Hacking Gateway 3DS - First 3DS Flashcart

[Pedeadstrian]

We will see, but for me, I buy a lot of this crap just to play with it and have a rather 'large' gaming budget. I am a tech entreprenuer in my early 40s and am pretty well set so dropping $80 to play with something is pretty trivial.

That's where we, and probably most of the people interested in Gateway differ. A lot of people just don't have the luxury of spending $80 on something that's a) may not even work or b) may work for a while then break later. Yes, I know $80 isn't that much, and it's "just the cost of 2 games." I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm going to be very wary of this (and other people should be too) until not only we get it tested by Devin and other reviewers, but it gets tested thoroughly for future-proofing and the like. Heck, I don't even have a 3DS yet. I gotta buy one, then I'm gonna buy the games I know I'll love, and then, after I'm done with those, I'll try out the Gateway (or any later flashcard) to see if any interesting games slipped through the cracks.

 

[Quicksilver88]

That's where we, and probably most of the people interested in Gateway differ. A lot of people just don't have the luxury of spending $80 on something that's a) may not even work or b) may work for a while then break later. Yes, I know $80 isn't that much, and it's "just the cost of 2 games." I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm going to be very wary of this (and other people should be too) until not only we get it tested by Devin and other reviewers, but it gets tested thoroughly for future-proofing and the like. Heck, I don't even have a 3DS yet. I gotta buy one, then I'm gonna buy the games I know I'll love, and then, after I'm done with those, I'll try out the Gateway (or any later flashcard) to see if any interesting games slipped through the cracks.

Not a bad plan...and if you go 3DS make sure you get an xL as it is sooooo much better of a design. The only thing good about the launch 3DS was the ambasador program as they never did release most those presents they gave the early adopters for general sale. It was about 10 of the best gba games and 10 really good nes games. I transfered all that stuff to my XL and the transfer process is a hoot because it shows a bunch of little pikmin on each screen carrying your blocks of data across.....gotta love Nintendo.

I know I am spoiled but I credit two things, A love of technology which I was able to turn into a fine technical career and then eventually became a businessman and did well with that, and the fact that I never wanted or had kids....which if I had then I would be spending my money on their gaming needs and living vicariously thru them.....lol. Other than the tinkering I like these devices for what you mentioned which is to try crappy or obsucre stuff I would have never purchased anyways. I hope they work out some type of region free hack or patching as playing with stuff you can't get in your region is sometimes a fun diversion between major releases. I hate region locking in general but on handhelds in particular it just seems stupid to me.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

This thread should be locked until further notice until the cart actually becomes available or after the review shows up. Everything is just getting repeated every couple of pages now.

 

[wiewcw]

1) They said they plan to update/upgrade it, but we have no idea if they actually will, nor do we know how long will it take
2) Just because every recent DS flashcart has been upgradeable, that doesn't mean the first 3DS one will.
3) The PS4 does not have any online requirement for single player games.
I'm not trying to argue or anything, but I just don't want to get my hopes up. DRM is becoming a much more commonplace practice recently, and I expect Nintendo to go to great lengths to make sure it doesn't become hackable so early in its lifetime (relatively early, at least).

Agreed, we should sit and wait for review, but I will stay and wait for first FW update from Nintendo - then maybe buy it... In my opinion better way to hack console is not make flash card but hack the system - market is "market" since years some guys from china made flash cards promise support then oops - sorry buy new one ;-).

If Gateway is just rip off the hardware with some little hack I will stay away of it. Because it force us to buy another for few months later.

I hope so that some new SuperCards gives more than playing one game for 3DS - like SDK -> GBA Emu -> Homebrew -> Use ARM11 CPU

 

[Metoroid0]

I asked nds-card.com if they plan on getting GATEWAY 3DS and they replyed:

Dear,
We have not got it.
After receiving it, we will tell you asap.
Thanks.

They said AFTER not IF, so that must mean they are planing to get it... right? (or is it just my english bad...)

 

[Pedeadstrian]

I asked nds-card.com if they plan on getting GATEWAY 3DS and they replyed:

Dear,
We have not got it.
After receiving it, we will tell you asap.
Thanks.

They said AFTER not IF, so that must mean they are planing to get it... right? (or is it just my english bad...)

No, that's right. But they may not plan on getting it, and just worded it badly.

 

[Jiehfeng]

This thread should be locked until further notice until the cart actually becomes available or after the review shows up. Everything is just getting repeated every couple of pages now.

The 3DS Hacked thread is over 100 pages and not locked so I don't see how this will.

 

[SifJar]

Going by this, I wonder if it'd be possible to modify the Gateway card to input something extra along with the ROM since that'll have the correct signature

EDIT: Off-topic, I haven't made a post in a very long time and just noticed how old my account is :|

That's not how signing works. The signature applies to the entire file and prevents anything in the file being changed, removed or added.

I think you misunderstand (or I misunderstand, but I'm pretty sure it's the latter). What the Gateway is doing is running official, signed code from Nintendo. With the exploits that are currently available (ie Gateway), we can only run something that was designed to run by Nintendo, so you can't use it for homebrew or anything like that until the keys are cracked.

