It is the way of the merchant, a concept I learned more from Runescape than education.

Buy low, wait for demand, sell high. Keeping a cart-only option in on-demand production may curb this problem. But when you set something up to have a very limited release, you automatically create a demand that inturn will bring inflated prices. Are these games worth the prices people will be asking? — no. Yet, they will sell for that because collectors exist, and gamers usually impulse buy without conducting enough research. Very few games these days are being released for retro systems without an accompanied ROM release. For those games you have no choice as they fall pray to limited releases, manufactured demand, and high prices. For all the others, a few minutes of research can usually uncover a [retro] Flash Kit solution that will allow you to enjoy not only that singular rare game, but hundreds of hacks, translations, import games, etc.

I feel for what you are implying about the morality of the situation. We can’t impose our beliefs on others. Someone will always see a limited reproduction run as a chance to make a quick buck.

[Lester Knight]

MineStorm wrote:
$250 for Gundam translated – wow, that’s gone up in value in a short time.

Perhaps if cart-only releases were made available as some type of on-demand deal, where there would never be stock-on-hand, then a price of $250 for the limited CIB would be more justified. There is really nothing to compare the limited CIB cart to. You could compare it to the Japanese release which commands a higher price than most of the other VB games, and perhaps based on that, an English translated release seems more rare. I’ve yet to see one sold second hand that commanded such a high price, but perhaps he is just setting the standard for what is to come. Due to limited time, a lack of interest in cart-only-releases, and perhaps even limited resources (?), those involved with the reproductions have inadvertently made them extremely collectable, when it would appear at first glace that the sole purpose was simply to make something unique available to VB gamers.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by Lester Knight.

RunnerPack wrote:
for the benefit of other readers: http://raphnet.net/electronique/electronique_en.php

RunnerPack: thank you for sharing that link. The electronic side of our gaming devices is a great mystery to me, and yet I rather enjoyed check out some of those projects.

everything is available as a rom. i don’t know if chris hosted everything under each game title on the site, but the threads for each topic should have the roms. the two english translations are just ips patches, which you can apply to the original rom.

in my mind it would make sense to make the money back and perhaps put it towards completing your tg16 collection.

apparently project vboot is back in consideration, but i’ve no idea if it will be completed.

the current (and only known) 3ds exploit is being toyed with by a few talented people. they currently have some great things working, like nand redirection. according to their reports, it will be possible to run 3ds-mode homebrew on the 3ds using nothing more than the exploit and an sd card. i think it is a very real possibility that someone will bring 3d homebrew to the 3ds. this could mean a virtual boy emulator running in glasses-free 3d. the only catch is that the exploit only runs on firmware 4.1-4.5 and those old 3ds units are getting snatched up quickly.

you should keep your vb, ac adapter, and flashboy. everything you collected can be enjoyed with those things. the vb is such an interesting system that i feel it should be enjoyed and not collected and shelved.

If all you want to do is test your projects on actual hardware, go the cheapest and most readily available route. This would be the R4i gold (http://www.r4ids.cn). http://nds-card.com/ProShow.asp?ProID=149

8 hrs to go, auction includes a FB+

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Virtual-Boy-Games-Mario-Clash-Wario-Land-Golf-Nesters-FunkyBowling-Booklets-/321232855488?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item4acaf861c0

9 hrs to go. complete vb, description makes it seem like a glitchy display, which we all know can be fixed. current bid is under $25

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-Virtual-Boy-Red-Black-Console-/181243771231?pt=Video_Games&hash=item2a32f8795f

i’m sure everyone is going to point out the verses option. will this game have planned support of the soon-to-be-released vb link cable?

Only a little.

Right now there are only 3 Flash Kits that can be recommended. As there are really only 2 teams left supporting their cards on the next generation of Nintendo firmwares.

