Hacking Gateway 3DS - First 3DS Flashcart

[natkoden]

You know, it's possible for people from one country to go to another and have a child there.

They still are of chinese descent

 

[Rydian]

But not from the country, which actually matters when it comes to goals, methods, laws, etc.

 

[Devin]

I swear someone confirmed the team is from Europe, I'll have to go digging for it.

 

[Deleted User]

I swear someone confirmed the team is from Europe, I'll have to go digging for it.

well thats awesome europe 4 the win

 

[manaphy4ever]

I really wish it could play multiple regions so I can play Japanese games like inazuma eleven go and monster hunter 4 soon well I should wait for other flash carts with one micro ad can play multiple games and saves like R4 and acekard ..etc can't wait for the review

 

[LurkerA]

I swear someone confirmed the team is from Europe, I'll have to go digging for it.

Source....any source? or just someone confirmed?

 

[Devin]

Well considering that the European version of Luigi's Mansion 2 was the only version dumped, the English on the website is pretty good, and that they're using a white 3DS XL leads me to believe that they're European. However they may have some factory in China mass producing the product.

 

[Quicksilver88]

Man could we get a little more pessimism in this forum....lol

Look it is a first generation flash card. It is truly just a 1:1 wiikey xkey type 'drive emulator' which is atleast a start. It sounds to me from what little is leaked that the cart can be flash updated, most likely going to be by placing a .xxx file on an SD and then doing something to trigger the update (like mzero used a usb cable to power, trigger the udpate).

As long as it can be flashed, then there is a good chance they can play cat and mouse with Nintendo and the firmware updates. I mean come on DS2 and R43DS are essentially last gen carts and everytime (so far) that Nintendo updates the 3DS firmware to block them they have been able to get around it with flash cart updates within a few days.

My biggest concern is really the save game situation. What I am thinking is maybe they can setup a function so that everytime a save is written to the cartridge eeprom it is just cloned to the sdcard as a .sav file. Then maybe when you launch a game it just populates the cart eeprom with the sd card .sav file. This would be awesome and pretty much give us 'portable' game saves.

As for the multiple games per SD....I think there are a few ways maybe this could be accomplished without a homebrew menu....One is a trigger system. So say when you insert the cart you hold down a button and that determines what .rom file the cartridge activates....using something in the 3DS like the media player might work as well but Nintendo likely block it with firmware update.

The region free thing is a bigger issue for a lot of potential users but hey maybe they could do some sort of spoof in the cartridge. Those that say this does nothing for the scene I disagree in that generally first steps like this prompt further action. Maybe someone will get motivated now that there is a reason to make a decent 3DS rom tool for the PC. This might allow us to somehow build multi roms, do region spoofing, and rom trimming.

As to those complaining about the price...like others have said....really? $80 is cheap for a first generation flash cart and if you find it too pricey then just wait because others will follow and be cheaper and likely better.

Also as long as the device is updateable I see no reason for the company to just put it out and then dump support. They will likely try to update it with possible features and play chase with Nintendo to keep it viable and selling in the market place as long as possible. I am just stating this because of a long history of messing with flash carts goign back to the GBC. Just be thankful you don't have to use a damned parallel flash writer with this sucker because those things sucked and took forever to write your data and crashed half the time before the write finished. I still think the best device ever was the Supercard SD slot 1. I bought it to use for GBA, very soon after DS was out they were supporting DS. It was awesome in that it could do both DS and GBA games. Even though you had to use their patch tool on roms, they supported it thru like 2010 and roms up until the second to last prof layton game. Very useful tools like rain came out that let you backup and restore save file from slot 2 to the slot 1. It was such a great value I rewarded them by buying a SuperCard DS2. I still use that SuperCard SD on my DS Lite with the hacked slot 1 boot.....good stuff. I really hope Supercard get a 3DS cart out soon as I know they make good products and continue to support them for a long time......

 

[LurkerA]

Well considering that the European version of Luigi's Mansion 2 was the only version dumped, the English on the website is pretty good, and that they're using a white 3DS XL leads me to believe that they're European. However they may have some factory in China mass producing the product.

Right, looks like a reasonable speculation..

 

[SifJar]

"RAM Tracing" was the phrase used, and they had a trace from boot that measured like 50+ GB or something like that to initially run through if I'm remebering the right number.

That was different, RAM tracing was used for the decryption stuff, but "RAM tracing" was more than just that. Initially, RAM tracing was just to see how the console worked, what was actually happening in the code. The "oracle" decryption came later, once some stuff was figured out.

