Hacking My Gateway Impressions

[Wildblood]

This probably means nothing to most people, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway.

Positives:

• Games are so easy to load - just stick the exFAT-formatted SD Card in the computer, and drag and drop them from Finder (OSX), or windows explorer (Windows).
• Whole bunch of nice features - so easy to rip your own games, backup NAND, play copies online, etc.
• Supports 64GB SDXC cards, and I hear 128GB work too.
• Fast, painless and really easy to install
• Frequent updates by team Gateway...so far they've worked their asses off. Support for the gateway is excellent.
• Region free - so, so nice!
• Multiple roms on SD card - choosing which game to play is really easy.
• Plays every game...EVERY game.
• Online Roms! Homebrew!

Negatives:

• Freaked out at first cause my 3DS didn't recognise my Blue Card (gateway installer card). After switched microSDs a few times, I figured out that I had to deleted every folder on my 3DS SD, apart from the 3DS folder and the launcher file I copied over.
• If I go to settings, profile, etc and put it in gateway mode, everything is cool, I can load my games. But if I go into settings from gateway mode...I have no way of exiting back into gateway mode. If I just exit, I'm in classic. If I go to profile, etc, the system crashes. Maybe I'm a just being a noob though.
• No way to arrange my games. I'd love a new screen to boot up, with various ways of displaying my titles (tiles, scroll through large covers, list, etc). Folders would also be epic.
• The red gateway didn't slot into the 3DS easily...it was then that I noticed the sticker was peeling a bit...have to be careful with that.

Thoughts:

• I'm a little scared about what will happen to my digital copy of Monster Hunter once I go EMUNand (as soon as the 7.2 issue is fixed).
• I don't know if Streetpass works with roms...if a ROM needs to be loaded or what.
• I don't know if there are save-game issues or how they can arise.
• Apparently you can load e-Shop games up...I don't know how, and I don't know if/how they can be ripped.
• Brick code?!? They seem really competent, my guess is we'll never hear about it again...but every time I see that diagnostic button, I get a little shiver.
• A really detailed FAQ and better instructions would go down well (even the Maxconsole instructions aren't 100% complete)...hell, I'll do it for them (wouldn't take long), if they're willing to answer a few questions to make it complete.

Conclusion:
Definitely, definitely worth getting. It works well, does everything you want it to. There are no complaints so far...just small, unimportant niggles. More requests and suggestions for the developers of Gateway, rather than criticism. That is to say, I'd like some extra stuff, but I don't NEED anything more. If they quit now and stopped adding features, then I'd still be really happy with my purchase. That said, they seem to be hard at work to continue to improve the experience.

 

[darkziosj]

I can say Streetpass does work with roms there's no need to load the rom just like normal games.

 

[ScarletCrystals]

Streetpass works like any normal game and will keep running after you activate it ingame.
Eshop games are downloadable roms like any other. Note that only a few eshop games have been dumped (ie. Senran Kagura Burst, Phoenix Wright DD, Liberation Maiden, Birdmania etc...)

Great Review.

 

[Abcdfv]

I think exiting from settings into classic mode is because exiting settings causes a soft reset, there may be some way for it to be fixed in the future though.

Once you go back into DS profile again from sysnand you have to hold L to bring the menu up, otherwise it crashes and boots back into sysnand.

As far as it not recognizing your blue card, I've never heard of that. Sometimes my 3DS won't recognize my DSTwo, but popping it in and out seems to work 100% of the time.

 

[Dial-IN]

Ok, but was there a question?

 

[Ryft]

http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/3DS_hacking_faq may be slightly outdated, but still helpful.

 

[Reecey]

• No way to arrange my games. I'd love a new screen to boot up, with various ways of displaying my titles (tiles, scroll through large covers, list, etc). Folders would also be epic.

That's easy to do bud just name your roms on your M-SD card B Mario, C Mario, D Mario and if you want a rom in between, just name it, AA or BA or CA then use FatSorter. Job Done all your roms in multimenu will be just where you want them! I think the rest of your negatives are very negative!!! Blue card works perfect if you set it up as Gateway tells you too. The settings thing, well that cannot be helped.

 

[Wildblood]

• No way to arrange my games. I'd love a new screen to boot up, with various ways of displaying my titles (tiles, scroll through large covers, list, etc). Folders would also be epic.

That's easy to do bud just name your roms on your M-SD card B Mario, C Mario, D Mario and if you want a rom in between, just name it, AA or BA or CA then use FatSorter. Job Done all your roms in multimenu will be just where you want them! I think the rest of your negatives are very negative!!! Blue card works perfect if you set it up as Gateway tells you too. The settings thing, well that cannot be helped.

Like I said, I don't have a single complaint and love my gateway so far! Just points I'm mentioning, minor niggles, that's all! They nailed an awesome product, no doubt about that.

Ok, but was there a question?

No question, just sharing my thoughts with the community . Not every thread is by a noob who can't be assed to use google.

 

[DragonSky]

If you go on emunand you make sure to copy everything.
Then you won't lose any data.