The first is the R4i Gold from the .cn team. There are a lot of clones of this R4 card, some are based on its hardware, while others simply use the name. If the Flash Kit sticker says “http://r4ids.cn” then it is probably the real thing. This card cost between $12-18. It runs the Wood kernel, which is a fork an older Acekard kernel. It has rather high Homebrew compatibility. It is your basic, run-of-the-mill, DS Flash Kit. It will get your gaming and developing, but won’t offer much else.

The second card I can recommend is the R4iDSN from the same team as the R4i Gold. It costs around the same, offers similar features, and supports the same kernel.

The SuperCard DS2 (SCDS2) is the 3rd card that can be recommended. It cost around $45 but offers things the others can’t. For example, it has an on-board CPU and RAM. This is used for things like in-game guides, a fuzzy cheat editor, slow-motion, and real time saving. Homebrew devs greatly expanded the SCDS2 SDK a few years ago and from that came exclusive emulator ports. There are GBA, SNES, DOS, MAME4ALL, Atari 7800, and more, ports. There is also a port of Dingux, the Dingoo Digital Handheld open-source O/S, which brings with it a ton of interesting emulation possibilities.

The most important factor when deciding what card to get should be compatibility and the ability to update. The SCDS2 is the only Flash Kit on the market that has never required a hardware upgrade to circumvent Nintendo’s anti-piracy measures. So far this card has been future proof. The R4i Gold/R4iDSN cards continue to function on the 3DS but at one point required hardware updates. However, their team was the first to get a Flash Kit working on the 3DS.

If you are just looking for a Flash Kit for your original DS then I would strongly recommend you search and track down an older Acekard 2.1 (Not the 2 or 2i). The 2.1 was one of the better 2nd generation Flash Kits to be developed. It runs the AKAIO kernel. I worked closely with its devs and made sure every Homebrew released was working on it (I can actually only recall one we never got fixed). If DS Homebrew experimentation is your thing (and I’m not talking about developing, just enjoying Homebrew and emulation), then this would be the best choice. However, the 2.1 will not work on the DSi or 3DS, and it can not be made to do so.

If you want to check out DS Homebrew, navigate on over to Filetrip.net. I spent a great deal of time mirroring DS Homebrew files there.

http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/games/
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/applications/

DS-Mode Flash kits run in DS-Mode on the DS, DSi, and 3DS. Do you want a kit that will work on both your original DS and your 3DS?

[Lester Knight]

You own the original DS or the DS lite? Do you ever have plans of upgrading to a DSi, DSi XL, 3DS, or 3DS XL?

Lets start with those questions before I make some recommendations.

As for shops, I can recommend two shops, but that isn’t to say that other shops aren’t legit. GBAtemp.net is sponsored by http://nds-card.com/. They are very legit. I’ve not read about any problems with them. I can also recommend http://www.realhotstuff.com/. They are based in NJ and ship Priority mail. They also have a sister site, that sometimes has cheaper prices, but they ship from Hong Kong. http://www.realhotstuff.hk/

• This reply was modified 12 years, 9 months ago by Lester Knight.

it would seem we may have shown him that there is interest in the kit and that its development inspires the greater vb community.

i see the comments as of today (10/27).

i can’t tell from that photo what is wrong with it. are the sides noticeably stripped, so you are assuming someone must have tried to unscrew it before? if the sides are not stripped and the screw is just stuck, try tightening it a little bit and then untightening, as this may pry it loose.

the original ds phat (1st model) and the ds lite do not have upgradable firmwares. so if you released a game on a flash kit those two systems would always be able to boot it. the problem is that few people still use them, a great majority moved on to the dsi and then the 3ds.

your homebrew itself would not be illegal, but having it on a modern flash kit would make selling the cart illegal. unless the flash kit shipped blank and with hardware that allowed the user to flash the initial bootloader. the cyclods ievo shipped this way. you had to find 2 roms files, drop them on a msd card, and then attach this dongle to the flash kit that was used to flash the bootloaders. acekard came up with a software method that works on the original 2 ds systems, as they were the only two that supported hot-swapping. with the acekard softare you run the update file from 1 flash kit, eject it, and then insert the blank/corrupted/non-updated acekard.