 

[Foxi4]

I read it as "as soon as somebody else finds a genuine hack, we'll incorporate it into the firmware of the card if at all possible. But that's just the sceptic in me...

I don't see any reason, technical or other, why the cart wouldn't be able to run unsigned code if an exploit is found - it already runs signed code perfectly fine (if it's real, of course) so there's nothing standing in the way of running unsigned code via an exploit unless the nature of the exploit will require SD slot loading, but even that can be worked with, really.

If the exploit will run via a retail game, what's standing in the way of putting a ROM of that retail game on the SD? You win either way.

 

[Pleng]

I don't see any reason, technical or other, why the cart wouldn't be able to run unsigned code if an exploit is found - it already runs signed code perfectly fine (if it's real, of course) so there's nothing standing in the way of running unsigned code via an exploit unless the nature of the exploit will require SD slot loading, but even that can be worked with, really.

If the exploit will run via a retail game, what's standing in the way of putting a ROM of that retail game on the SD? You win either way.

Of course. The point I was making is that I don't believe they're actively researching a way around region lock... merely waiting for other people to find a solution and then implement it.

 

[porkiewpyne]

Lol...it's funny how this applies, why wasn't the idea behind this cart used sooner? Was the 'trick' really that complicated? It doesn't seem like it. Didn't they just solder on an sd slot to where the rom used to be stored?

Maybe they were also hoping to make carts which supported more than 1 ROM and can run homebrew. I believe they expected the "OMGWTFBBQ only 1 romz no homebrew $80 cry cry cry" reaction but were probably desperate and decided to cash in while they could

but they're still from China

If we want to get technical, we're all from Africa

 

[vernacular]

When is that review coming? I'm eager to see if it works with the latest NA firmware (at the date of posting this: 5.1.0-11U). There are games that force an update when inserted into the 3DS so I wonder how they'll deal with that if later firmware breaks Gateway 3DS functionality or if that forced update function can be removed from the dumped rom itself. It will probably be the biggest pain in the neck; wanting to play the latest title, but having to wait until either Gateway's firmware is updated or for a rom that did not force update.

 

[Quicksilver88]

When is that review coming? I'm eager to see if it works with the latest NA firmware (at the date of posting this: 5.1.0-11U). There are games that force an update when inserted into the 3DS so I wonder how they'll deal with that if later firmware breaks Gateway 3DS functionality or if that forced update function can be removed from the dumped rom itself. It will probably be the biggest pain in the neck; wanting to play the latest title, but having to wait until either Gateway's firmware is updated or for a rom that did not force update.

Very possible we get a PC tool that will provide some functions for us like stripping roms of updates or size trimming. This is only the start and at least we have a launching point now. Never underestimate the power of groups like paradox, venom, and others who have worked much magic in the past. Now that their is a delivery method I would expect Roms will flood and those that need some form of tweaking to be made to work on this cart will likely get it.....at least this is what past history has shown us. I do think this can be usefull for the exploit scene as well as now people will have a relatively cheap delivery method to try to work on system exploit codes and such.....let the games begin!

 

[PsyBlade]

Very possible we get a PC tool that will provide some functions for us like stripping roms of updates or size trimming. This is only the start and at least we have a launching point now. Never underestimate the power of groups like paradox, venom, and others who have worked much magic in the past.

Trimming/untrimming of filler data is already possible.
Smaller than rar and other normal compression too.
(At least I have a standalone tool that does that. Idk if any full blown mamager implements it too.)

Anything more will probably require either running custom code or breaking the signing key.

 

[ikh]

If the gateway team make their money and decide to jump ship, will it be possible for the public to continue their legacy in terms of updates and keeping up with nintendo. Also does anybody know of any previous work done by gateway? I just get the feeling this particular flash cart will have a very short lifespan.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Without knowing what tools specifically they use to write for the controller chip on the flashcart, unlikely.

 

[omgpwn666]

- Can you play multiplayer local and mostly online?
Yes, but we advise not to use online features

I think I'll just continue to buy my games like a good lad considering my lack of temptation to buy this at the moment. =P

 

[johnnywalker]

I've been reading all 3DS homebrew-about topics for long months. The price of gateway (by swedish reseller) which now is over 310 zlotys (that's about 95 bucks!) is way to high. Anyway I'm afraid I won't resist buying one ;P

If it is real, of course