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It shouldn’t be news to anybody that there are loads of flash cards on the market of varying degrees of quality and “originality”, some with very complex relationships. There are clones of clones of copies and keeping track of their history is important to some. For usability the main thing you should be concerned with is proven history of developer reliability. Please note that while some of the cards we carry at our shop are known clones, they are well supported by professional teams of developers that are dedicated to updating their cards.
As a disclaimer, my research is based on rumor and hearsay. If you can prove that any part of the chart is incorrect, comment with a link to the relevant information and I will update accordingly. This article is not a full review of each card, but an explanation of their connections. The list is not exhaustive, and unpopular and discontinued cards were not included to save space. To get an idea of the breadth of clones produced, check out this link with a list of all the firmware available: http://www.linfoxdomain.com/nintendo/ds/
While most of the chart is comprised of clones a clone doesn’t necessarily mean a bad and unreliable card, but there are many deliberately confusing labels. A bad fake can mean instability or infrequent updates, but to date there has only been one card that’s been known to cause harm to your DS console. The N5 card had a flaw in the design that caused a short and a blown fuse after so many insertions of the Micro SD card.
Initial teams got started as early as the Gameboy Advanced and kept it up with crude slot 2 flash cards for the original DS console. I’ll give a nod to those teams and discontinued slot 2 cards, some of whom are still at work including the Supercard team. Since then there have been a lot of migration of developers adding to the confusion of whom was making which card.
More advanced slot-1 cards came into development soon after and the R4DS quickly rose to the top in popularity. The R4DSv2 is an upgrade mainly in the removal of the spring-clip sdhc slot. The R4 team and the M3 team are closely related, if not the same team, and the M3DS Simply was a rebranded R4v2 with new firmware, as opposed to an unlicensed clone card. The M3DS Real is a legitimate upgrade and not a clone of the M3DS Simply. The iTouch series comes from the M3 Team, designed as an entry level to their family of cards. The M3i SDHC (clone source unconfirmed as DSTTi or EZ Flash Vi) and the M3i Upgrade are fakes that are NOT from the M3 Team.
Cards from other teams were in development at the time or soon after the R4DS and they lie along the same line on the chart; the DSTT, the EZFlash V, the Acekard, the Supercard DSONE, and the CycloDS Evolution. The Supercard team claims that the CycloDS card is a clone of theirs but this claim has not been substantiated. It is generally considered that the CycloDS is superior to the Supercard DSONE, and proved so valued (if expensive) that it spawned the immensely popular Edge card as a clone.
I know this looks like a family tree for the world’s worst soap opera, but hopefully this answers a few questions you may have. Just remember, especially in the case of the R4 cards, you may need the exact firmware intended to run on your card or clone.
Don’t forget to pick up your ds flash cards from our shop at the link below!
