One day. That is the duration of time it took for some of the Nintendo 3DS’ security to be bypassed to allow use of the R4 card. As of yet it appears that no 3DS games have been hacked, however pirated DS games are now able to run quite happily on the console.
Nintendo have recently commented that they plan to battle piracy via firmware updates, but one has to wonder how long it will be before pirated 3DS games become available.
Source: Destructoid
tonycawley
Sad sad day. Multi millions spent on r&d for this to happen.
NotoriousGTT
If its been hacked already using the same device as the DS it looks like tuppence hap’ney has been spent on R’n’D.
Grey_Ghost13
Would seem like that, that’s a stupidily short amount of time to hack it! Made me laugh at first!
tonycawley
Multi millions have definitely been spent on r&d for the 3ds, just not on security by the looks of it.
Trivium44
Nintendo has to step their game up. They should’ve made sure it was unhackable or hard to hack before they released it
Smallville2106
It’s a shame for them. Hopefully they will manage to sort it.
Charmed_Fanatic
I dont condone piracy but my R4 made me keep my DSLite, without it, i would have not brought one due to the price being roughly the same as PS3 and much lower quality
Jim H [Teabags]
Hopefully hackers won’t find a way of getting 3DS games to work on R4 devices. That way, in a few years, classic DS will begin to go out of fashion and Nintendo can enjoy a pirate-free lifespan for the handheld.
It wouldn’t be bad if the R4 wasn’t so accessible. I know at least 20 or so people using them for free gaming, and by all accounts you don’t have to be even remotely tech-friendly to operate one.
baggyg
Sounds like they didnt bother with old DS games. I suspect the 3DS ones have something a bit stronger to protect from piracy.
MXZ
Its in the publics hands for less then 24 hours and already someone has hacked it, what the hell!
already people can play pirated DS games on it (distracting new comers from the purchase-to play 3DS titles)
so imagine what would happen if these hackers could allow illegally gained 3DS games to run on the 3DS, sales of the 3D titles would drop (though not to a devastating extent) and nintendo may actually be in a spot of trouble.
Sony faced a similar problem with the PSP as it too was hacked fairly soon and with ease (hell i was able to do it and im not at all skilled with technology)
hopefully sony notices these two fatal mistakes done by themselves and nintendo to make sure that the NGP is almost impossible to hack.
hazelam
certainly puts the hacking of the ps3 in perspective, it took years for the ps3 to be hacked.
cc_star
It was a hacked console in the early days with a number of exploits that allowed the backing up of some games like Warhawk & Motostorm to the HDD via Java & image related exploits. Once they were closed off via FW updates I don’t think anyone even tried hacking it until the OtherOS debacle & then it was hacked within a few months.
Of course months is nothing like the one day it’s taken to get the 3DS to play R4 cards.
leon
One day that is crazy
cc_star
This is disastrous for Nintendo & for 3DS owners
If it becomes possible to run copied 3DS games, budgets for titles will shrink & it will only gain cheap to produce ‘filler titles’ that litter the DS’ back catalogue
Bigger budget 3rd party titles just won’t happen