R4 drives a revolution in Nintendo DS use

When Nintendo launched the DS range of handheld game consoles in 2004 to great fanfare, little could be guessed about what a fine multimedia device the unit would become. In superseding the incredibly popular and millions selling GameBoy, the DS range has something of a thankless task – how do you follow the biggest ever selling handheld games console complete with its legendary Tetris game? The answer was that Nintendo would launch the DS range, an incredibly user-friendly but brilliant device which offers users a stylus and touchscreen interface for operations, a massive amount of top games and a sleek, compact design. However for the DS range to really become the must-have handheld device that it is today it was necessary to invent a few add-ons and value-add accessories. In the R4 adaptor, a stroke of genius was born. The adaptor allows the user to bolt on an 8 gigabyte SD flash memory card to the back of their DS which in turn enhances the functionality of the DS overall.

Through adding a memory card via an R4 adaptor the user is able to convert the device from being just a gaming machine to a multimedia viewer device for watching movies and listening to MP3s on. What this does is turn the DS game console into an effective rival to the iPod, complete with video playback capability. One download of a programme called Moonshell and the user is off and running with a full multimedia device as well as a gaming machine. On top of watching movies and listening to music, r4 technology also permits the conversion of the DS games device into a personal digital assistant, or PDA. Programmes can be installed on the device which allows it to be used as a diary, scheduler, notepad and other applications. The user is even able to listen to streamed Internet radio broadcast thanks to the DS’s WiFi capability. Using an R4 adaptor to increase your DS’s abilities also extends to using it to browse the Internet.

The user can get hold of software called ‘Homebrew’ which is user-created freeware downloadable from the web which enables the device to do all kinds of things. Opera has a browser version which is designed specifically to be used on Nintendo DS while there is even a programme available which lets the user make voice over Internet protocol phone calls, or VoIP calls. This can in effect mean that the user can leave their iPod and mobile phone at home and just use the one device! 8 gigabytes is a good amount of storage, enough to carry around numerous MP3 music files and a good few movies or TV shows too, whether in their own home, out in public or even out at sea on a boat. By sitting down in one of the country’s now numerous WiFi hotspots, the user can enjoy not just gaming but all the other benefits of their R4 enabled Nintendo DSi or DS lite.