DSI - Good or Bad for DS Homebrew ?

[wraggster]

Im sure by now you have heard of the new DS Console coming this year to Japan, but the loss of GBA Hardware inside and no GBA Port means a loss of all GBA Hombrew but the SD Slot possibly opens up the DS to Homebrew without the need for a flash cart.

So DSI is it good or bad for homebrew on the DS ?

[juiceface]

I'm guessing nintendo has gone through considerable effort to lock down this new version of the DS from flash cards that enable homebrew (similarly to what sony is doing with the new version of the psp). With that being said, in the short term there will be no homebrew capabilities for the new DS. I doubt it will hurt the homebrew scene for the DS as a whole though because the scene has existed for quite sometime now. It will only lock out new users from homebrew, and with 75 million nintendo DS's being sold you are not locking out to many people from homebrew at this point. In the long term it could be a blessing if someone figures out how to pass the new nintendo DS protections on unsigned code being ran (being that there is now SD memory support).

[iofthestorm]

I agree with juiceface, at first it will be hard to get homebrew and I think most people agree that Nintendo will try to lock out existing homebrew carts, but someone will find a crack eventually and it will be as easy to hack as a Wii eventually. And in the meantime the DS scene will continue as usual. Maybe this will be enough motivation for Dragonminded/Shaun Taylor to work on a new version of DSOrganize, since it seems like Wii homebrew motivated him to make a new media player app. I think overall this new DS will make homebrew better.

[magickosta]

i think that they will find a way through the sd card slot. :thumbup:

What stinks is that i use a m3 cf for homebrew.
The reason is that i bought a 16 gig cf

well the cf card and the new m3 because my old one broke just went down the drain.

One good thing not relating to homebrew is that my friends think its cool. Most of them make fun of me for having a ds.......

[jaybud4]

I don't see how Nintendo could prevent us from running a slot-one flashcard. Sure, there wouldn't be RAM pak support, but they'd be committing suicide if they DIDN'T include internal (which would be so much faster then the paks anyway) RAM with that browser it's said to have.
And the slot-one flashcards duplicate the Nintendo header to the point that (obviously) they can be used in the regular DS without any hackery. With that said, they'll be enforcing the rules harder, no doubt, but any of the truly worthwhile slot one cards should still be able to work.

Take whatever's said about this DSi with a grain of salt, as until this thing is released, we can't say anything about homebrew for sure.

[Grey Acumen]

There's no way the homebrew scene can be harmed by the DSi. As has already been stated, the current crop of homebrew can run without needing any hacks at all, thus the DSi should be able to run existing homebrew just as easily as it can run official DS games.

now, it may take a while for the SD card to get hacked, but if you can run homebrew from a DS homebrew card, you should be able to send it something that opens up the SD card slot to run homebrew from.

the only real blow to homebrew here is dependent on if the DSi is capable of emulating GBA using just software. If it could manage that, it would actually be a huge boost, since you would be able to add savestates and maybe even zoom and speed functions to GBA games.

[Harshboy]

If they build it, we can crack it. That saying goes for any electronic device, including the DSi.

Someone will hack the SD Slot and there wont ever be a need for flashcards again.

[Jeric]

I view the initial stages of homebrew for the DSI as extending existing 'ware capability to take advantage of newer features/added ram, then after the sd slot is cracked so we can run code via there, or at least use it as a storage device, whole new worlds of possibility open up. All it takes is time, and those willing to put the hours in.

oh and harsh, could you please do something about your signature? It gives me headaches.

[iofthestorm]

I don't see how Nintendo could prevent us from running a slot-one flashcard. Sure, there wouldn't be RAM pak support, but they'd be committing suicide if they DIDN'T include internal (which would be so much faster then the paks anyway) RAM with that browser it's said to have.
And the slot-one flashcards duplicate the Nintendo header to the point that (obviously) they can be used in the regular DS without any hackery. With that said, they'll be enforcing the rules harder, no doubt, but any of the truly worthwhile slot one cards should still be able to work.

Take whatever's said about this DSi with a grain of salt, as until this thing is released, we can't say anything about homebrew for sure.

If you've browsed gbadev.org forums, you would have seen a post by tepples that laid out exactly how Nintendo could block existing carts. Basically they put a whitelist of all the old games' SHA-1 hashes on the firmware, and have all new games RSA signed, and require carts to pass that check to run. Homebrew carts wouldn't pass the test so they would be locked out. I still think someone will hack the system eventually, but I'm pretty sure one of the reasons for this DSi is to lock out homebrew/piracy, at least temporarily.

[jaybud4]

If you've browsed gbadev.org forums, you would have seen a post by tepples that laid out exactly how Nintendo could block existing carts. Basically they put a whitelist of all the old games' SHA-1 hashes on the firmware, and have all new games RSA signed, and require carts to pass that check to run. Homebrew carts wouldn't pass the test so they would be locked out. I still think someone will hack the system eventually, but I'm pretty sure one of the reasons for this DSi is to lock out homebrew/piracy, at least temporarily.

Key word there is "could".
That seems HIGHLY unlikely.