Mystery of the "DS ML"

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Individualised
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Mystery of the "DS ML"

Post by Individualised »

Since about 2013 or so, Amazon sellers and other online storefronts have been selling a very strange console that appears to be a clone of the Nintendo DS. This console is very seldom mentioned online, most of the mentions seem to be on forums from 2013, and then there's a YouTube video by The Retro Future documenting the console: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Ie-4Rom9w

When this console has been listed for sale, it's always been under a very generic listing (similar to the generic emulator or Famiclone handhelds you can get on Amazon, Wish, AliExpress etc), but the actual console itself (of which the design is a mix between the 2004 model DS and the DS lite but without any Nintendo branding) appears to be a real hardware clone of the Nintendo DS - or that's what people thought of it in 2013 at least. Judging by Elliot's video, in which the console is disassembled, it would appear that it's using genuine DS parts. This is what confuses me about the product. Did some seller at one point manage to get a hold of a large stock of unsold 2004-style DSes sometime in the early 2010s and decided to resell them, but not before replacing the shells with a custom design? That seems like a strange and expensive thing to do, especially considering you'd think genuine-looking hardware would sell better. Or is it possible that these are what's known as "third-shift" counterfeits? That seems unlikely to happen to such a large company like Nintendo though. If you notice however, in The Retro Future's video, the motherboard seems to have writing on it, so perhaps it's a mix of both? (i.e. someone somehow got a hold of factory-reject DS motherboards and fitted them into new shells).

If anyone has more info on this console I would be very interested!
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Memblers
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Re: Mystery of the "DS ML"

Post by Memblers »

Another potential source of DS boards that hasn't been mentioned is from recycled e-waste. 150 million made, if even 1% of those end up recycled, that's a pool of 1.5 million to pull parts from. A google seach for "Nintendo DS mainboard" turns up a bunch, they're like $8 on AliExpress.
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Individualised
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Re: Mystery of the "DS ML"

Post by Individualised »

Memblers wrote: Fri Mar 10, 2023 8:04 pm Another potential source of DS boards that hasn't been mentioned is from recycled e-waste. 150 million made, if even 1% of those end up recycled, that's a pool of 1.5 million to pull parts from. A google seach for "Nintendo DS mainboard" turns up a bunch, they're like $8 on AliExpress.
That's a very good point, especially if they seem to be readily available on sites like AliExpress.
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