
DSi Firmware 1.4 was released a week ago with the intention of stopping pirates from running questionable programs on the machine.
However, it already looks as if someone has got the R4i running on a DSi system with the new firmware.
The video below seems to show it all running perfectly:

A special thanks goes to irken004 who used Ninja-like speed to find the article before me. My thoughts on the whole thing? It annoys me to see people stop at nothing, no matter how many updates Nintendo release. Surely (and don’t call me Shirley) unless there's an update of all updates which stops them forever, then the battle will never end.
[source nintendo.joystiq.com]
Comments 60
Cheap ****'s! Hate it!
noooo why must they try to do that? makes me sad that hackers would do that already.
I myself am tempted to flash carts, but not to play DS games.
I want my ds to be a media player, and thought that it would be able to do that at some point, but I put too much faith in Nintendo and have an updated DS with very limited online games, no video player and no VC.
I would gladly pay for a movie player and VC games, but if Nintendo doesn't want to give consumers like me what they want, well I'm sorry, I'm going to get it somewhere else.
I however also think that for games I like, I support. It just makes sense.
Thnx 4 the credit Giggsy!
damn it,pirates doing everything just so they don't have to pay for games
Nintendo needs to make a firmware that stops the pirates once and for all,or at least slow them down considerably
These pirates are a bunch of @$$&#%^$.
It's sad, because some of us use flashcards for HOMEBREW and GAMES WE DUMPED OURSELVES AND DIDN'T DISTRIBUTE.
I have the tools, if I'm going on a long trip then I dump all my games to my flashcard to save room in my bag. People who just download willy-nilly have no idea how much drama they are causing :/
Arrr, me mateys, methinks Nintendo might as well stop wasting their time. Tis useless to resist, ye landlubbers.
Ahem, not that I condone pirating, but why keep figuring out ways to stop pirates for a couple days when all it's doing is temporarily stopping them, wasting Nintendo's money, and wasting our valuable space.
@Adam You're right, and while we're at it, let's stop sending people to prison when all it will do is delay them for a couple of months/years. I know I took the example to the extreme, but you get my point. Never give up, don't give those pirates the satisfaction.
Exactly my tought too Adam..... Put that money into VC for DSi instead of this. Actually I do wish they could stop them completely. I know Sony is very skeptical of doin certain things with the PSP for the exact same reasons.
In my humble engineer opinion, there's no such thing as a perfectly safe hardware/software/firmware (and I mean it). With the right tools and a little imagination one can bypass any security system... especially if it's a firmware. After making the right connections understanding and adding/rewriting a few command lines becomes trivial. Sad but true :/
There's no way to stop the us Homebrewers, on Wii or DSi. And maybe if some of us didn't use these freedom powers for bad, Nintendo would stop caring. I did DS Homebrew for a while but I got really tired of it. The Wii homebrew scene is awesome right now, with a full 3D game engine in the works. But as they say, a few bad apples ruin the whole bunch.
@Chibi Link:
What about playing fan translations? Sure it's illegal but how else am I going to play Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary in English? Smash my original copy to bits? XD
I have a DSonei, so I expect a fix next week.
Yay, now I feel like buying an AceKard 2i again. But I don't want to play ROMs I just want to dump my GBA games.
Great article! Like the style.
Don't hate on Flash Cards for Homebrew. There are some good titles out there.
Stupid hackers. They'll stop at nothing will they?
I have the HBC on my Wii, and i buy all my Wii games from stores, i use HBC as a media player and to play original games created for the HBC.
As I already noted in the thread on this topic, it's still not clear who has been "defeated" just yet. I think Nintendo probably achieved exactly what they wanted with this update.
The R4i, according to the latest information from the company, has not been adapted to work by a firmware update, instead they are releasing a new hardware version, so it seems that all current owners of R4i's have had their devices rendered useless (as well as any old R4i's in stock at whatever retailers sell these in mass numbers).
