September 28, 2007
Special thanks to the AceKard team and Bamboogaming for arranging a sample.
- Introduction -
The original AceKard was announced over a year ago, and since then it had not been very popular. Even with the free upgrade to the AceKard+ for old users, it was still a terrible failure. It seemed that the problem behind the flash cart was not the quality of the product, nor the price, but more of the lack of English support. Even though it was one of the first slot 1 flash carts to support clean roms and removable memory while remaining completely flush, it was far from being popular.
The AceKard team then disappeared for some time. Their flash cart, left with an unseemly small amount of patches for a long period of time. This was not a huge problem as the AceKard’s support for roms still seemed to be at a 100% even without the need for patches. Surprisingly, the AceKard team emerged from nowhere and released a product that they claimed was 10 months into development. This product was the AceKard RPG.
The AceKard RPG sure has a lot of hype, does it live up to it?
The AceKard RPG was a huge shock to the entire scene because it featured a few completely new ideas. These included dual storage, copying and pasting within the loader, and of course a completely open source firmware. These ideas, if implemented correctly could give AceKard RPG a huge lead over competitors. It seemed to be a clear step ahead for the Nintendo DS scene.
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September 7, 2007
- Introduction -
For about half a year now, the R4 flash cart has dominated the market. Because of its ease of use, great compatibility, and extremely cheap and affordable price, it seemed to be an obvious choice. During times of shortages, users turned to the M3DS Simply. The M3DS Simply is a clone of the R4, having the exact same features, the same updates, and even the exact same circuit board. The minor differences include the fact that it comes in different packaging, has a different sticker on the front, and the updates are released about a day later than the R4. It is no wonder that the M3DS Simply is doing fairly well in the scene.
The M3DS Simply is a flash cart produced by the famed M3 Team. They have been known to produce solid products with excellent compatibility. The M3DS Simply is a slot 1 flash cart that supports removable memory via MicroSD memory cards. On the back of the box, the M3 team makes a number of claims, most of which seem perfectly possible, such as supporting clean roms, homebrew support, etc.
Regarding the similarities between the R4 and M3DS Simply, many users would prefer the R4, however, in my personal opinion, they are one and the same. Perhaps there is a slight delay between updates, but they are never longer than a few days. The real jaw dropper is that some of the older revisions of the M3 Simply and R4 could have their firmware patches interchanged via a small hardware change, however, the more recent batches have made this much more difficult, although still possible. Another more interesting note is that some users have found ways to patch the R4 firmware to work with the M3 Simply, which seems to be a far better solution.
They look the same, they work the same, so can you tell whether this is an R4 or an M3DS Simply?
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