Nintendo DS R4 cards were first seen in 2007 when the DS Lite console was introduced. They allows regular DS and DS Lite gamers to use their consoles not only for playing games, but also to be able to use their consoles as MP3 players, to read eBooks, office application files, and even as a video and movie player! From the original Nintendo DS R4 card grew a large homebrew community that also created many new applications that could be used on DS consoles.
When the DSi was released in 2008, the Nintendo DS R4 team came out with a new card that would be compatible with the newer technology employed in the DSi. This card was known as the
R4i SDHC and has enjoyed tremendous success in the last two years thanks in part to it sharing the official R4 name. In this time, however, there have been many, nearly countless, fake and clone versions of the R4i available on the market. In order to avoid these fake and clone cards, users of DS and DSi consoles needed to make sure they only bought genuine cards from retailers that only stocked original cards. In the United States, the stores to date that are generally trusted include NDS-Gear.
Since the release of Nintendo's 1.4.1 firmware, most DSi compatible flash cards have been blocked. In early October, however, the Nintendo DS
R4 team released a brand new 1.4.1 compatible card that works with the newest firmware. However, the older cards that were only 1.4 compatible are still waiting for a fix. It is likely that the Nintendo DS R4 team will come out with a fix for the old cards at some point within the next month.
