Hacking Crown3ds flashcard - Hacking your 3DS and playing 3DS games

[chris888222]

If this cart were really released eventually, I wonder when this cart is blocked whether or not the company will come up with an update.

a lot of units didn't sell, it just sold more units. 3DS selling like crap again in Japan and last I heard USA.

Right now, it's going through like what PS3 did at start. the difference is PS3 was more of a price issue while 3DS is lack of software and third party support.

I won't exactly compare it with PS3. also, the 3DS has decent third party support, they are just not ready with their software.

EDIT: changed next month

 

[Tagg7]

It's not going to be released next month.

 

[TwoBladedKnight]

Even if it is $99, that's not much more than buying a game here... ~$70 for a new game...

 

[djricekcn]

If this cart were really released eventually, I wonder when this cart is blocked whether or not the company will come up with an update.

a lot of units didn't sell, it just sold more units. 3DS selling like crap again in Japan and last I heard USA.

Right now, it's going through like what PS3 did at start. the difference is PS3 was more of a price issue while 3DS is lack of software and third party support.

I won't exactly compare it with PS3. also, the 3DS has decent third party support, they are just not ready with their software.

EDIT: changed next month

You are right in regards of 3rd party support, that's what I meant but realized the way I wrote it was bad, thanks for clarifying

 

[ferofax]

If this cart were really released eventually, I wonder when this cart is blocked whether or not the company will come up with an update.

a lot of units didn't sell, it just sold more units. 3DS selling like crap again in Japan and last I heard USA.

Right now, it's going through like what PS3 did at start. the difference is PS3 was more of a price issue while 3DS is lack of software and third party support.

I won't exactly compare it with PS3. also, the 3DS has decent third party support, they are just not ready with their software.

EDIT: changed next month

you're forgetting about how some 3rd party delayed/cancelled their 3DS titles because they're "waiting for sales to pick up". heck, even Kojima studios hesitated with MGS3D, which is why it's looking like a half-assed job--probably resources had been pulled off of this project and reassigned somewhere else. the only half-decent 3rd party support so far has been from Capcom, and even they had to pull out MML3. and it took em a good while to announce other titles too (MH3G & MH4), which could have helped the 3DS' image greatly.

i really wouldn't call that "decent third party support". it's there, but they're too finnicky.

 

[chris888222]

If this cart were really released eventually, I wonder when this cart is blocked whether or not the company will come up with an update.

a lot of units didn't sell, it just sold more units. 3DS selling like crap again in Japan and last I heard USA.

Right now, it's going through like what PS3 did at start. the difference is PS3 was more of a price issue while 3DS is lack of software and third party support.

I won't exactly compare it with PS3. also, the 3DS has decent third party support, they are just not ready with their software.

EDIT: changed next month

you're forgetting about how some 3rd party delayed/cancelled their 3DS titles because they're "waiting for sales to pick up". heck, even Kojima studios hesitated with MGS3D, which is why it looking like a half-assed job--probably resources had been pulled off of this project and reassigned somewhere else. the only half-decent 3rd party support so far has been from Capcom, and even they had to pull out MML3. and it took em a good while to announce other titles too (MH3G & MH4), which could have helped the 3DS' image greatly.

i really wouldn't call that "decent third party support".

By the way, I could have easily used outstanding/vast third party support for any console. To me, I'm using 'decent' just to improve the status of 3DS software, making it sound nicer than what it really is.

Speaking of which, most third parties will only come 2012, and those shown at TGS most likely won't get localization.

 

[Kwigg]

Seems like they'll be pressed fitting all that into one tiny game cart, unless they do what old PassMe thingies did and stick out of the device

 

[iNFiNiTY]

In my opinion, i'm gonna go ahead and say i think this is likely real. It's not like the old days with many fake vids happening, recent announcements have all been fairly reliable like jailbreak. So this coming out of nowhere, sure why not. Especially as they already admit limitations with it.

Thing is, it says one game at a time. I feel like this points towards it not running any code at all (on the DS at least). Just a replication of the cart and somehow bypassing some security to just make it act like a legit game. This is important cause it means this is 100% backup device that would mean some difficultly in distribution in some places.

Then there's the very big issue, the 3DS can be updated. Since we don't know what the mistake/exploit is, we can only guess it's something to do with the way carts are read. I dunno if the code that does that can be patched, but i'd take a guess that it can as it would be part of the fw. If it's some kind of fundamental error and there's no way the software can tell it's not a real cart i'd be surprised but hey you never know.

Why is no one breaking this whole demonstration down?

I'm going to call it a fake, unless they can provide new video of the following..

Show me the bottom of this specific 3ds so I can clearly see what country it's for.. ie CTR-001(USA) or whatever it is..

Then play a game from a DIFFERENT region.. if it's a JPN model, I want to see ANY US/EURO english ONLY game playing on it.. If it's a USA/EURO model then I want to see a JAPAN region game playing on it! PERIOD! NO EXCEPTIONS!

