Gaming Why no DSi Hacks?

[ShadowFyre]

Hear me out. Several posts in this forum make it clear that people COULD apparently hack the DSi, but CHOOSE not to, at a lack of interest for the console. But why? The DSi has more ram and cpu than the old DS revisions and boasts an SD card slot. And while the Cyclo DSi card came close, actual "DSi mode" hasn't been fully achieved. Doesn't the appeal of having roms/DSiware from a simple SD card appeal to anyone? With all the custom firmware achievements made on the PSP, why doesn't a hacker see the appeal of doing the same on the DSi? And while I realize many good hackers usually hate the prospect of piracy, what about homebrew DSi Ware loaded on the DSi's internal memory? I just don't see what's so wrong with the DSi that has rendered it "pointless to hack".

 

[Rydian]

Then why don't you do it? The people who can do it lack interest. As far as piracy goes, a lot of people who develop actual exploits and software are against piracy, believe it or not. As for the specs, they don't matter anymore. Why would somebody get a DSi for hacking? There's WAY better choices (handhelds with WAY more power), and some of these choices have been around since before the DSi existed.

Yes, the DSi is double the speed of the DS. Whoop-de-fucking-do. Celebrating that is like giving the slow kid in class a gold star for effort. A 67mhz ARM9 (the 33mhz ARM7 is delegated to Wifi/Sound/Saving), double that is... still shit. You can probably buy dildos with more processing power than the original DS nowadays, it's 8-year old handheld hardware at this point.

And more RAM? A whopping 16MB? Come on, the original model PSP had double that, and the later models have four times that amount, and they've been available for ages, all of them having 16 times the RAM of the original DS.

And for what, a touchscreen? One 4:3 screen that's single-point resistive, at 256x192? I don't even need to mock this compared to the screens on modern handhelds.

The average phone or mobile coding device is like a hundred times more powerful than the DS, with better touch screens and sound, bigger or smaller form-factor, etc... and a lot of these devices can have custom-code run on them, no hacking needed.

Even as far as gaming handhelds go, you have china-produced modesl like the Dingoo, and the PSP, and the Pandora, and on and on.



EDIT: Pretty much, think of a modern hacker deciding what to buy.

"Well I could buy a DSi with old-ass hardware and 16MB of RAM and spend lots of time developing a custom hack for it... or I could buy a modern android/whatever device with buttons and have eight to twenty times the power and not have to do any hacking of the system itself to get started, I can start coding on day one."

The choice is obvious. The DSi was much too little, much too late.

And this is coming from somebody with a DSi. When I got my PSP I went and deleted all the emulators off my DSi's flash cart.

 

[ShadowFyre]

I never pointed myself out as an able hacker, or someone competent at technology, so sorry. I was just asking a question and you did deliver. >__

 

[Rydian]

S'cool, didn't mean to be insulting, just wanted to point out that there's no interest in the DSi because there's much better options for development/emulation.

And as far as Wiiware goes, most of the good stuff is cross-platform anyways (Cave Story, Asphalt, etc.), and the rest are just copies of basic gaming concepts you can find on any flash site or app store.

EDIT: And I asked why you won't do it to point out that common interest alone doesn't equal development. Somebody needs to actually do something for it to get done, sitting around and wishing doesn't get stuff done.

 

[Foxi4]

...but full DSi Mode hacks *were* available - via SudokuHAX and other DSiHAX. They were later patched by firmware means, but believe it or not, they're still accessible provided that you're willing to connect to the NAND directly and extract the key. The chip follows the MMC standard, so it shouldn't be *that* difficult, just troublesome. Better yet, WinterMute released two save exploits as well, they're Open Source and follow a similar mechanism, they just require Assembly use due to limited space. DSi hacking is well-within reach of the average hacker, it's just that nobody wants to do it. If you want to blame something, blame DSTwo which offers similar capabilities with a no-hassle installation.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

The DSi security is pretty good, it would be much effort to hack it just to have some few extra features. Team Twiizers tried to hack the DSi for 2 years until they released a hack only to see their efforts wasted with a simple firmware update, after that they searched every possible exploit until they gave up. Not only that but Wintermute's effort in developing DSi libraries were wasted too and even the DSi savegame exploits were blocked. I had a DSiwarehax, it was nice but few homebrew got advantage of it, because they all needed to be recompiled to work in DSi-Mode. Features like Wi-fi and cameras doesn't work in DSi-Mode atm, unfortunately not much to do.

