Hacking Are 3DS flashcarts worth it at this time?

[Ichigo1000]

Should i wait for newer flashcarts to come out? I'm not sure if flashcarts are worth it right now considering its price like sky3ds and gateway. Will 3ds flashcarts ever drop in price? How much was the starting price of the original r4 for the ds lite/original?

 

[Chrushev]

R4 didnt come out until after a bunch of other carts were already out for original DS, and it was a budget cart (always), it managed to keep the price down because it didnt include any on board memory (used SD card instead). I believe they started at around 30 to 40$ when they came out back in the day.

Gateway is a much more complicated piece of hardware and therefore costs more to produce. They have the monopoly and the price will not go down until 1) components get cheaper 2) clones flood the market and drive prices down.

At current price its a steal! Think about it. If you play 2 games using either a gateway or sky3ds it will have paid for itself. Before getting one I spent 400+ dollars on retail cartridges for 3DS, buying something for 70$ and having unlimited games was totally worth it for me.

Bottom line, prices arent going down any time soon because as it is its a very good/comepetitive price. Keep in mind it's in clone's best interest to keep prices up as well, because they get more money too.

 

[hippy dave]

Yes.

 

[DarkFlare69]

Should you get one? Yes.
Not many 'new' flashcarts will ever be released. Most are clones of Gateway and Sky3DS.
I have a feeling they will be like GBA flashcarts - remain expensive. The GBAs been dead for a while and yet they still cost $100+.

EDIT: Or, it could be like DS flashcarts eventually - dirt cheap. $1.37 for a flashcart? that's a steal.

 

[Ichigo1000]

R4 didnt come out until after a bunch of other carts were already out for original DS, and it was a budget cart (always), it managed to keep the price down because it didnt include any on board memory (used SD card instead). I believe they started at around 30 to 40$ when they came out back in the day.

Gateway is a much more complicated piece of hardware and therefore costs more to produce. They have the monopoly and the price will not go down until 1) components get cheaper 2) clones flood the market and drive prices down.

At current price its a steal! Think about it. If you play 2 games using either a gateway or sky3ds it will have paid for itself. Before getting one I spent 400+ dollars on retail cartridges for 3DS, buying something for 70$ and having unlimited games was totally worth it for me.

Bottom line, prices arent going down any time soon because as it is its a very good/comepetitive price. Keep in mind it's in clone's best interest to keep prices up as well, because they get more money too.

But, if you think of it this way: Flashcarts atleast the 3DS ones, will always have a chance to get killed in the next update. And if it does, wouldn't games that require updates not work anymore? I'm pretty sure smash bros is one of them. (Forced me to update my old 3ds in order to play) I'm not sure if that is just a one time update though.
Also, can 3ds flashcarts use streetpass and is it safe? How about free dlc downloads such as MH4U?

Retail cards on the other hand will be worry free. They will never get blocked.

The thing that im most worried about flashcarts is that Nintendo will keep killing flashcarts until i pretty much spent on flashcarts equal to if i have purchased retail copies.

 

[tipsytoto]

Things ro consider. Do you have 4+ games now? You can sell them and youve already made up the cost. If you're looking to buy more than 2 games going forward youve made up the cost. Practically they'll only get cheaper if their competition does or the 3ds becomes outdated. Neither of those two factors are worth waiting on.

 

[stomp_442]

But, if you think of it this way: Flashcarts atleast the 3DS ones, will always have a chance to get killed in the next update. .

My gateway will always work with both of my 4.x 3DS's, because I don't update them. It's' another matter if Nintendo blocks the emunand from the latest firmware, there is still a lot of games to play with it if the latest and greatest game don't work.

 

[DSpider]

"Are 3DS flashcarts worth it at this time?"

Shit, son... When I read that title I asked myself "why, because this guy knows that a CFW is around the corner (since we've had kernel access on the damn things for quite a while now) and you'd only need a copy of Cubic Ninja, Zelda OOT or a Sky3DS (or someone who owns one of these) just to use for a few seconds as an entry point?"

But nope. You asked about prices.

Dude. It's not that stuff is expensive! It's never about that. It's that YOU can't afford stuff.

Tough cookie. That's life! Get a job, and if you already have a job, then get a better job because it's clearly not working out for you. GW is around $60, Sky is around $80, or about the price of 2-3 legit games.

 

[Chrushev]

But, if you think of it this way: Flashcarts atleast the 3DS ones, will always have a chance to get killed in the next update. And if it does, wouldn't games that require updates not work anymore? I'm pretty sure smash bros is one of them. (Forced me to update my old 3ds in order to play) I'm not sure if that is just a one time update though.
Also, can 3ds flashcarts use streetpass and is it safe? How about free dlc downloads such as MH4U?