Sorry but if they can't do this, it's either a 100% fake, or they can't figure out how to run non regional games on whatever specific model the 3DS is made for. Which in that case it's pretty much useless to EURO's who want to play either US/JPN and for US to play JPN/EURO and of course JPN to play US/EURO..

I CALL B.S.!!! We saw this same video from the other group MONTHS ago and nothing surfaced.. really now.. think about it..

Just going to respond to this one cause you seem so massively confident in your assertion. Judging from what we've been told there's definitely no reason to expect to be able to play games from another region. It seems like it's not running code it's just some kind of faking an original game (this is an assumption but all evidence suggests it). If you change region you break the signature and it won't run, whole other issue there.

 

[CollosalPokemon]

Apparently this thing is extremely "hot" (quote from title) product before we know a lot about it, every site that sells flash carts and had this for pre-order is pretty much sold out of pre orders already. I'm going to trust it's legit for now on account of "innocent until proven guilty" and what we've seen so far. We should find out soon if/when they release more information like they say they will.

I just want to see them reflash the device with another rom, and that would make it much more believable to me. For all we know atm they could have potentially taken out the Splinter Cell 3D chip from the casing and attached random wires to make it seem like an actual reflashable cart. There's no proof that they did that yet but that might be a possibility.

Again, seeing it reflashed in a video would disprove that possibility but we'll have to wait for them to dump more roms and add compatibility to see a reflash,if the cart is actually hacked/reflashable like the claimed, since they said it's only compatible with Splinter Cell 3D for now.

 

[iNFiNiTY]

Ok i just thought of another obvious problem too (if the assumptions are true). Savegames - if you can't patch the games then how can it support them all. This might be why only one game even works at the moment, if other games check the savechip on starting. Sounds like it will be very tricky to make tons of games run without touching the games though. Plus none of this gets any closer to running code. I know it might seem early to think about limitations of this but it really sounds like it could be a neat trick that is just too limited.

There shouldn't even be a discussion on real or fake; No one would fake a cart that can play 1 game and put this much effort in.

 

[Cyan]

Well, currently it's not a 1 game at a time, but more a ... 1 game only : Splinter cell.

If this is true, it will be able to run only one game at a time, so i suppose the final version of the flashcart will run a specific file on the microSD's root and you will have one game per microSD.

Do not take the thing bellow too seriously, it's only my imagination

If the card need to have the game image in a special chipset instead of external storage card (microSD), then with future update it could use the same system as the 3-in-1 slot2 card : Use a DS homebrew (We can run unsigned DS homebrew menu), to live-flash ROMs from external storage to Crown, once on the NOR/whatever memory type, the Crown can acts as a real 3DS cartridge.
Either two physical flashcard:
DS flashcard + SD + homebrew menu only (no rom on the DS microSd)
Crown + SD + ROMS and saves (games located in a microSD in the crown, can be accessed only from the DS homebrew. Saves could be on eeprom and transfered along with rom, or directly on the SD Card).

Or a single card with a hardware switch to swap DSmode/3DSmode flashcard.

Until there's a way to signed ourselves/run unsigned code on 3DSmode, then DS mode could be used as long as DS mode has access to 3DS hardware (or just make crown flashable in DS mode, as DS and 3DS it use the same connections).

That's my idea of multi-game menu.
I don't know how viable it is, and would require a lot of time to transfer 8GB games

it's just if you don't have a computer near you.

 

[Jayenkai]

\me would like to pass along his dissatisfaction that this is being used for theft, rather than what I truely want it for.

.. There's fuck all on there in the first place. It'd be nice if I could add to it.

 

[Ace]

I think the Crown title is pretty much just signifying the huge chip it needed to just run the game. You're literally crowning the DS with the thinga-ma-bob-er-face

 

[BadBloke]

All the people who are saying this is fake because there's no hello world, no menus, no region-free:

IT IS NOT HOMEBREW!

That's why it won't allow you to play games from different region than your console's, why there is only one game at a flash playable, most importantly why there is no menu and "Hello World". It won't allow people to run custom, unsigned code on the 3DS, just pirated/backed up copies of retail games.

Please, find another argument, then call it fake. I'm not saying it is real, but the lack of region unlocking and homebrew doesn't make it fake.
The Acekard isn't homebrew, neither is the DSTWO, or any of the other flashcarts. That said, I can still play One Piece Gigant Battle on them. Pokemon BW in Japanese, too.

Despite the fact that I'm not a fan of this phrase, practice what you preach and :
QUOTEPlease, find another argument

Do you even know what "Homebrew code" means?

You need to exploit the console to run homebrew, and we know shit about the 3DS security. This just replicates a game and fools the 3DS to run the cartridge like the original.
The whole interface of the Acekard is (for example) AKAIO, which is homebrew, as in "not made by Nintendo, but by people in their homes".

It is much like the i-xtreme/LT dvdrom firwmare flashing method for the XBOX360 that enables you to run pirated copies an nothing else, vs the JTAG hack which is a much more sophisticated hack that actually exploits the console, gets the CPU Key and reboots unsinged code (real hack).

