Further impressions before finishing the review
(a little sneak peak, since this thread seems lively):
- The Sky3DS+ uses FAT32 to great effect, God bless Team Sky! It's a joy to copy stuff to it, no DiskWriter ever again! Remember, 4GB ROMs will have to be trimmed in order to fit, as is the case with Gateway.
- You can set the cart to create game-specific config files and modify them as you see fit, however creating new templates will require a substantial amount of know-how. Upon examining the config files the cart creates, I've noticed that the previously "Unknown ID" is marked as the 3DS encryption seed, supposedly located at 0x1010 of the ROM. Unfortunately, you need to decrypt the ROM to get to it. Still - good to know, as it will likely allow the creation of templates for the old Sky carts as well (now that we know what it is and where to look for it).
- The cartridge does have a fully functional micro USB slot (as found on Android smartphones or the Dual Shock 4) and it does work in SD Reader mode when connected to a PC, but it's incredibly slow. Transfer rates ranged between 350kbps-355kbps, far too slow for copying an actual ROM over. It's fine for editing config files, but for copying games you'll need an actual SD reader. I've asked the team if this is how it's nominally supposed to work because it seems off to me - perhaps my prototype unit isn't working correctly. It's also entirely possible that it's the firmware's fault as it's still in testing phases and it can be quite tempermental...
UPDATE: After contacting the manufacturer, I was told that the USB interface is mostly there to update the cart's firmware and while it can be used as a make-shift SD reader for quick edits to the files, it is not meant to be used for copying large files like ROMs. Transfer speeds may improve in future updates, however using a high-speed SD reader is recommended.
- ...speaking of tempermental, the card sometimes has issues detecting that new games were copied over. I had to wrestle with it quite a bit before going the SD Formatter route (Full Erase (Overwrite) + Size Adjust for ultimate cleanliness of your SD's, boys) which seems to have solved the issue. Make sure that your SD's are in good condition before copying games!
- The cartridge is fast as lightning and the Forwards/Backwards tact switch works great - browsing the games is seamless.
- It would appear that the Settings file features an option to change the colour of the LED! I've fiddled around with the settings, but to no effect, so perhaps the feature is not yet implemented in the firmware. Dancing LEDs in the future? I sure hope so!
- The cartridge runs everything I throw at it so far. That being said, I have a queue of Japanese ROMs for testing tomorrow.
Overall, after initial hurdles
(which may have been the result of my SDs not being formatted recently, so I can't blame the cart - it works fine now) my impressions are positive. It's the same Sky3DS you all know, but better - a lot better. Expect a review, a guide, full impressions and a compatibility chart tomorrow or the day after, depending on whether or not something unexpected happens!