Retail cards on the other hand will be worry free. They will never get blocked.

The thing that im most worried about flashcarts is that Nintendo will keep killing flashcarts until i pretty much spent on flashcarts equal to if i have purchased retail copies.

Nintendo updates sysnand, we play through emunand, which is safe from blocking the Gateway (as long as you dont blindly update). Technically Nintendo blocked Gateway long ago, but we still can play on latest nintendo FW because of Emunand. yes all dlc/updates/multiplayer work.

Fundamentally original DS was a closed system, only way Nintendo could block things is to release more sophisticated games that would detect if they were being run on real cart or not. They couldnt update the hardware to detect things. Things were much simpler.

These days 3DS gets regular updates, this will never change (at least until 4DS or whatever is released and 3DS is discontinued). There will never be a "future proof" cart, so no point in waiting for one, Nintendo can always block things (potentially), but so far they failed, and chances are they will never succeed. Stop thinking about the future proofing, because you never know, and will never know. And I am not just saying this.. litereally, there will never be a future proof cart (until 3DS is discontinued and Nintendo doesnt update it anymore), ever because of the nature of the system. It gets updated all the time. Instead see if its worth it for you at this point. In my opinion absolutely. There are at least 20 amazing 3DS games already, if you play 2 of them Gateway paid for itself.

partial list:
Zelda - Majoras Mask
Zelda - OOT
Zelda - Link Between Worlds
Fantasy Life <-- way underrated game by the way, its like Skyrim on 3DS AMAZING!
Animal Crossing
Monster Hunter 3U
Monster Hunter 4U
Code Name Steam
Pokemon X/Y
Luigis Mansion
Mario 3D World
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Smash Bros
Fire Emblem Awakening
Bravely Default
Etrian Odyssey Millenium Girl and IV
Mario and Luigi: Dream Team
Kingdom Hearts 3D
Paper Mario sticker Star
Mario kart
Kid Ikarus

etc etc list goes on...

All those work and will always work... just dont do stupid stuff like update your Sysnand.

 

[Ichigo1000]

"Are 3DS flashcarts worth it at this time?"

Shit, son... When I read that title I asked myself "why, because this guy knows that a CFW is around the corner (since we've had kernel access on the damn things for quite a while now) and you'd only need a copy of Cubic Ninja, Zelda OOT or a Sky3DS (or someone who owns one of these) just to use for a few seconds as an entry point?"

But nope. You asked about prices.

Dude. It's not that stuff is expensive! It's never about that. It's that YOU can't afford stuff.

Tough cookie. That's life! Get a job, and if you already have a job, then get a better job because it's clearly not working out for you. GW is around $60, Sky is around $80, or about the price of 2-3 legit games.

If you are here to shame me about asking prices, please leave this thread. I do NOT own any of the flashcarts, and is it really a crime to wonder that its pretty expensive FOR a pirating device? How about pay 20 bucks for a piece of looseleaf paper? Yeah, well you "cant afford it".

Considering you are a gbatemp member, let's not be hypocritical. Since you can afford everything, how about not pirate?

 

[Deleted-19228]

If you plan on getting one get one, prices aren't dropping anytime soon.

 

[DSpider]

If you are here to shame me about asking prices, please leave this thread. I do NOT own any of the flashcarts, and is it really a crime to wonder that its pretty expensive for a pirating device? How about pay 20 bucks for a piece of looseleaf paper? Yeah, well you "cant afford it".

It's all about perspective. If you earn 2x - 2.5x of the minimum wage in your country/region, then legit games are not that expensive and you can buy ONE game per month without any problems. But if you work flipping burgers or washing cars, that's on you; I mean, there's nothing wrong with entry-level jobs, but not if you do that shit for more than 2 years. Look, gaming is an expensive hobby. I get it. I have kind of, sort of a half-decent job and I own a Sky3DS. I'm a hypocrite. But the 3DS has a lot of games that aren't even worth pirating. Why would I pay for those games that I'm not ever gonna finish? May as well get a flashcart, "demo" them out for a few levels or a few minutes and then never play them again. Would a flashcart save money even at their current prices? Yes. Absolutely.

 

[Pluupy]

ITT: We justify pirating.

If you don't want to buy the games because you're cheap, just say so please.

 

[Ericthegreat]

R4 didnt come out until after a bunch of other carts were already out for original DS, and it was a budget cart (always), it managed to keep the price down because it didnt include any on board memory (used SD card instead). I believe they started at around 30 to 40$ when they came out back in the day.

