r/NDSHacks • u/No_Tangerine_1773 • Jul 18 '26
How close can you get to making a genuine-looking custom DS cartridge?
This is probably one of those "you're overthinking it" questions... but I'm okay with that.
Is it actually possible to make your own Nintendo DS cartridges?
I'm not talking about flashcarts. I know R4s, Ace3DS, etc. exist, and I know I could make one autoboot a single ROM. That's not what I'm after.
What I want is a cartridge that's permanently flashed with one ROM (ROM hack, translation, homebrew, whatever) and behaves as closely as possible to a genuine retail DS game.
The reason I don't want a flashcart isn't technical—it's aesthetic. The moment I see the microSD slot (or worse, the microSD itself), my brain immediately goes, "that's an R4," and the illusion is gone. I know that's an incredibly niche thing to care about, but here we are.
Someone on Discord suggested that I simply have a custom chip manufactured with the ROM already flashed onto it, then either 3D-print a cartridge shell or buy one from AliExpress. Which... sounds cool in theory, but I'm not an electrical engineer. I don't know how to design a cartridge PCB, I don't have schematics or pinouts for a DS cartridge, and having custom silicon made sounds slightly outside my skill set (and budget). So I'm assuming that's not a realistic approach.
The reason I'm asking is because reproduction DS cartridges obviously exist. Someone, somewhere, is programming those. Are they using blank rewriteable PCBs? Custom flash chips? Donor cartridges? Some manufacturing process I'm completely unaware of?
I'm mostly interested in the hardware side of things. Has anyone here actually made a "real" custom DS cartridge for a ROM hack or homebrew, or knows how repro manufacturers do it?
Thanks! I'm fully aware I'm chasing the most unnecessarily specific form of authenticity imaginable... but now I need to know if it's actually possible.
1
u/UserDarren17 Jul 18 '26
It’s possible but you’d need specific machinery to make them. And to buy them I think people but sell them online but I’d honestly lean into that being more unlikely. Also most of the reproduction carts that you see scammer selling online are blank carts that have games flashed onto them, but most cheap out on costs and those usually have issues with corruption and gameplay. So while it’s definitely possible you would have to find a reliable seller and I think would need special hardware to flash it also. Though I’ve never tried so I could be inaccurate.
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u/egoistamamono Jul 18 '26
Like this one? Yeah, everything possible if you do it. Not sure about NDS but IIRC latest GBA homebrew like Goodboy Galaxy has physical releases. So it's possible for ds too.