’s as easy as copying a file to a flash drive. If you have a DS and aren’t using homebrew, you’re wasting it. We’ll be picking up a DSi as soon as they’re in the US (they’re region locked).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33q1y0UN4cA]

[via DS Fanboy]

41 thoughts on “Nintendo DSi Gets Its First Flash Cart

  1. It’s partly principle, but mostly practicality. I don’t want to have to rely on a third party device for something that the console should be doing anyway.

    There’s also the risk that Nintendo could break the cart with a firmware update – not sure if they can or would do that though.

  2. Who says the carts exist because of the pirates? Every cart and modchip I have ever been a part of the dev cycle with were because of homebrewing and hacking the hardware.

    Stop spreading FUD. Carts and modchips are for homebrewing and hardware hacking. That’s the first designed use.

  3. “Stop spreading FUD. Carts and modchips are for homebrewing and hardware hacking. That’s the first designed use.”

    Whether or not it is the designed use, I’m sure the majority of the sales are not for the purpose of homebrew, except as a bonus. Making copyright circumvention technology available even with alternative (legitimate uses) is a gray area.

  4. w/ regard to the above post. My mistake, yes the carts were most likely created by people who like hacking hardware who probably had homebrew as their original intended purpose. It’s less likely that they would be as popular if that were their only purpose.

  5. As far as i’m aware the region locking only refers to the downloadable games that will be available and nothing more

    Not really surprising they figured it out so soon though

  6. It’s a matter of time before the shop feature is hacked to allow homebrew/pirating.

    There’s an SD slot on the Japanese models (maybe north American as well). Probably will be opened up too.

    The linux is unlikely at first, but probably only requires a few tweaks.

    But honestly, the state of homebrew on the DS isn’t that great right now. However there are a few good games and apps, enough to make the card worthwhile.

  7. @zane: how is the state of homebrew on the DS not that great? there’s dslinux, you know… and there are really good homebrew apps out there. NitroTracker, for instance, is pretty sweet.

  8. which site can i get the acekard 2i from? cause i ordered a cyclo ds evo cause of the youtube video but it was false cause they hard modded it and i found out too late. waste of 50 bucks

  9. I’ve realized that certain files can be opened in the free opera powered browser for the DSi. What file formats can be opened in this browser?

    This browser will also help alot for homebrew possibilities.

  10. I am interested in getting one of these cards… I just would like to know which one works with the US version of the DSi. Most of the vids with demonstrations are with Japanese systems….

    thanks

  11. Got the DSi at launch and picked up an R4i card for it and so far so good.

    But … the difference between the DSi and the DS is that the DSi has upgradable firmware. Do we think that Nintendo can consign the current crop of new cards to the bin or will the card manufacturers and hackers be able to keep the cards alive through Nintendo firmware updates?

  12. It seems likely that Nintendo will try to block access to the R4i and other cards on the DSi.

    The firmware upgrades are prompted; I think that you need to decline until you know what is in any firmware upgrade.

  13. Well you know what they say, anything can be hacked…and I mean A N Y T H I N G, DSi was going to eventually fall to pirates dude I mean it was only a matter a time, I don’t blame Nintendo though, piracy does kill the industry but who cares I don’t, Nintendo has too much money anyway, and there is a plus to it….people will be buying their systems alot more than expected because of that reason so Nintendo should think twice. And yes Nintendo might release an update that will block the Acekard…which the posibillities are extremely high by the way, but that wont happen unless you stupidly connect your DSi to the internet, come on people really, why use the DSi internet when you have a perfectly good computer that can do that? don’t be lazy wow….and on a side note, Acekard team is not retarded, they monitor Nintendo’s DSi updates so if Acekard gets blocked the Acekard Team will start working on a way to bypass the new security or firmware with their own firmware so eat them apples, not that I will ever update my DSi’s firmware but you get the point, the firmware that my DSi came with since the unboxing is the firmware I’m gonna stick with, besides I don’t do multiplayer with my DSi I have a Super PC for that…and I certainly will not buy anything in the DSi shop because for me that would be called, “wasted money.” And considering….I don’t have WiFi so I can’t even enter into its internet lol, I do go to Starbucks alot but I have no worries because I turned WiFi off on my DSi so yeah…

    I feel like a winner, thank you….please submit what you guys thought of my rant…laters

  14. yeah no shit dude…but even if they did the best protection for the new DS, it would still be hacked because like I sdaid before….anything can be hacked and modified

  15. Look they are going about this all wrong from what i understand all hack consist of an overload so why don’t you inject a corrupted mp3 file to you music channel from the SD card you know like the twilight hack.

  16. i have an R4i and it is one that is soposed to work but now because i downloaded new dsi softwear the game will not work. What should i do? Is their another card that will work?

    -Steph

  17. I have an R4 card (there is no i on it so I doubt if it is R4i), it used to work perfectly on DS lite. I recently got a DSi and tried the R4 card and also tried with the same micro SD care using SD card slot and both didn’t work.

    I stupidly tried the shop and upgraded the firmware and of course it doesn’t work as well.

    Where do I go from here? Do I need to buy a different card?

    I believe the games should work from the SD card, but is the file structure different than that of the DS lite.

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