Maybe I'm wrong, but wasnt R4 Originaly $200? Then major drops in price.

 

[Ichigo1000]

It's all about perspective. If you earn 2x - 2.5x of the minimum wage in your country/region, then legit games are not that expensive and you can buy ONE game per month without any problems. But if you work flipping burgers or washing cars, that's on you; I mean, there's nothing wrong with entry-level jobs, but not if you do that shit for more than 2 years. Look, gaming is an expensive hobby. I get it. I have kind of, sort of a half-decent job and I own a Sky3DS. I'm a hypocrite. But the 3DS has a lot of games that aren't even worth pirating. Why would I pay for those games that I'm not ever gonna finish? May as well get a flashcart, "demo" them out for a few levels or a few minutes and then never play them again. Would a flashcart save money even at their current prices? Yes. Absolutely.

When did this topic's subject change to what job we have? This discussion about pricing has NOTHING to do with how much you make. Yes it may be easy to afford one of those, but I'm just pointing out that its pretty expensive for that item. Why have a 3DS when you can't even play more than 2 games on it? Yes, I can buy a sky3ds/gateway, but it depends on whether the actual pirating cartridge itself is worth 80 dollars, not because it can play more games than its worth.

I will most likely get one myself, but I'm asking a few questions before doing so.

 

[Deleted-19228]

Maybe I'm wrong, but wasnt R4 Originaly $200? Then major drops in price.

100% wrong. It was NEVER $200.

 

[Deleted-19228]

ITT: We justify pirating.

If you don't want to buy the games because you're cheap, just say so please.

This post. So much winning.

 

[Ichigo1000]

My gateway will always work with both of my 4.x 3DS's, because I don't update them. It's' another matter if Nintendo blocks the emunand from the latest firmware, there is still a lot of games to play with it if the latest and greatest game don't work.

You have Gateway right? What extra features does it have that the sky3ds does not have? I know emunand, and a custom menu are one of them, but do they have other features like cheats? Not sure if I should wait for Gateway to find an exploit or not. But as of now, Sky3ds seems to be the safest choice, as its been working on pretty much every firmware to date.

 

[Chrushev]

You have Gateway right? What extra features does it have that the sky3ds does not have? I know emunand, and a custom menu are one of them, but do they have other features like cheats? Not sure if I should wait for Gateway to find an exploit or not. But as of now, Sky3ds seems to be the safest choice, as its been working on pretty much every firmware to date.

Sky 3DS is great, but that can be blocked at any point with a new FW release, it may be blocked with next update, it may be never blocked. We dont know.. no one knows except Nintendo. Gateway will always work with emunand, even if there is new firmware released there is a chance of it getting cracked open to be used with emunand. But once Sky3ds is blocked its blocked for good.

Personally yes I think 70$ is a great price for either. When DS carts first came out most were about 120$, r4 didnt come out until a few years after first flash carts for DS, at thta point prices were going down and I believe r4 was around 40$ at launch. And we're talking about a real one.. not a clone.. you could always get a cheap clone that sucked for 15-20$

Over time prices will always go down. So if you are good with waiting another 2 or 3 years, you will be able to get a 3DS flashcart for 20$ or so... but at that point 3DS will be at the end of its lifetime (if not past it) there are rumors of new handheld from nintendo in 2016 at which point 3DS will be 5 years old.

 

[stomp_442]

You have Gateway right? What extra features does it have that the sky3ds does not have? I know emunand, and a custom menu are one of them, but do they have other features like cheats? Not sure if I should wait for Gateway to find an exploit or not. But as of now, Sky3ds seems to be the safest choice, as its been working on pretty much every firmware to date.

Any flashcart can be blocked by Nintendo. Back in the 4.x firmwares Nintendo blocked a lot of flashcarts. By the time 5.0 firmware was released they all got blocked except for the SCDS2 and it's clones. I don't' use cheats so I don't care about that. Gateway plays pirated games just like sky, and gateway also does homebrew which sky doesn't. I had gateway before homebrew got started, if I had the choice now I would buy neither and just do homebrew for now and wait for a backup loader. For a while the gateway got kind of boring because of no homebrew to play with and just the same pirated games, now there is plenty of homebrew. Back in the beginning Gateway didn't do anything new, they used what was out there, but they also brought a lot to the scene, sky brings nothing to the scene except playing pirated games. If that's what you're after then go for it, but remember sky can be blocked just like any other flashcart. Once it gets blocked don't expect any support from the manufacturer. Gateway does homebrew so that will live on as long as there is a homebrew scene.