We'll see how it all goes, but apparently Nintendo has indeed put an unbelievable number of these existing devices completely out of commission, and has forced the card makers to scramble to catch up and release new versions--but many people who pirate more casually and aren't into all the tech details about updates etc are likely to get frustrated quick if their flashcards keep getting rendered useless (requiring a whole new purchase) every time a new system update comes along.
Nintendo should find a way Quick!
@warioswoods - That's What I'm Talking 'bout!
"STOP THOSE PIRATES!"
I can understand doing this for older games that are a nuisance to find (such as Dreamcast and original game boy games), but for games that are still making money and still on store shelves is low and wrong. This should not be encouraged.
I wish someone could invent a virus that will not only destroy the flash cart but render the DS it's in completely useless. I wanna see them try to get out of that!
hackers will always find a way. It's sad, but that's the truth. My IT Teacher always said, "The only 100% save system is a system not even you can use".
Of course I pay for games that I like, so that developers have enough money to make more great games!
If they make another R4i without the ability to update the boot flash, Nintendo can block it again. But if you can update the boot flash, there's always a way to get it work again no matter what (software)updates Nintendo brings out.
i thought about getting one once but that's cheating nintendo of their never wasted reaserch money
WHO CARES
@koolkitties Seems to be everyone whose commented on here except you.
@koolkitties - Mainly The Game Developers, Producers, Staff
the Consumers and Pretty Much all of us , YOU?
@ Firkraag: There are so many things wrong with your logic...I don't know where to start.
@8. ShadoWolF XF

A bag was just found left on a city bus, I think it might be yours.
And About this Piracy crap, I think that it sucks that because of the greedy thieves that decide they are too good to pay for the games they play or they cant make room for a few 1 by 1 inch cartridges, for some trip, we can't have good things.
It has to be an inside job. No way someone knows how to recrack a n update all the time.
http://www.adgirlandtechnerd.com
"AS LONG AS IT'S COMPUTER BASED, IT WILL BE HACKED!!!"
sorry for that statement, but like one person said "Unless someone comes up with the ultimate update, the battle continues". have faith in nintendo, but i like to watch videos on my dsi and yet nintendo needs to make a video file that plays videos i want to watch. Wii No Ma has two problems: ONLY IN JAPAN and only plays limited type videos.... mp4 and 3gp are treated like music which is very wrong...
Nintendo needs to take note at the improvements made by pirates, instead of shutting them out. Thats how microsoft got bigger and better
It's kind of a losing battle no matter what they do. For people with that kind of hacking know-how just figuring it out is the fun challenge, they probably aren't even the main abusers of copying the content.
I have to say, though, that doesn't this article itself kind of encourage usage of the update? especially commenting on the speed at which it was found in the article itself. It might as well say, "DSi flashcart update is ready, Nintendo fans, just do a search for it and you'll find the new one." I wouldn't be tempted by such devices if I weren't aware of it, and since they have no marketing dollars per se than reporting quickly on their updates is essentially what they rely on to be used at all.
It'll be easier on all Homebrewers once a soft-mod comes out, and the very same people who brought you HBC have all ready started...
http://hackmii.com/2009/07/dsi-mode-homebrew-anyone/
This really p*ss*s me off.Homebrew gamers are fine but people who just download any commercial game they want are sub-human.
Also that Flying High reference in the article was brilliant.
Bootleggers are an extremely important target. With an R4 (etc) its pretty obvious you're not playing real games even to parents (though most of them are like "its great. I don't need to buy games. What do you mean you buy games? You're STUPID.").
But with bootlegs (counterfit games) complete with fake packaging which to an untrained eye looks fine (they tend to make weird errors like getting ESRB ratings wrong or Engerish on the back of the box), instruction manuals which are literilly the Gamespot preview text copied and pasted to random screenshots. These bootlegs tend to have issues with saving games and Nintendo doesn't want negative perception of their games due to it.
Its one thing distributing an update to a flashcard (or having your dinosaur of a flash card be so primitive the only update is buy a new one) but having to update an entire warehouse of counterfit games?
