I know more than a few people who stopped buying DS games once they got their hands on a flashcart filled with ROMs, but it seems like piracy on the 3DS is about to get a whole lot harder — the makers of several flashcarts, including the popular SuperCard, have stated that the latest 3DS firmware has implemented a new form of piracy protection that renders most (if not all) existing flashcarts useless.
According to the manufacturers of the SuperCard, the new 3DS firmware disables flashcarts in such a way that it’s impossible to get around using software exploits or patches for existing flashcarts. Basically, if you want to play ROMs or homebrew apps on your 3DS, you’re going to have to wait until someone designs a new kind of flashcart or somebody figures out how to hack the 3DS firmware.
It looks like if you want to continue playing ROMs off of a flashcart, you might want to get your hands on an old DS Lite. It’s also worth noting that as of now, no one has figured out how to get commercial 3DS ROMs working, so this appears to be a preemptive strike by Nintendo against any potential piracy on their new handheld.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata promised publishers that Nintendo would find a way to curb the rampant piracy that plagued the original DS during its later years, and Nintendo has apparently found a way to make good on that promise, at least for now. Piracy is an issue that will probably never go away, but it seems like Nintendo has dedicated themselves to making the process of playing illegal ROMs on their systems as annoying as possible.
Source: Tiny Cartridge
