Hacking Want to be sure to understand R4

[Moufou]

Hi,
I am planning to buy a r4 at http://www.rev3ds.com/home/8-r4i-sdhc-3ds-rts.html (seems legit to me)
And since they are selling r4 with "No Micro SD" and with a SanDisk 4GB, I am wondering why do I need to buy a r4 online since I already have a microSd and a SD. Couldn't I just extract what I need on my microSD?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Vague Rant]

@Moufou Once you've extracted what you need onto an SD card, how are you going to put that SD card into your DS?

The R4 and similar devices are DS game cartridges which are able to read additional information from a microSD card inserted into the cartridge itself--there's a microSD slot right there on the R4. If you've already got a microSD card to spare, then you don't need another one, but what you do need is a way to run the content you put on that microSD card, and that's where R4s and similar come in.

There are, of course, DS models which can read micro/SD cards natively (the DSi and onward), but for obvious reasons, you can't just put ROMs on the console's internal SD card and run them--that would be terrible for business. The console's ability to read SD cards is separate and unrelated to the R4 or other flash card's ability to do the same.

 

[Moufou]

Thanks for the answer.

...The console's ability to read SD cards is separate and unrelated to the R4 or other flash card's ability to do the same.

This was what I wasn't sure about R4.
Thanks again.