We get a lot of questions about the DS Xtreme Mod from a whole lot of customers.   Asking us as to whether or not they should consider buying the DS Xtreme mod over other DS Flash card products.  So in light of all of the questions, the easiest thing for us to do is simply to give all of the answers on our Blog – to better help out current and future customers make the right decisions about their DS Flash Card purchase.

So Just Why Is The DS Xtreme Mod So Popular?

Well, to be honest, quite simply put – we have to go back to the time BEFORE the DS Xtreme Mod was released.  Before the release of the DS Xtreme Mod Nintendo DS homebrew gamers WERE able to load hombrew, games and applications via several GBA Flash Cards which had already been on the market.  They were there, these flashcards received updates to enable them, with the help of a PassKey or SuperKey to load NDS files as well as GBA files.  One of the more popular ones at the time was the NDS Super Card which was originally developed for use with the Gameboy Advance / Game Advance SP system.  With the use of a superkey however, that same flash card that was made for the GBA, now worked in the Nintendo DS.  But it was still what we now call a SLOT 2 Flash card, and of course, the Superkey would take up your NDS game slot, because it had to be inserted in order for the unit to be recognized in your NDS.

Now, while we’re only talking about ONE GBA Flash card that ended up turning into an NDS Flash card, there were numerous variations of these units out there.  IN fact a pretty good number of the GBA card, with the use of a superkey and updated firmware from the card manufacturers themselves, ended up working for the NDS gamer too.

And as such, Nintendo DS homebrew was born.  And thriving.  But as the tech junkies that we all are, everyone wanted something perfect.  We didn’t want to use our GBA flash cards, that require patching of game files, and having to run them through the SuperCard software to make them work as an NDS file.  We wanted something we could all plug in, and just start using out of the box, without any patching or hassles.  This is in fact why even today, many of the slot 1 cards like the NDS TTDS and others, still list “Drag and Drop” and “No Patching Required” Amongst their list of features.

All of this was good and fine, but people really wanted to have an NDS Flash Card that looked, worked, and felt like a regular Nintendo DS card…. In comes the DS Xtreme Mod.  The DS Xtreme was the very first SLOT 1 (NDS GAME SLOT) flash card for the Nintendo DS.  It did away with having to buy a passme or superkey as well.  Not only that, it came with built in memory to boot.  So you have nothing more to buy except the actual DS Xtreme – and you would be up and running in now time.

(Editors Note: The DS Xtreme Mod has been discontinued by the manufacturer – so when buying, please take that into consideration)

The DS Xtreme had a unique menu system, came with a whooping (at the time) 512MByte built in memory (which translated to 4GigaBits for your files) and could not only play games, but could also play movies, music, etc…  It also didn’t require you to patch your games.  You could simply drag and drop them onto the DS Xtreme once you connected it via USB to your computer and away you went.  Playing your favorite home brew app, or listening to your favorite music.

All Good Things Must Come To An End:

But then something else happened.  While the DS Xtreme Mod was keeping people busy, and playing a-la NDS Cartridge style, the M3 Team released not one, but two Nintendo DS Flash Cards.

The M3 DS Simply and the R4 DS Card.  You see, up to that point, only the DS Xtreme (and the later G6 DS Real) cards were the only cards that actually worked in your NDS as slot 1 flash cards.  You didn’t need extra hardware, didn’t need to install software on your PC, just drag and drop your files and play you would.  But…. they were pricey.  Not because the people behind the products wanted to over charge, but because of the built in memory costs, which tend to fluctuate up and down as the markey supply and demand changes.  Unfortunately, the DS Xtreme was built at a time when flash memory was at a premium.  With the release of microSD Cards, and the M3 DS and R4 DS cards, which could utilize them, customers soon realized that there was a much cheaper way, and that they were no longer limited to just 512Mbytes of memory – they could actually use much more.  Up to 2Gigabytes – which meant the difference between being able to load up your card with say, 4-5 files, or 18-30 files.   What is even more important to point out however, is that microSD Cards came in really cheap.  Where a DS-X would cost you $149.00 for the 512Mbyte model, you could get an R4 DS with a 1 gig microSD card for under $70.00 (Thatr’s now changed of course… You can buy an official R4 DS for only $19.95!)

With the release of the R4 DS and similar slot 1 cards, customers had more choice.  Sure, the Supercard worked, but it worked in a way that required extra steps in order to fill up that memory card.  Extra steps that required every single game to be compressed / converted before they could be used on your Nintendo DS.  The R4 DS and the M3 DS Simply did away with that.  They just worked (We can’t help but wonder if that’s why they called it the M3 DS SIMPLY – because it Simply works!)

As time has passed, most of these all in one units, by which we mean Slot 1 DS Flash cards that have the unit, and the memory as an all in one, went to the wayside.  With super low cost microSD cards – there really wasn’t a big market left for units that had built in memory, which was quite often double or triple the price of similar microSD card compatible units.  As mentioned above, the DS Xtreme has been discontinued, but the most famous of all of the flash cards, the R4 DS Card is still available and still a customer favorite both for it’s compatibility with all types of files, and low cost microSD Card compatibility.

Find out more about the R4 DS Card for Nintendo DS…. 

Click Here.

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