Gateway 3DS Orders Are Open

Well, it looks like I've gotten some good news from the guys offering the Gateway 3DS flash card for the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL.  It's the very first flash card that actually runs and play 3DS roms, but with some catches.  It works with 3DS systems that are running up to version 4.5 (so if you're running anything higher, you won't be able to use the card) and it's also enabling you to save your games to the same microSD Card that your games is currently on.

The gateway 3ds uses one microSD per game.  So if you have say, Resident Evil, you'll need to use one micro SD for that game alone.  You can of course remove the game and put a new one on, but for the time being, it doesn't offer any type of multi game support on one microSD, regardless of how big your microSD card may be.

I'm going to quote what the team has said below regarding compatibility and save games.  If you've already placed a pre-order, I guess you can expect to get it pretty soon.   If however you have not yet placed any order for it, they suggest that you do so quickly as the initial production run is a smaller one, so you may have to wait a month or more to get your hands on it from the second shipment.

And I quote the below, is it's straight from the mouths of the team who make this card:

1) Yes, we are exploit based (Yay !?) and therefore very dependent on console firmware version: Our current plan is to release for firmware version 4.5 while continuing work on a solution for 6.x + after release. (please see note below) 

2)Gateway will be shipped with 2 cards, the red Gateway shown in our video, which will handle 3ds backups, and a blue ds cart which will be used to prepare the console. ( more demo videos showing save game compatibility as well as setup procedures to follow soon ) 

3) Your console can be safely updated to 4.5 by using an original title released after March 2013 till current. Please double check the update message (version) before proceeding !
Note:We currently have a very convenient and user friendly way to enter into our Gateway mode, while this entry point has been tested up to 6.0 we expect it to be shut off shortly after we release. We can not stress enough the importance of staying away from any further updates! ( 6.0 compatibility is only valid for our initial entry point, as stated in point (1) we currently only support firmware version 4.5 )

While the comment about being exploit based may throw some people off, it's important to remember that pretty much every single flash cart out there for the 3ds is also currently exploit based, so you have to do firmware updates - or not do firmware updates - depending on the kernel or menu system currently available for your card of choice.

You can always visit the Gateway 3DS homepage for more details on compatibility and to place a pre-order or order one for yourself.  

Have A Nintendo 3DS 6.1.0 ? There's An R4 3DS Card For That!

It's been a very long time since my last post here, and I have kept myself busy with a couple of new games I helped make for the Nintendo 3DS.  No, not games you can buy at your local GameStop, but

games we give out for free, as in freeware / homebrew games.  Don't get me wrong, I probably wouldn't be able to make a game that was commercial quality (graphics are my weakness in this regards) but there's a lot of retro style games you can make, that have some great game play to boot.  You just need the R4 3DS to play it on your DS, DSi or Nintendo 3DS System.

Just last month, Nintendo released two new system updates for their 3DS and 3DS XL systems.  The first was the 6.0 update for the 3DS and 3DS XL, and due to a small little bug, the second one was the 6.1.0 update.  It looks different for all countries. For example, in the USA, you'll have the 6.1.0-11u and in Europe you'll have 6.1.0-11e, but the end result is the same.

When the 6.0 update was released, it rendered a lot of the better know flash cards non-useable with the 3ds system.  Some cards needed a physical cut on the main pc board of the card itself, while other card makers ended up having to actually bring out new cards in order to have them work.  This was pretty much the case with virtually every single card out there.  But there were a few cards that remained unscathed... probably due to the fact that they have secondary processing chips, or have their own built in ram to load and run firmware and software.  The 6.1.0 update was a bug fix, but naturally, incompatibility with the r4 3ds cards was left.

The two cards that needed no extra work, and needed nothing more than just a firmware update were the r4 3ds rts card and the r4 3ds dual core cards.  These two, from the same manufacturer, ended up working and continue to work today.  So if you have one of their 2013 versions, you can go to the official website and grab their latest firmware from their firmware section.  It'll take just a replacement of the kernel files, and you will be up and running without issues again.

If you have an R4i Gold or R4i 3DS SDHC, then in SOME cases, you card may work... this depends largely on the model of the card you have, and what revision.  For the most part, many of the newer cards made AFTER the 6.1.0 update to the 3ds will work, but you may be stuck with an older model of your card unfortunately, and you'll have to get a new one.