 

[FAST6191]

Ok i just thought of another obvious problem too (if the assumptions are true). Savegames - if you can't patch the games then how can it support them all. This might be why only one game even works at the moment, if other games check the savechip on starting. Sounds like it will be very tricky to make tons of games run without touching the games though. Plus none of this gets any closer to running code. I know it might seem early to think about limitations of this but it really sounds like it could be a neat trick that is just too limited.

There shouldn't even be a discussion on real or fake; No one would fake a cart that can play 1 game and put this much effort in.

There are probably only a few save types (flash and EEPROM at a guess) with a few sub types of those which are usually little more than a couple of changed commands (the hex representation of them that is)- we saw some early DS slot flash carts straight up emulate save chips (see carts with a save list- it was mainly the rise of the R4 with the beloved drag and drop that put a stop to it) and the programmable chip world (we might almost be at the point where a pic level chip could do it let alone a proper CPLD or FPGA) has only got smaller, faster and cheaper since then. Failing that going even further back some of the truly early DS code stuff used the save same type (see stuff like the first mario kart patches or people having issues with a game overwriting their save from another) as a way to dodge save patching issues.

edit as for multiple games my mind goes back to N64 memory packs with buttons on the front to change to different pages. A bit crude and probably some better methods today like the proper GBA slot devices that changed read locations to the point on the chip where it was at (?SD and such do tend to allow for raw file systems).

 

[cracker]

Sorry if it has been said before but perhaps the cart will remap the memory of the flash chip on the board (which would require raw r/w and unfragmented games resident in memory *shudder* EZ3 DS support or old GBA linker hardware) according to what key is being held down upon booting from the slot.

Since it is unclear that there will be a microsd slot I would guess it will be a cart that has to be loaded up from your pc with a usb writer and tedious to swap games.

 

[mysticwaterfall]

I just want to say that I'm not for or against pirating games, but I am one of the few people who play games solely to beat them. That accomplished feeling you get when you see the end credits roll is the most satisfying thing I get from video games. Yes, I play them to have fun along the way but, once I am done with a game, that's it. I am not going to play it anymore unless it is something like an open world game where I can just screw around (al la GTA Series).

The reason I am subscribed to Gamefly is the same: I don't want to have to pay full price for a game that I am either just going to let sit on mu shelf and deteriorate in value, or sell it as soon as I am done. It seems like a waste of money and time, so if (stress on if") I pirated games, it would be because I do not intend on actually "owning" the game for more than a couple of days (or weeks in some cases).

If money is the issue, then shouldn't video game companies be more occupied with sites like "eBay" in which there can be many transactions involving the same game, where the developer sees none of the revenue? Piracy is a problem but only a small percentage of the "gamers" actually do it, or even know that it exists.

I mean really, what 14 year old Middle America kid do you know that will, find out, learn the risks, and then proceed to do anything that has to do with hacking games? If I asked my 15 year old cousin (who owns both a DS and a Wii) if she knew anything about hacking them in order to get free games, I highly doubt she'd even think it was possible.

Bottom line, if piracy was such a huge deal since the GBA, why is it that games like Gears of War, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Uncharted 2 sell so well? It's cause they have enough of a fanbase to not have to worry about the small percentage that actually pirate their games. Lesser names on the other hand have it harder, sure, but has that stopped publishers like Aksys, NIS America, and Atlus from bringing games over to where piracy is a big problem? No.

Real bottom line: Piracy isn't a big deal.

Amen to this post.

 

[KazoWAR]

I was kinda concerned about differences in save types and expanding rom sizes. the possible best idea i can think of would be to use some onboard cpu or what ever like the DSTWO and use it to intercept cart commands and then do stuff for it. if implemented correctly, it could allow multi rom support using microSD cards for storage. it can be set up like that one wii mod chip i saw that uses a SD card. at first boot it boots a game cube homebrew that allows you to select a rom, then when the system reboots it loads the gamecube or wii game your selected. so when the 3ds first boots the cart it feed the 3ds info for an exploited DS game that would allow the homebrew menu to load in DS mode. then you select a game 3ds and maybe even DS roms. save the info to some file on the sd card and reboot the system as the 3ds goes to read the game this time the on board chip would read the data off the file, reset it to default for next power off cycle to go back to the homebrew menu, and then start feeding to correct data from the selected game. this would in theory make it so you can store all 3ds games and there save data on a microSD card. also include some internal storage for the cpu program thingy and make it updateable to support newer save types and fix bugs or something.

Spoiler

SUPERCARD TEAM IF YOU SEE THIS DO THIS FOR THE SUPERCARD THREEDS

 

[mysticwaterfall]

Assuming this is real, there are two things it needs to be viable: ease of transfer of games/saves from computer via usb (even though cyan's idea of using a ds homebrew to transfer games is preatty cool - don't know how you would switch between modes though), and plenty of storage space - at least 2 gigs, but preferably 4 to handle any future games.

 

[Anacobra]

... Heh.

This actually sort of reminds me of the old days with the DS, where you had to use a PassMe device. That or basically short your DS out by opening the battery panel, then you'd send the crap over wifi. Everyone was going on about how that was useless and if you can only send one small game then there is no point.