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M3 DS Simply - Play Games, Movies, Music And More On Your Nintendo DS Lite

by Steven Fields

The M3 DS Simply is whats called a slot 1 homebrew solution for the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo DS Lite hand held video game system. The slot 1 part of the name refers to the Nintendo DS game slot on the hand held itself. For those of you reading this and not in the know, the Nintendo DS has 2 cartridge slots. The first one being slot 1 for Nintendo DS games, and the second one being slot 2 for the gameboy advance game cartridges.

A slot 1 card is highly covetted because prior to slot 1 solutions, one had to put an oversized gameboy advance cartridge as well as a Passme card into their Nintendo DS. While this method of homebrew Nintendo ds rom playing worked just as well, it was very unsightly, not to mention that it was about twice the price.

The M3 DS Simply allows Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite owners to fully unlock their hand held system. You can load any type of Nintendo DS Roms and homebrew games and applications with just this one cartridge, that looks and acts just like a regular Nintendo DS game cartridge. While this article is not meant to serve as an M3 DS Simply Review, I will be listing the ways by which you use the M3 DS Simply.

The M3 DS Simply is essentially ready to use out of the box, with the exception of a microSD card, which youll have to purchase either online or your local radio shack or best buy type store. Included with the M3 DS Simply is a microsd card reader that plugs into your usb port to allow you to quickly and easily copy game files and homebrew applications directly to the microsd card.

Just how do you use the M3 DS Simply? Its rather simple. The M3 DS Simply uses MicroSD memory cards. These work just the same as Secure Digital / SD Cards with the only difference being their size. MicroSD Cards are extremely small in size, yet pack the same amount of storage as their bigger brothers. With the included microSD card reader / writer, you are able to plug your microSD card into any USB port on your computer. You then simply drag and drop the files from your PC to your microSD Card (which will have shown up as a removeable disk). Once youve selected all the files you want to put on the card (and play on your Nintendo DS) you remove the reader / writer and take out the microSD Card.

The top of the M3 DS Simply, as small as it is, actually has a slot on the top of it where you can insert a microSD card. Amazing when you consider that the M3 DS Simply is no bigger than a regular Nintendo DS Cartridge. Once the microSD card is inserted and the m3 ds simply cartridge is placed into the Nintendo DS, just power up your console, and youll be greeted by the M3 DS Simply main menu.

The main menu of the M3 DS Simply consists of 3 icons. The first icon being the GAME icon, where you can go into the game loader menu, and select from the games you have stored on your microSD Card. Youll be greeted with a list on the top screen of the Nintendo DS Lite showing the names of the games you have stored. By using your directional pad, you can scroll up or down in the game list and select the game you wish to load by pressing your A button. Youll be asked to press the A button again if you have not yet created a SAVE FILE for the game. The SAVE FILE is a little file created on the fly on your M3 DS Simply which will store all of your game saves. Once this is done, youll see the game loading progress bar in the bottom screen of the Nintendo DS. Games load in just a second or two. This is the place to load you homebrew games or applications.

The second menu option is the MEDIA MANAGER. The Media manager allows you to load your favorite MP3 songs, video files (yes, entire DVD movies can be compressed and put onto your microSD Card) as well as JPG images and ebooks. Youll have to drag and drop the ebooks, mp3 music or video files from your PC to the microSD card youll be using in your M3 DS simply, but thats essentially it. The application that runs the media manager is called MOONSHELL, and it turns your Nintendo DS Lite into a full blown hand held multi media entertainment system. If youre like me, and read eBooks on the go, then this is a MUST. And you can toss away your iPod too, because your Nintendo DS has just become a portable ebook and music player. Not to mention that fact that youll be able to watch your movies on the go, with the built in movie player functionality.

The final option offered by the M3 DS Simply is the BOOT SLOT 2 Option. This option will load whatever game cartridge or flash cartridge you have in Slot 2 of your Nintendo DS Lite. Slot 2 is the Gameboy Advance port on your NDS console. You can even purchase a seperate Homebrew cartridge and really unlock the full potential of your Nintendo DS with thousands of Gameboy Advance homebrew games and applications.

In closing, the M3 DS Simply is a must have accessory that truly unlocks the full potential of your Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite hand held game system. Offering up not only thousands of free homebrew games and applications but adds an entire suite of multi media features and functions to your Nintendo DS.

Steven Fields is a freelance Video game reviewer for the online Video Game News site at http://www.videogamebin.com For more detailed information on the M3 DS Simply please http://www.ps2cover.com