Hacking Gateway 3DS - First 3DS Flashcart

Ryukouki · Jun 7, 2013

Metoroid0 said:
Yeah, that's what i thought, but i just didn't understood how exactly a flshcart could help.
This Arbitrary Code, is that it? is it possible with flashcart.

and also, i didnt know that DS's used to get bricked

By the way, did you ewer try something with 3DS?

I don't think Rydian owns a 3DS... :cry:

xyzmanas · Jun 7, 2013

Hi, this is my first post here though i have been following the scene for around 2 years.

An idea popped in my mind about the Gateway 3ds cart. Could you please look into it and tell if that is possible.

Q. Could somehow a large sized microsd card say of 32Gb be divided into smaller partitons of say 2 or 4gb sizes and then if they can be used to play different games which are loaded on the different partitions.

Being an CS engg student i think this quite possible on the software part and i am not talking about the 3ds software but about the software which drives the microcontrollers (if they can be used on the flash card).

Don't know much about the hardware part but is it possible to design the Flash cart which could read those seperate partitions imagining them as different Sd cards (well its all Address Space for the controller to read maybe it can be done).

There could be a PRESET which is designed for 4-6 partitons on the 32GB sdcard and those coulde be switched by a simple sliding switch on the Flash cart which would in deed change the address space which is to be read by the Flash cart for the game ROM.

PS: Don't flame, this is just an idea. Maybe it was useless and can't be done or maybe it is possible theoretically

[ I have seen CAR music systems sometimes reading the 1st partiton of my USB drive and some Audio systems reading the 2nd partition just saying

]

Metoroid0 · Jun 7, 2013

Ryukouki said:
I don't think Rydian owns a 3DS...

aaa why not?

somehow i thought hi does... Hey Rydian, do you have 3DS?

MegaBassBX · Jun 7, 2013

owww bugger , this wont do it we need region lock free and cheats and all that good home brewing stuff for those who cant wait to do piracy already this is a gem, but it wont help the rest of the game scene enthusiasts.

TackyPie · Jun 7, 2013

Is it possible to extract the update from new games so the rom works on the Gateway?

xyzmanas · Jun 7, 2013

TackyPie said:
Is it possible to extract the update from new games so the rom works on the Gateway?

But we still don't know how the gateway works and how it handles the rom?

Poketard · Jun 7, 2013

TackyPie said:
Is it possible to extract the update from new games so the rom works on the Gateway?

No. That would break the signing.

xyzmanas · Jun 7, 2013

Rydian said:
It's an easy way to feed arbitrary code to the unit. It just makes the possibility more widely-accessible.

But will it accept the code without proper signatures, still the only thing we know about it is that its just feeding the original code of nintendo back to the system

MegaBassBX · Jun 7, 2013

So I was thinking is the new method or what ever they made on this card to make games play easy to block ?

xyzmanas · Jun 7, 2013

Hi, this is my first post here though i have been following the scene for around 2 years.

An idea popped in my mind about the Gateway 3ds cart. Could you please look into it and tell if that is possible.

Q. Could somehow a large sized microsd card say of 32Gb be divided into smaller partitons of say 2 or 4gb sizes and then if they can be used to play different games which are loaded on the different partitions.

Being an CS engg student i think this quite possible on the software part and i am not talking about the 3ds software but about the software which drives the microcontrollers (if they can be used on the flash card).

Don't know much about the hardware part but is it possible to design the Flash cart which could read those seperate partitions imagining them as different Sd cards (well its all Address Space for the controller to read maybe it can be done).

There could be a PRESET which is designed for 4-6 partitons on the 32GB sdcard and those coulde be switched by a simple sliding switch on the Flash cart which would in deed change the address space which is to be read by the Flash cart for the game ROM.