the link i posted seems to be dead. you’ll need to use the internet way back machine. http://archive.org/web/

i have yet to see a single project that created a reproduction ds cart. i’ve been following the ds scene since it started. here are your issues: the first is that the ds constantly updates to block flash kits. all the dsi/3ds flash kits contain a portion of a copyrighted rom file, its icon, and a bit of garbage data the ds queries from the cart. so to start out your “homebrew” cart would be considered illegal to sell, because it would have to contain the required bootloader and spoofing information. lets say you got around that (like the ievo which required the end-user to flash the bootloader using a provided dongle) and you had it working, now comes the issue of updating. almost every dsi/3ds firmware update offered nothing more than “background” fixes. these simply blocked flash kits. dsi updates seem to have been left behind but the 3ds is always being updated. you could release your game tomorrow and the next day nintendo blocks its exploit, rendering your reproduction cart not bootable.

the only cart which as not required a hardware update has been the supercard ds2. their on-board cpu has allowed them to spoof the required information and has not limited them to the dwindling pool of exploitable ds rom files. the ds2 sells for around $40, and the shell clearly has a msd slot. i think the only way to really go about this would be to get a ds2 and put it in an aftermarket shell. there are a few people who make them. however, now comes the next issues, micro sd cards. all ds flash kits (except for a few older kits that had on-board nand — acekard rpg, ds-x) rely on micro sd cards. these cards tend to corrupt with all the read/writes we toss at them. so if you went with an existing flash kit design you would need a way to open the shell in the event that the user had to reformat the msd card. with that, you would have to release your homebrew somewhere so they could replace it.

now, this is what i know about the hobby. i’m sure it would be possible to build a different type of solution for a truly 1:1 reproduction experience. if you find anyone who can do it, i know many homebrew devs who would be interested in actual ds homebrew cart releases.

hackmii.com had a great article on how the dsi action replay cart worked. it explained how the exploits work and are able to boot a 3rd party cart. might be worth a read via the way back machine: http://hackmii.com/2010/02/lawsuit-coming-in-3-2-1/

I fully understand your point of view and I respect it. I’m glad you are considering the extended intro. This project could end up being THE snatcher game to play.

The VB community is small, most of the hardcore supporters are here at this very forum. So while your project will probably never get the spotlight it may deserve, it will always be a cherished gem among our homebrew collections!

the fact that you want to include act-3 is rather amazing. there was talk about upgrading the reproduction carts if/when the street fighter game is completed. it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that perhaps your finished game could see a reproduction run, complete with box and manual.

i have not viewed the msx version of snatcher for years. do you feel the graphics will merge well with the sega cd sprites? i also can’t recall what parts were censored when the game was brought to the sega cd. was there anything in act-3 that would need to be addressed and/or uncensored?

i don’t know how you feel about the nudity found in the original game. i feel it was how the game was designed to be, and representative of a dystopian future. i always felt that they hurt the integrity of the game by removing it, yet i fully understand why they did it for the younger american audience.

if you are going to bring over the 3rd act, have you given any consideration to the extended intro that was added to the sega cd version?

since the snatcher DS demo was release, i’ve wanted to see a remake/port to another system. the 3d environments of the vb would be really great for this game. keep up the good work!

Your reply got me thinking how nice it would be if we had some guides written about making 3D sprites for the Virtual Boy. I think it may help potential homebrew devs to get started much quicker.

i’ve always enjoyed snatcher. i am a little bit biased toward the sega cd release because it was a complete game with a localized english translation. the initial release cut off after act-2, they never included the planned ending. then again the sega cd release was censored for a non-japanese audience.

this would be a really fun game to see on the virtual boy. i find the red/black graphics to be incredibly soothing. i really do not think that it being text heavy will cause many problems.