But I sure wished we could have DSi-Mode to use apps similar to skype or access to WPA wifi, but I know it's probably not possible

---

 

[Foxi4]

What was blocked was NAND key extraction. With the know-how, you can still execute the exploits provided you're dedicated enough, at least according to DSiBrew.

Is this possible on 3DS too?

Take a wild guess - can you connect to a DSi NAND Chip on a 3DS?

3DS's DSi Mode is a sandbox, it doesn't actually have DSi hardware.

 

[DSoryu]

The real question should be Why no 3DS hacks? Imagine all the 3D homebrew on it, like a NES emulator rendering the layers in 3D, like the 3D classics, now that is something really interesting.

 

[Rydian]

The real question should be Why no 3DS hacks? Imagine all the 3D homebrew on it, like a NES emulator rendering the layers in 3D, like the 3D classics, now that is something really interesting.

Well, get crackin'.

 

[BORTZ]

The real question should be Why no 3DS hacks? Imagine all the 3D homebrew on it, like a NES emulator rendering the layers in 3D, like the 3D classics, now that is something really interesting.

Well, get crackin'.

I like this idea haha

Anyways, a DSi hack wouldnt really do much of anything anyways. Its not the the DSi was all that great.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

The DSi was an unneeded "in bewteener" device

after sudokuhax was plugged..so was any further interest in it.

The real question should be Why no 3DS hacks? Imagine all the 3D homebrew on it, like a NES emulator rendering the layers in 3D, like the 3D classics, now that is something really interesting.

I'm not sure if you realize this but some unlucky son of a bitch would have to spend their time converting each NES game into stereoscopic 3D layers in order to obtain the 3D effect...

any takers???

 

[The Catboy]

There was a DSi hack and no one really gave a shit. DSi Roms really only provide pointless features like "Take your picture" in the game and most of the time the roms only run kinda better.
As for the 3DS, there is some interest in hacking it as far as can tell. Although most of the hackers interested aren't interested in piracy.

 

[Snailface]

Hear me out. Several posts in this forum make it clear that people COULD apparently hack the DSi, but CHOOSE not to, at a lack of interest for the console. But why? The DSi has more ram and cpu than the old DS revisions and boasts an SD card slot. And while the Cyclo DSi card came close, actual "DSi mode" hasn't been fully achieved. Doesn't the appeal of having roms/DSiware from a simple SD card appeal to anyone? With all the custom firmware achievements made on the PSP, why doesn't a hacker see the appeal of doing the same on the DSi? And while I realize many good hackers usually hate the prospect of piracy, what about homebrew DSi Ware loaded on the DSi's internal memory? I just don't see what's so wrong with the DSi that has rendered it "pointless to hack".

There was definitely an interest in DSi hacking as evidenced by sodukuhax and ievo. Problem is, there is a finite resource of hacking talent than can exploit a given device. The talent gets spread thinner and thinner as sexy new unhacked systems enter the scene. Take the 3ds in 2011 for example, that stopped DSi hax cold because it is a potentially more rewarding and challenging system to hack. And now that the WiiU is right around the corner, you wonder how many people that will pull away from the 3ds scene.

 

[SuzieJoeBob]

Hear me out. Several posts in this forum make it clear that people COULD apparently hack the DSi, but CHOOSE not to, at a lack of interest for the console. But why? The DSi has more ram and cpu than the old DS revisions and boasts an SD card slot. And while the Cyclo DSi card came close, actual "DSi mode" hasn't been fully achieved. Doesn't the appeal of having roms/DSiware from a simple SD card appeal to anyone? With all the custom firmware achievements made on the PSP, why doesn't a hacker see the appeal of doing the same on the DSi? And while I realize many good hackers usually hate the prospect of piracy, what about homebrew DSi Ware loaded on the DSi's internal memory? I just don't see what's so wrong with the DSi that has rendered it "pointless to hack".

