What is Moonshell For r4i Nintendo?

Nothing beats playing games on Nintendo. Over the years with improved hardware revisions the overall experience on a Nintendo has simply went up constantly. In fact the company has introduced several industry firsts with the Nintendo DS & the 3DS. The screens have become better, the ergonomics are just fantastic.

Sure there are a ton of games & so many of the features that can keep you engrossed for hours. Coupled with a great battery life, the Nintendo is perhaps one of the best handheld gaming devices. Some companies have even co me up with attachments that offer an extra joystick & an additional battery that boosts the gameplay to almost double than original.

However, some companies have gone much beyond enhancing battery backup & extra joysticks. As you know Nintendo still relies on game cartridges. This proprietary piece of hardware stores all the game files. Companies are coming with cards like the r4 & r4i. These tiny cards hold the power to unlock the vast potential the hardware that is Nintendo DSi XL& 3DS.

Though these cards are one of the greatest invention for extending the functionality of the Nintendo handheld gaming system, what is equally important is the third-party software or sometimes called custom firmware or ROM that is used to run more than just games sold by Nintendo. Though there are many such custom software that help you get more out of your Nintendo, very few can match up to the ease & functionality of Moonshell.

Working from a simple Flash-Card like the r4 & r4i, Moonshell is homebrew software for all the major Nintendo's Handheld gaming devices - Nintendo DS, Lite & DSi. Additionally, for people who worry about voiding warranty by using such software need not worry too. Moonshell does not alter the hardware & does not modify the internal Nintendo’s software which is protected by intellectual property rights of the company.

Moonshell is one of the most versatile software that let you enjoy your handheld Nintendo by inserting a simple cartridge or simply known as carte.  With Moonshell running on your Nintendo 3DS XL or DSi XL, your gaming system will be able to play songs & movies. You can use it to show your photos. Your Nintendo can even work as an e-book reader as it supports text files & comic books too. However, many use it to run homebrew applications like the one with Guitar sounds. Though you can play downloaded games, it is not legally permitted.

While the installation is very easy & simple, it can only be done via a carte that supports Micro SD cards as storage medium. Hence cards like r4, r4i, r4i 3ds xl,  r4 Gold are much in demand. Once you get your authentic flash cartes, running Moonshell is pretty easy. In the next article we will see more about Moonshell & it’s latest version. However, we will also show you how to use it to play videos & songs.

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Why Do Cards Exists: R4i, R4 3ds xl

Cartridges or Cards as they are now commonly known were the sole means of playing legally bought games on Nintendo DS, DS Lite, XL, etc. Most of the gaming consoles have always relied on some form of removable media to sell games. Since internet was not wide-spread & the speed was dismal, game console developing companies found the physical media distribution as the easiest & safest mode of game distribution. However, such media posed a grave risk, that of physical media failure. In case the card or the CD became unusable, the games on the cards too would become unplayable. To circumvent the same, the courts had allowed taking backups of games in soft form or ROM image of the game. However, the courts have mandated that the soft copy can only made from the Card bought legally. In other words owners of card are the one who can own the soft copy of the game.

Herein was the grey area of ROM distribution. Many games were successfully ‘Ripped’ & saved as ROM. Later on they found their way in the internet & were available for download by anyone. Now card manufactures like that of R4i, Gold, etc saw a great opportunity to offer cards that could play games from these soft copies. However, the major purpose of such cards existed to extend the functionality of the console. If Nintendo had its way, one would only be able to play games on cartridges bought legally. With R4 cards, one can easily store the Game in the form of a ROM. A ROM is the game data or game file in soft form.  A ROM can be as small as a few Kilobytes (KB) to a few Megabytes (MB). Without these cards it would have been mandatory for gamers to play games from Cartridges only. What happens when these cartridges are damaged or lost? If the cartridge becomes unusable or inaccessible isn’t our money lost?  A game cartridge is a mere hardware unit which is bound to fail or malfunction. One has paid money for the intangible asset, which is the game. One cannot be disallowed to play the game just because the hardware on which it came malfunctioned. This grey area in the law has been long exploited by pirates of software to keep ‘soft’ copies of games on had-disks in the form of ISOs or ROMs.

Another added function that cards like R4i or R4 Gold cards can enable is running of homebrew. Homebrew is a very interesting concept. These are basically softwares or codes written by non-Nintendo employees. Often such softwares are games, apps & other utilities. By utilities we mean apps that extend the functionality of the Nintendo Gaming console beyond intended.

Over the course of the articles we will explore various things that can be done using the carts.