DS TV Goes on Sale in Japan

The little heard-of television adapter for the DS went on sale in Japan yesterday, retailing for ¥6,800 ($62.70). "The design is different from the prototype shown in 2004, as it features a simple aerial cartridge which plugs in the back of the handheld, and no base unit. The top screen is used for the TV picture, while the bottom screen can be used to do things such as change channels and take notes." The company has no current plans to bring the TV adapter to the US, or anywhere else.

Re:Can't wait!

[Simon (S2)]

This is just a dirty tactic to sell more copies of Eye Training!

Still waiting...

[Chris Pimlott]

I'm still waiting for the GPS adapter. The DS could make a killer GPS system...

(yes I'm aware of this hack [natrium42.com] but it's not exactly ready for prime time and doesn't seem to have come to much beyond the first announcement)

Re:Waiting on third party?

[Mr. Roadkill]

I don't see why a third party can't bring this.... or maybe a grey market version. Off to ebay!

It goes in the back, so that makes it a Slot 1 cartridge. That means an unauthorised third-party device will need to use the same kind of trickery that Slot 1 flashcarts use - either exploiting some "defects" in the DS's bios, a'la Passme devices, or mimicking an actual DS cartridge through using copyrighted Nintendo boot codes. Nintendo are going to love that, and they're currently coming down on a number of flashcart manufacturers and issuing DMCA notices to a number of US based or hosted retailers over flashcarts as circumvention devices and over the alleged violation of Nintendo's intellectual property. If I had a box of third-party DS TV tuners, I certainly wouldn't be sticking them on ebay - I don't want Nintendo to get my account killed.

The interesting thing is, I suspect a third-party game manufacturer or third-party TV Tuner manufacturer might be able to stand up to Nintendo over this if they wanted to slog it out through the courts - the copyrighted code sequence in question appears in part to be an electronic representation of a Nintendo logo and its hash, and if it's not there the DS won't boot the cartridge - so it might be arguable that third-party products that don't act as circumvention devices should be allowed to use that code as it's the only way to provide interoperability.

I am not a lawyer, and I'm not really part of the "scene", but this is my understanding of things - and it may be flawed.