PS: Don't flame, this is just an idea. Maybe it was useless and can't be done or maybe it is possible theoretically

[ I have seen CAR music systems sometimes reading the 1st partiton of my USB drive and some Audio systems reading the 2nd partition just saying

]

Devin · Jun 7, 2013

Right. Currently no one but the Gateway 3DS team know how the cart functions. So we won't be able to do anything but wish and speculate until the general public has on in their hands.

(Posting the same content twice isn't the right way to get it noticed.)

xyzmanas · Jun 7, 2013

Devin said:
Right. Currently no one but the Gateway 3DS team know how the cart functions. So we won't be able to do anything but wish and speculate until the general public has on in their hands.

(Posting the same content twice isn't the right way to get it noticed.)

oops, duly noted. I thought it will just get out of sight and I really wanted to know if that sort of thing is possible.

Plus i could not post in a new thread as of now.

Rydian · Jun 7, 2013

xyzmanas said:
But will it accept the code without proper signatures, still the only thing we know about it is that its just feeding the original code of nintendo back to the system

It will not just accept any old code, but in order to softmod a device you need to feed it input somehow, and this is just one more way to try to feed it input.

Masta_mind257 · Jun 8, 2013

Rydian said:
It will not just accept any old code, but in order to softmod a device you need to feed it input somehow, and this is just one more way to try to feed it input.

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 :|

Pedeadstrian · Jun 8, 2013

Masta_mind257 said:
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 :|

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.

Masta_mind257 · Jun 8, 2013

I know as much about exploits as a potato, plus I know what you're saying. Sounds like that is the case here

Pedeadstrian · Jun 8, 2013

Masta_mind257 said:
I know as much about exploits as a potato, plus I know what you're saying. Sounds like that is the case here

Apparently you never played Portal 2, because if you had, you'd know that potatoes can be very intelligent when it comes to technology. And I don't know anything other than what I've read here, and a good portion of it has been in the past few days since Gateway was announced on the front page.
But, for whatever reason, my interest in Gateway has diminished. I have a lot of fears about the device, but those fears may be alleviated when Devin gets the review sample in, and once people mess around with it. One of my biggest fears is it not working with future firmware updates, which Nintendo may be making as we speak, that require any future games to be the latest firmware version available upon release. That would mean that you would need to get your use out of the Gateway before you could start playing new releases, which I wouldn't like.

Quicksilver88 · Jun 8, 2013

JoelLittle said:
Apparently you never played Portal 2, because if you had, you'd know that potatoes can be very intelligent when it comes to technology. And I don't know anything other than what I've read here, and a good portion of it has been in the past few days since Gateway was announced on the front page.
But, for whatever reason, my interest in Gateway has diminished. I have a lot of fears about the device, but those fears may be alleviated when Devin gets the review sample in, and once people mess around with it. One of my biggest fears is it not working with future firmware updates, which Nintendo may be making as we speak, that require any future games to be the latest firmware version available upon release. That would mean that you would need to get your use out of the Gateway before you could start playing new releases, which I wouldn't like.

Actually Nintendo can't make the firmware update to block the cart until they get the cart and see what type of signiture it presents and then will make changes to the firmware to block it. Seeing that the gateway team is talking about future modifications and seeing that every flash cart for years has itself been firmware upgradeable, I would be shocked if the gateway does not have an upgradeable firmware . This way the team can add new features and change it's stealth features as Nitnendo adjusts the firmware. This game of cat and mouse has only been going on forever...well atleast since consoles and handhelds started using upgradeable firmwares (which has only been since this current generation as even the original DS Lite was not an upgradeable firmware). So don't be too afraid....odds are good this think will get blocked, you can avoid going online and updating until they upgrade the cart firmware to unlbock and all will be well. If it somehow gets perma blocked then in all likely hood the scene groups will make patched or modded roms to use that will get around the need for updated firmware. I am basing all of this off of past experience and history so until we get to online all the time DRM like Xbone and ps4 will likely use then the methods used to this point will likely still apply.