@IanDaemon start at the beginning and work your way from there. let me hit you with another one, why set up surveillance cameras at stores when shoplifters will only find a blind spot. why have thick steel doors at vaults in banks when serious bankrobbers are just going to find a way to get into there anyways. AND SO ON. No matter how extreme my examples may be it's basically the same meaning.
You should never give up against thieves, EVER, as I said, don't give them the satisfaction. And I'm glad that any sane person knows this or we'd have anarchy on our hands if people could just take whatever they want with no protection against it.
@warioswoods
Keep in mind that the R4i is probably the least advanced DSi flashcard there is. Others have updatable kernels and bootloaders, which the R4i does not.
Comforting to know there will be a way to get flashcards working again. At least buying a new card is about 1/4 the price of a real game or just an accessory, if it even comes to that (this is the R4i's solution, the least advanced DSi flashcard and a rather speedy solution implying it may have been rushed).
Sigh
Using something like this to play older games or DS games you can't get (in my case Giana Sisters DS) is fine, but using it to pirate what you can buy is just uncool. Maybe for trials, but that's it.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
These pirates are quite cunning, I see!
"Nintendo needs to take note at the improvements made by pirates, instead of shutting them out. Thats how microsoft got bigger and better"
^this
Way to stop/reduce pirates of any medium: build a time machine > go back to when the piracy of said medium started to arise > set up a download service with reduced prices
Once digital distribution takes over, I see piracy on all fronts being cut down for new releases.
...maybe :/
sigh these pirates give flash carts a bad rep.
i have to use my flash cart on my dslite since it doesnt work on dsi, and all i have on it is homebrew and some youtube vids, and some legend of zelda mangas and some puzzles and etc
if you have a flash cart with no games on it... you don't. You shouldn't lie.
In the days when I did homebrew, my Flashcart was too slow to play actual DS games.
Everything that is software can be changed and hacked no matter how much security you put into it. It will never stop. Some hackers actually find a challenge in breaking the code.
Hackers will stop doing this when companies get the big picture.
@Dicesukeinuzuka
I honestly don't have a lot of room to pack at times. Also, when it comes to international travel, it's easier if a console and one card get stolen/lost, rather than a large collection. Those of us who don't have cars and use things such as public transport also have trouble with carrying stuff around, especially with my 1-2 totally variable hour bus ride to campus.
Still, I don't encourage 'R4 fanboys' who download games and never buy anything, it's actually not what flashcards are for.
I'd rather wait for an Action Replay DSi than even try this R4i.
Unlike most people here i am glad that i can play my music and videos again, its not fair that nintendo has to block the whole flashcart just because some people use it for bad reasons, because of them every time i bring up that i have a flash card i get flamed, and if you look up comments their insulting hackers for bypassing it when i bet the hackers who bypassed it didn't pirate games on it anyway! which TBH honest seems rude.
Ren is right. I never knew this was possible until I went to high school and saw people with R4, and even more people have one in Spain. Knowledge of this subject creates temptation that would never exist otherwise.
Nintendo should release their own flash cart which allows the user to create backups for one DS specifically, and save this to the DS cart. Sure, it would create vulnerabilities, but it would also make it easier to find who is a wrongdoer and who is not.
Hm...this is good news for me.
@uel I'm sorry but that really is a stupid comment. Are you suggesting that NL doesn't report these things so you are not tempted? Seems rather provocative to me.
Hackers = FAIL.
I hate hackers they are what ruins the sales of games. It's stupid.
j-man i understand you very well, i dont like piracy but i am not going to pay
70 Australian dollars when i can get it for free, and piracy isent stealing im just copying, if you want to buy games knock yourself out. hackers will always win
the only reason i want an r4 is to use some apps you cant get without it ( colors )
The only thing I liked about my old R4 (not for the DSi that I now have), was the ability to watch movies and to play homebrew games on my DS. Curses on those that give flashcarts a bad name by using roms.
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