This warez card is not an exploit.

 

[lolwatpear]

anyone know if nintendo could prevent this flashcart from working with updates? I don't want to have to rush out to get a 3ds.

 

[porkiewpyne]

anyone know if nintendo could prevent this flashcart from working with updates? I don't want to have to rush out to get a 3ds.

Tbh, we don't know either. Only time will tell.

 

[jonesman99]

In all honesty, the only way I see this thing getting a update or an upgrade is through a future card revision. Going by the info we have on it as of now, the Gateway is a 1:1 card that lets you play ROMs per microSD card because there is no way to sign unsigned code, as to why the video did not show a booting screen after the card was inserted and started. We also do not know if the save dumper device will be able to reinsert the save with out corrupting it.

 

[virgildraco]

but why the save file has to be stored on the linker itself, cant it be stored on the SD card??

 

[Rydian]

but why the save file has to be stored on the linker itself, cant it be stored on the SD card??

3DS game carts do not have an SD card, they only write internally to themselves.

DS flash carts patch/edit the save code to use the MicroSD instead.

 

[xyzmanas]

3DS game carts do not have an SD card, they only write internally to themselves.

DS flash carts patch/edit the save code to use the MicroSD instead.

Well 3ds doesn't even support reading games from Sd card (Roms), if they are making that happen then maybe this is possible too.

 

[GBA rocks]

Fun fact: the 3DS supports transferring saves from the cartridge to the SD if you also bought the digital version of a game. (you can't transfer back from SD to cartridge though)

Not sure if this makes any sense, but I wonder if said official tool could be exploited somehow in the future.

 

[Quicksilver88]

Two points....one is official signed code gernally does not have anything to do with the size or even the file structure. It is usually the launch executable that is signed and someimtes certain supporting files. So Rom trimming may be possible, and in some cases hex editing of certain files may also be possible. Won't know for sure until people can start deploying ROMs and play with the possibilities. Still in the past we have seen advanced groups do modification to 'signed' code and still have it run as signed.

As for the save from eeprom to sd card.....I think it could be done but would have to be done in hardware with a mirco controller. So essentially the 3DS is unaware that the mirroring from eprom to sd flash is happening. If this thing is going to have any decent type of save feature then this is how they will do it, otherwise I suspect we will have to use somethig like an r4 save dongle which you think they would include if they don't work out a more seemless save method. Another hardware option would be to to use an eprom with multiple save banks. Then say you name your Rom something like xxxx_1.xxx and it saves to bank 1, xxxx_2.xxx and it saves to bank 2. Even this wouldn't be to awful if it had 4-8 banks so you could switch out a number of games without losing saves. I doubt they will go this route as it would be more expensive, but in past GBA flahsh carts I have owned you could split the eeprom and have multiple saves. Whatever it is, it will have to be done with hardware until they find an exploit to run unsigned code on the 3DS.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Fun fact: the 3DS supports transferring saves from the cartridge to the SD if you also bought the digital version of a game. (you can't transfer back from SD to cartridge though)

Not sure if this makes any sense, but I wonder if said official tool could be exploited somehow in the future.

The likelyhood of that would mean you would have to have the digital version of that game your trying to import. All it is probably doing is decrypting then encrypting to the SD encryption type to copy over to the SD, then deleting the save off the cart.

 

[wiewcw]

anyone know if nintendo could prevent this flashcart from working with updates? I don't want to have to rush out to get a 3ds.

Nothing is impossible on this matter, Sony also patch last kernel exploit very quickly, also user mode exploits mostly are fixed. Nintendo could try to block Gateway it is 100% sure that they could do this quicker than Gateway release their fix. Here is question that we still waiting - if Gateway is simple mimic hardware of legit card it probably will be blocked fast.

One thing is puzzled for me how about support...? And why it handle only 3DS mode... Why not handle DSI and 3DS with mode1/mode2 switch or thru "fw" switch...

I am worried also about possibility to implementation of mandatory fw updates like Sony did on Vita...

 

[virgildraco]

3DS game carts do not have an SD card, they only write internally to themselves.

DS flash carts patch/edit the save code to use the MicroSD instead.

i get that, but maybe i didn't explain myself, from what i understand from the Gateway flashcard, its a 1 rom per SD card, and it overwright the save of the last game you played when you change the SD card right? which means the save is stored in the flashcard itself not in the microSD, so why isn't it saved in the microSD

 

[Mementos]

Here is question that we still waiting - if Gateway is simple mimic hardware of legit card it probably will be blocked fast.

Why isnt ps3key, wode, or xkey blocked yet? They also just mimic the original hardware. If you know how nintendo is blocking the card, by which check, theyres a real chance that you can just update the fpga so it mimic the card on the right way,ie like xkey. (and yes its updatable, they stated that they working on updates, so its sure that its updatable). So nothing is sure yet, theres a chance that it gets may blocked foreve, but theres also a chance that it works just as good, as current (updatable) device emulators on other systems. Only time will tell. IMHO =)