Hacking DS carts...

[kaymm2]

Does anyone know why Nintendo decided to make a new card slot? Could they not have made all DS games fit in the GBA slot? Make them all the size of the dust cover. Don't get me wrong, I like the new DS carts, smaller, nicer looking. But I'm just wondering why they came out with a new form factor.

 

[science]

If they were the same size as the dust cover then they wouldn't work in the DS phat.

 

[Mucuna]

I don't know. Maybe because it is easy to pirate a GBA card?

Here in centre of Rio de Janeiro is easy to find everygame for GBA. All a legitime pirate version, aye!

But really don't know why.

 

[pelago]

I guess carts just generally get smaller from generation to generation. Compare GB -> GBA -> DS. See also, CF -> SD -> MiniSD -> MicroSD.

 

[Lily]

They wanted something that could be protected (hence the RSA encryption), something small, and something that would still have little to no load times.

Enter the DS cart.

It also drives people to upgrade because the 'form factor' is different, and clearly differentiates DS software from GBA software.

 

[neojei]

At first they didn't want the DS to be the GBA's successor, so thats why it isn't backwards compatible with anything before gba. DS carts are just like their own, that's how I understand it.