Hacking My Acekard 2i is now in the hands of an official Nintendo engineer...

[delete12345]

*Oh ____*

Whatever words you can think of, place them all in.

I have a very old NDS, bought it in 2005 ~ 2006 (estimated). I have a GBA cartridge and Acekard 2i. The cartridge, due to old age, has a leaking internet battery, shortwired a few circuits, and had its liquid running over the Acekard 2i metal contacts (effectively destroying its internal hardware), burnt out the NDS bottom screen hardware, the NDS battery had leaked due to the said liquid running over its cover, all because of the GBA cartridge, according to the engineer located in Japan.

I don't know how my NDS traveled over 500 miles away from my home and landed up in the engineer's hands. I would assumed its my roommate. His girlfriend wanted to play my Super Mario DS, so I lended it to her. She took it back to her dormitory, and some time later, the NDS bottom wouldn't lit up and wouldn't power up. According to my roommate, she desperately pleaded to him for help, afraid that she had to pay me a new NDS. He loved to, and shipped my NDS all the way to Nintendo.

The engineer, whom I haven't heard of his voice or anything and whom my roommate knew of, called back to him via Skype about the NDS and all of the details of hardware failures. The engineer also ranted aggressively about the Acekard 2i and the software within it and blames him, which he should be blaming me.

Whatever the case, my NDS seems to be in Japan now, my roommate is actually trying to disappate/avoid getting me having to retreive a court filing from Nintendo Corp. I really don't know if it's true or not, I don't even know whether the Acekard 2i, the NDS, or even the whole situation is a giant made-up story or something. Even if I wanted to prove it by obtaining hard evidence, my roommate just wouldn't bulge, and his girlfriend don't understand what's behind the scenes...

The only evidence I could manage to obtain is that my roommate told me they (the hardware debugging team, where the engineer worked in) reversed-engineered my NDS and found out that it had once played a legit NDS card game (My brother's Pokemon Diamond (J)) before using the Acekard 2i and whatnots. I haven't told my roommate much about the NDS until after he blurted out that truth... Therefore, I have started to believe him.

My roommate kept in touch with the engineer and told me that I have a bargain: an overpriced 3DS that I couldn't beg to afford it, hand me back the old NDS, or risk having a court filing if his company founds out about Acekard 2i. 2 of them hard to decide, and 1 I wanted to avoid at all cost. And must be decided upon before Christmas.

I'm now under stress, and couldn't think straight. I want some tips or anything, and yeah, I'm in a confusing, painful, out-of-the-blue situation. Blame me for my bad luck. *sigh*

 

[Judas18]

Someone else accidentally sent their Acekard 2i to Nintendo along with their DS(i) and they only destroyed the card. I don't think they would waste their time filing a lawsuit against 1 pirate.

 

[coolness]

omg, you better watch out
have you never heard of the Task-force Ninty147?

 

[Foxi4]

Trololololo Nintendo Team, the Nintendo DS DOES NOT store info on carts previously used. In fact, the only info it stores are the date, your birthday, the time and some calendar crap. They might destroy your Acekard and refuse to fix your DS, but in all factuality they should not - flashcarts are not illegal in the U.S. If you so happened to have pirated software on the SD though, you might not see it back at all and I would not argue with them about it. Just buy a new Acekard and a new SD, they can't do jack about it.

 

[delete12345]

You know the SD card in the Acekard 2i? I don't know, but I get this feeling that my 2GB SD card, when in their hands, they can scan it and see what games I have played and have evidence about it. My gut wrenches whenever it gets me.

Trololololo Nintendo Team, the Nintendo DS DOES NOT store info on carts previously used. In fact, the only info it stores are the date, your birthday, the time and some calendar crap. They might destroy your Acekard and refuse to fix your DS, but in all factuality they should not - flashcarts are not illegal in the U.S. If you so happened to have pirated software on the SD though, you might not see it back at all and I would not argue with them about it. Just buy a new Acekard and a new SD, they can't do jack about it.

Good for USA. One problem. I'm not in USA.

 

[Foxi4]

I thought you set the falg to USA, then I noticed Taiwan.

Even better man, you "metaphorically" have corner stores with pirated games, I can already imagine the Nintendo Inquisition busting your a*s. No, not really. Nothing's gonna happen at all.

By the way, why would anyone send in a console with a cart in it is beyond me...

I heard a dozen of stories like yours, all ended exactly the same - DS returned, no service, Acekard destroyed.

 

[delete12345]

Well, I don't know. My roommate isn't into video games, so he probably didn't know at that time. And probably all of the stories like mine, don't have an official Nintendo engineer as their friend on Skype... do they?

That's the part where I'm freaked out about. The engineer, in Japan, knew my roommate, in person...

 

[Foxi4]

If your roommate has an official Nintendo Engineer as a friend, it'll all go well anyways. Let's just say that a "friend" would "misplace" the Acekard and just fix the DS. Don't worry ahead of schedule.

 

[delete12345]

Oh god. I do hoped so. So:

The main problem I'm having is:

1. Should I ask to return my NDS back to me? -OR-
2. Pay up front for an expensive 3DS and possibly a game the engineer hand-picked for me? Then pay for a new Acekard 2i and 2GB?

 

[dicamarques]

There's no way they knew your gaming history ona a ds dslite and dsi

 

[delete12345]

There's no way they knew your gaming history ona a ds dslite and dsi

Then how do they tell that I have played a legit NDS game? I do know they didn't tell my roommate what game it is, only inferring to it.