Pedeadstrian · Jun 8, 2013

Quicksilver88 said:
Actually Nintendo can't make the firmware update to block the cart until they get the cart and see what type of signiture it presents and then will make changes to the firmware to block it. Seeing that the gateway team is talking about future modifications and seeing that every flash cart for years has itself been firmware upgradeable, I would be shocked if the gateway does not have an upgradeable firmware . This way the team can add new features and change it's stealth features as Nitnendo adjusts the firmware. This game of cat and mouse has only been going on forever...well atleast since consoles and handhelds started using upgradeable firmwares (which has only been since this current generation as even the original DS Lite was not an upgradeable firmware). So don't be too afraid....odds are good this think will get blocked, you can avoid going online and updating until they upgrade the cart firmware to unlbock and all will be well. If it somehow gets perma blocked then in all likely hood the scene groups will make patched or modded roms to use that will get around the need for updated firmware. I am basing all of this off of past experience and history so until we get to online all the time DRM like Xbone and ps4 will likely use then the methods used to this point will likely still apply.

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).

Quicksilver88 · Jun 8, 2013

JoelLittle said:
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).

I hear you but look it is in the gateway manufactures best interest to make the thing upgradeable and then to upgrade it. Otherwise their sales cycle will be very short and they will have put all the effort into devleoping and producing a flash cart that no one will buy. Also on the every recent flash cart topic....really every cart going back to at least the supercard SD (which was produced before the DS was made as a GBA cart and then was made to work with DS thru a patch utility that ran on the pc and patched the Roms and was supported thru 2010 and 4500 or so roms) and I even seem to remember having another earlier GBA cart that had an upgradeable os/firmware which used a save system much like I am envisioning the 3DS one working (where it mirrored the eprom on the flash, although you did have to manually save/load it from a menu). Still I guess we are both speculating and won't know until the thing comes out and Nintendo makes their move.

If it turns out it can't be updated then I am willing to bet you the $80 it costs to buy it that some scene group comes out with a way to patch the roms to make them work without update for a while, atleast until someone makes a better cart. 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. I also buy a lot of software for all systems and don't really do it to pirate. I just like hacking and modding because I have been on the scene.....well really since there was a scene starting all the way back with the first 8bit computers. So I have literally seen it all and that is why I am basing my speculation on a lifetime (over 30 years) of past history and experience. Thats why I also don't believe in the 'pirating is goign to kill platform x/y/z' meme, because honestly as a % of the overall userbase piracy today is much lower and the user bases are in general are much bigger. The old adage of good games sell is still true in most cases and if they don't it's generally related to poor distribution or awareness. Truly the battle against hacker/modders and devs/manufactures is more of a pissing match then anything and the reason the 'industry' wants DRM is so they can put a stake thru the heart of the 'vampire' once and for all. Maybe it will work, but maybe it will be an over reach and people will trend to more open platforms like PCs and Andriod devices for gaming.

Time will tell, but honestly other than the piracy angle; hackers, crackers, and modders do drive innovation in the market in different ways which isn't a bad thing. Updating is generally only a must if you play online or eshop is a big deal for you. I suspect if these carts improve and take off then more publishers may move to strictly digital distribution like capcom is doing with Ace 5. I would love to see 3DS (and Vita even more so) cracked wide open but honestly doubt it will happen until later in the product cycle. The Vita is so much more powerful than 3DS that if it could do homebrew you could get some really great video players and emulators on it which would be boss. Within a month we will know a lot more about gateway and if the tech has any viability we will have clone knockoffs or better yet more established companies like supercard or r4 will improve upon the product and make them cheaper and with better support.

Hey between this, E3, Luigi DLC on WiiU and The last of us on PS3 June is looking like a knock out month in my mind!!!!! Now I gotta go finish Tomb Raider or I will never get thru it before playing other things....if you haven't played that game.....please do as it is the best Tomb Raider ever IMO and an excellent game in general.

Hacking Gateway 3DS - First 3DS Flashcart

See you later, guys.

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