There was definitely an interest in DSi hacking as evidenced by sodukuhax and ievo. Problem is, there is a finite resource of hacking talent than can exploit a given device. The talent gets spread thinner and thinner as sexy new unhacked systems enter the scene. Take the 3ds in 2011 for example, that stopped DSi hax cold because it is a potentially more rewarding and challenging system to hack. And now that the WiiU is right around the corner, you wonder how many people that will pull away from the 3ds scene.

The Wii U won't take a lot of people from the 3DS scene,but on a whole, the Wii will lose a good chunk of its hacking talents, especially Waninkoko once the Wii U does get hacked.

 

[Parasite X]

I know you didn't just blame DS2 the DS2 is awsome for early emulation for any ds.When I got my DSi I was mad because the 3DS came out a year later and I said to my self why did I get this piece of crap and I sold my DSi for the 3DS and every body forgot about DSi.The fact is that there way better handhelds than DSi to hack cough 3DS,PSP,Vita no offense.

 

[Beldr]

Its just About the money
Look at all those flashcards
The Wii, PSP, PS3, Xbox those consoles dont have flashcards.
And the consoles without flashcard do have those hack Channels.

 

[VMM]

Is this possible on 3DS too?

Take a wild guess - can you connect to a DSi NAND Chip on a 3DS?

3DS's DSi Mode is a sandbox, it doesn't actually have DSi hardware.

How does that work?
It's not emulation, but how can you run DS and DSi applications without the native hardware?

 

[heartgold]

Is this possible on 3DS too?

Take a wild guess - can you connect to a DSi NAND Chip on a 3DS?

3DS's DSi Mode is a sandbox, it doesn't actually have DSi hardware.

How does that work?
It's not emulation, but how can you run DS and DSi applications without the native hardware?

It's running ARM11 CPU. Arm11 can native execute Arm 7 & 9 codes.

 

[VMM]

Is this possible on 3DS too?

Take a wild guess - can you connect to a DSi NAND Chip on a 3DS?

3DS's DSi Mode is a sandbox, it doesn't actually have DSi hardware.

How does that work?
It's not emulation, but how can you run DS and DSi applications without the native hardware?

It's running ARM11 CPU. Arm11 can native execute Arm 7 & 9 codes.

Well, that explains a lot, thanks
About RAM memory,
I've read that 3DS when running DS mode limit it's RAM to 4MB,
turning it compatible with DS.
Is that true?


And GPU, hbow does this work?

Is that what happens to GBA, turning 3DS able to run GBA games perfectly?

 

[Arm73]

Hear me out. Several posts in this forum make it clear that people COULD apparently hack the DSi, but CHOOSE not to, at a lack of interest for the console. But why? The DSi has more ram and cpu than the old DS revisions and boasts an SD card slot. And while the Cyclo DSi card came close, actual "DSi mode" hasn't been fully achieved. Doesn't the appeal of having roms/DSiware from a simple SD card appeal to anyone? With all the custom firmware achievements made on the PSP, why doesn't a hacker see the appeal of doing the same on the DSi? And while I realize many good hackers usually hate the prospect of piracy, what about homebrew DSi Ware loaded on the DSi's internal memory? I just don't see what's so wrong with the DSi that has rendered it "pointless to hack".

Well I tried to point that out in the past, but the reason is very easy: Money.
The GBA and subsequently DS scene, was very much alive because there was a ton of money to make from the flashcart market. Flashcart manufactures and resellers would finance hackers and homebrew because piracy and emulators were driving selling points for flashcarts,
The more hacks, more homebrew contests, better looking menus with RTS or custom skins, the more people would buy flashcarts and even more then one ( I had 6 ) because there was always some attractive feature or better compatibility in newer models.

Who would push for DSi homebrew today ? Besided Rydian points being spot on about the outdated hardware and such, why would anybody invest money so that we could run games from the SD slot for example ? That would actually hurt even more the scene and completely kill flashcart dealers by making them redundant.

We had a good run, but until somebody figures out a way of creating a 3DS flashcart, don't expect to see anything revolutionary on the DSi or 3DS.

Like Michael Pachter says, it's a profit deal ! Get used to it.