 

[Foxi4]

There's no way they knew your gaming history ona a ds dslite and dsi

Then how do they tell that I have played a legit NDS game? I do know they didn't tell my roommate what game it is, only inferring to it.

I told you. Trololo. There is no info stored on a DS regarding carts, simple as that.

You should ask them to return your DS.

...and just so you feel a bit better about the whole thing...

I remember 8BitWaluigi sent his flashcart in with his DS by mistake for repairs; They destroyed the cart but they still repaired the system.

Chill.

 

[dicamarques]

Maybe it was a lucky guess from ninty hehehe

 

[Schizoanalysis]

This all sounds like a huge lie.

Maybe your friend wants to scam you. Or maybe he lost your DS, and made up a stupid story so you would not make him buy you a new one.

This all sounds too improbable to be true.

Friends with a Japanese Nintendo engineer? Talking over Skype about one person's DS? I don't think so.

 

[Another World]

since when does nintendo give out the skype names of their repair crew? if anything i think your roommate's girlfriend spilled water on your nds or left it in the bathroom while taking a shower... or something else ridiculous.

nintendo is not going to have one of their repair guys skype you and complain about an acekard. this whole story is seems really fishy to me.

perhaps your friend found a guy via a forum who says he can fix a nds, so your friend sent it off to be fixed and the guy happens to live in japan. the whole acekard thing might be some ruse so that he doesn't have to return the nds or the acekard, and after he fixes the nds he will just keep it and sell it for a profit. that story sounds more plausible to me. but, i am not in your shoes and i have never met your friend. if your trust this person then perhaps everything they are saying is true, but i would reflect carefully on the finer details.

this whole thing about blackmailing you into buying an overpriced 3ds or getting a court injunction sounds like your "roommate" isn't really a friend at all. he sounds like he is trying to steal money from you with this bullshit story.

i have game carts with batteries in them going back 20 years. i've never had one leak out of the cart. if the battery leaks it will corrode and dry up almost instantly. those little button cell batteries aren't filled to the brim with ounces of battery acid.

-another world

 

[Schizoanalysis]

If I were you, I'd never lend that friend anything again; I wouldn't give him any money; and I wouldn't trust a word that he said.

 

[aaronz77]

If I were you, I'd never lend that friend anything again; I wouldn't give him any money; and I wouldn't trust a word that he said.

Hell yah! Buy a good baseball bat, write 3ds on it in big bold letters and ask him where your nds/acekard is. Go ahead and give him the 'new' 3ds until he tells you the truth. This friend is scamming you. If he's not pm me and I'll pay your legal costs!

 

[delete12345]

Then how do they tell that I have played a legit NDS game? I do know they didn't tell my roommate what game it is, only inferring to it.

I can answer this, just after asking my roommate this morning.

He said that, according to the engineer, there is no way to detect if my NDS had played a legit cartridge or not, but he can tell it by examining the juts and metal contacts. All NDS cards are built by specifications that it will only touch valid metal contacts, which in my case, the NDS had its valid metal contacts worned off quite a lot, confirming that the NDS had played legit video game. He was unable to determine how many legit video games it had played. He also pointed out that the Acekard uses a gimmick NDS card, which its metal contacts are smaller by 0.02 mm (I forgot if it's 0.2 mm or 0.02 mm), and it had scratched a non-valid metal contact within the NDS card slot, therefore they are able to tell my NDS had played a fake NDS card.

I forgot to ask my roommate how many metal contacts are there in the NDS card slot, but then thinking that he got this information second-handedly, I would have to ask him once he gotten back from Malaysia on a business trip. I do not think he wanted to scam me, since he is capable of buying lots of Apple products and 5 iPad 2...

To Another World and others, do you believe this engineer's description?

 

[Another World]

LOL. i'm sorry, i had to laugh. your roommate stole your ds and is trying to sell you a used 3ds and make a profit off of it. that is what i truly think is going on.

i just measured the contacts of my ak2i and of my nintendogs cart. they look identical and exactly the same to me. i have another ak2i without a shell and a 2.1 without a shell, they match up to my retail mario game that also has no shell.

at this point i would literally slap the shit out of my roommate and tell him to return my stolen property. then i would kick him the hell out of my place.

lets be serious for a minute... it is possible your roommate knows someone who really works for nintendo and has the option to skype this person. realistically this is highly unlikely. lets take the facts. your nds disappeared and you were fed a story about a battery leaking enough battery acid to reach all the way onto the top of the mobo. i've had a AA battery explode in my hand (literally, right into an open cut as it was) and it was hardly enough battery acid to cause such damage. compare a tiny 3 volt button cell battery to the size of a AA. i'm not a battery expert nor have i conducted any scientific study on the amount of corrosion each can cause, but man, use your head and your eyes. after you were given this tall tale you were then threatened into buying a 3ds and an inflated cost. where is the extra money going? to some magical guy who works for nintendo but talks to your random roommate on skype? no, i think perhaps it is going in your roommates pocket.

i bet your roommates girlfriend hatched this scheme up to get a few hundred bucks out of you.

i'm sorry. i really am. you seem genuinely concerned and you really seem to believe what you are saying. just take the time to consider all the facts.

if i didn't know i was awake i would actually think that this entire discussion was a dream.

-another world

 

[delete12345]

Yes, this is what I'm thinking too. My only option I would loved to do, is to gather some more information and to obtain hard evidence, and probably some courage, and wait until this is over.

Even I pondered about the metal contacts, before actually posted it, but I guess it would do no harm by sharing this with others.