DS-Xtreme

I got an interesting package in the mail the other day. A company called DS-X sent me a review sample of a product called DS-Xtreme. It's a pretty standard sort of device, it allows you to play MP3s and "homebrew" apps on your Nintendo DS, but it's the first of its kind in that it is entirely housed inside a card exactly the size of a DS game. Other similar devices use a "Passthrough" card in the DS slot to load files from a second device in the GBA slot (or "Slot 2"). Another important note, no modification to the DS is required to use the DS-Xtreme, so you don't need to void your warranty by flashing the firmware or cracking the DS open.

The DS-Xtreme is "self-contained", and when I say self-contained, I mean it. Everything is packed into a device exactly the size of a DS card, including a tiny high-speed USB 2.0 port. It comes in an amazingly small box, one that could have been even smaller if they really wanted to. There's a USB cable included, though you might already have devices that use a similar cable (I use the dock for my T-Mobile MDA). Just drop the files into the "Apps" folder or "Music" folder, and then pop it into the DS. There isn't any software to load, Windows (including Vista) just sees it as a memory card. The card boots up just like a game when in the DS (except for flashing the power light like it's accessing the WiFi connection), and you are given a series of icons: Apps, Music, Settings, and the fairly useless (unless you upgrade the firmware) About. Everything in the About menu could have been put on the top screen, which only shows the DS-X logo, eliminating one redundant button.

An interesting feature is the addition of two LED lights on the card, which you can program to "dance" while playing music. These lights are also on by default when playing a game, and through the Settings menu, you can program the color and brightness of each of the two lights individually. And for those of you wanting to go incognito, you can turn them off entirely. For the graphics experts out there, the DS-X team has made sure that the entire UI for the DS-Xtreme is "skinnable", so that you can design your own interface. It's more than just new graphic files, though ... the UI is XML based so that you can literally create an entirely new design from scratch. Those tools should be coming soon.

What really interested me about this, is that coming from a game developer way back when, I know that a lot of game developers end up looking to these devices as a cheaper means of creating games than the "official" dev kits. I expect that this one will be no different. It runs about $130-150, which is damned cheap compared to the thousands of dollars one would need to pay for an official kit. The self-contained nature of this device is going to be very appealing to the garage developer, and will be a great cost savings even for official developers, who could now afford to give every coder on the team their own kit. Of course, they'll still need to pay Nintendo to manufacture carts for retail, not to mention having to sign on as an official developer which carries costs as well. But this would go a long way towards smoothing out the process.

I might as well get this next bit out of the way right now. Yes, while this device can play "homebrew" games, it can also play Nintendo DS "ROMs", i.e. copies of Nintendo DS games. While I don't condone piracy of any kind, and while Nintendo would never admit to it, there is a very good reason why someone would want to use this to put copies of games on. It's just more convenient! While the number of games you can hold is limited by the size of the game in question, I currently have 12 games loaded on the card (all of which are games that I own). One of the games is one that I lost when I left my original DS on a plane, but that I still have the case and instructions for. It would ordinarily be a major hassle to cart 12 cards around with you all the time, not to mention that if I lose my DS again, I'm not losing my original games. It's nice to be able to do my Brain Age training, then jump into a game of Tetris or Metroid Prime Hunters without needing to go fishing for my cards, or even remembering to bring them in the first place. It works with the DS Rumble Pack, and you can even back up your game saves ... another killer feature.

If there's a drawback to the DS-Xtreme, it's that the included memory is only 512MB ... and if you want to load games as well as music on the card, you'll need to either compress the music all to hell, or be very thrifty in what you load onto it. It would have been great to have an option to stick a Micro SD card in it (an option that similar devices offer), but given the size and cost, I can understand why the compromise was made. Hopefully they'll have a larger sized version in the works soon, or one that can take external memory ... since it would be great to have my entire Nintendo DS library stored on my card, along with some tunes. Battery life may be a concern as well, as it seems like I'm getting roughly 45 minutes to an hour less battery life than I otherwise would have. That was improved once I turned off the LEDs entirely, but it's something to consider if you would normally throw your DS into sleep mode rather than turning it off.

I've used the card in an original DS "phat" as well as the new DS Lite, and it works flawlessly in both handhelds. The card sits flush, and unless you're looking closely, or you've left the LED lights on, you could never tell that it wasn't a DS card in the slot save for the white color. The build quality of the card itself is solid, though the plastic housing is a bit flimsy (probably to ease the assembly process). Unless you're constantly handling the card, I can't see that you'd have any trouble. The USB port seemed like it might have been a weak spot when I first heard about it, but it's connected very solidly, and shouldn't weaken.

This isn't a mass-market device, and probably wasn't meant to be. The cards are hand-assembled, and the relatively high cost and low quantities will probably keep it out of the hands of anyone but the enthusiasts and developers looking for an alternative to official dev kits. However, I'm completely hooked. I've spent a fair amount of time exploring the homebrew DS scene and while it's interesting, what's really convinced me is being able to bring my games with me without needing a bandolier to keep them all in reach. In fact, the DS-Xtreme convinced me to trade in my original DS towards a DS Lite, just to further reduce the size of the stuff I carry with me every day. Additional music on the card is the icing on the cake, and while it's not a replacement for my trusty iPod, it's certainly a welcome inclusion. I can certainly see this thing ending up in Nintendo's crosshairs sooner than later, though you'd think it would be safe given the significant "non-infringing" uses of the device, but the political and legal climate has changed a lot in recent years. Overall, the DS-Xtreme is a fantastic device, a great value for the money, and one that you can have back when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.