The original design and marketing of the Nintendo DS was as a portable gaming machine like it’s predecessors the “gameboy’. However, the creation of R4 DS technology has enabled owners to begin using it as much more than a gaming device, opening up a world of multi-media accessibility. You could now not only play games but could also listen to music, browse photographs and images, watch videos and read eBooks - not to mention the fact that you can now add external storage to your Nintendo DS.

The R4 DS software is obviously integral to turning your Nintendo DS into a multimedia device, but the software can differ depending on the version of card you have. You can search the internet for the correct type of software and it will generally be described as R4v2 or R4v3 etc, the second part referring to the version of the card that you are buying. Once you have downloaded the software free online, you will need to open the folder which is likely to be compressed and, using a USB Card reader or memory card reader, connect your SD memory card to your computer. The card should then show up in your my computer section and you then need to select the “Format” option from the menu (this will either be in your file section or it can be done by right-clicking the drive. When this opens choose the FAT32 option and then you should be good to go, deleting all existing stored data and preparing it for you to upload all of your own multimedia files. This bit is the easiest because you then just unzip (if they are zip files) any files you want to put on your Nintendo DS and copy and paste or drag and drop them onto the drive.

Once this is done the only thing left is to get it running on the actual console itself, which is simply a case of inserting your memory card into the R4 DS cartridge and slotting that into the Slot 1 on the side of the Nintendo DS. If everything has gone according to plan you should then see a loading message pop up on your screen and you will be able to view the files in the same way you could see them on the computer. If it doesn’t say loading it doesn’t mean that the card or the file doesn’t work and it could be one of many reasons that it hasn’t been successful. Try taking it out and then plugging it back in, or restarting your Nintendo DS. If it still doesn’t work, go back and repeat the whole thing again right from the installation of the software and formatting of the memory card.