This is a DS download station that was used to distribute demos of games back in the early 2000s.
This is a DS download station that was used to distribute demos of games back in the early 2000s.
by KingBowser183
43 Comments
DreamLimbo
I always wondered what the actual physical station looked like. Didn’t realize it was actually just another DS. Cool, thank you for sharing!
landlockedblu3s
That’s a Lite isn’t it? That means late 2000s, technically. Still very cool.
Royulon
So a DS DS?
CrushPus
How did you get it ?
m0nst3r666
Can someone ELI5 what a download station is/was?
Bucketfingers
I used to love bringing my DS to Target for the download stations
TimmyP7
Yup, just a DS running under a desk with a special cartridge. Same thing for the Pokémon promotions, hard coded to lock up at a certain date and time. Won’t stop you from setting it back on the DS, though lol.
Daniel--Jackson
I remember broadcasting demos from my own computer. It only worked for a very specific type of network card chipset and it required a special driver for it too, Once installed, I could select a file to broadcast and my DS would be able to pick it up via Download Play.
Heavyoak
Does it still broadcast?
corndogs1001
Ah man. I haven’t thought of these in years. I remember being like 9 and bringing my ds to toys r us just to play a demo of the latest game of whatever.
VorpalBender
I remember when I worked at GameStop back when they were doing Events on the Nintendo DS system and I would come to work before the store opened because I missed the previous distributed Event Pokémon and I would change the clock of the system so I could get the Event Pokémon. It worked and I changed the clock back to normal.
Alsace_Ranger
That is so cool! I don’t even know how people are able to find stuff like this!
Sparky-Man
I remember those. It’s how I got hooked on and eventually bought things like Elite Beat Agents.
Neat-O! thanks for sharing this interesting tid bit
delecti
The ROMs for those were available online, and I had a flash cart that I used to get the Pokemon distributed in places I couldn’t physically get to, or which I missed. It felt close enough to legit that I felt okay using it to fill the Pokedex back in HeartGold.
Never got far enough in Black to carry it forward though, so they’re all still on there.
SuuTheWaifu
I can’t believe you stole it
MeowDotEXE
Is it any different in terms of hardware/functionality to a normal DS Lite, or is it just a normal retail DS with a few stickers on it?
badreques303
Probably impossible but one day I hope someone gets a hand on the pokemon ranger series dlc and mystery dungeon stuff that extra bit of story is nice to see.
samisyourdad
There is no way that that is from the early 2000s, thats model wasn’t even around back then.
NegaDeuce
Slut
Sabermatrixx
I have a demo station cart for children of Mana. Has a sticker on the back saying property of Nintendo. Got it at GameStop. Seems to be the whole game?
zosobaggins
At my old EB Games it was initially an OG silver DS, followed by a DS Lite. They often were housed in a locked plastic case that only the manager was allowed to open.
In reality we used it all the time to trade Pokemon from traded-in games to our DSes.
AsuraOkami
Never seen one these. Always wondered how they worked.
mildlyinteresting12
How much you want for it?
WooPancakes
I was a GameStop store manager when these came out! Mine had a grey one in it and they sent special cartridges to broadcast different Pokemon and events! Awesome to see!
PsychoLunaticX
Is this what they used for Pokemon distributions before WiFi distribution got big? I never knew you could go and download demos for games too
OlpusBonzo
“Early 2000s?” The Nintendo DS was launched on the US market in November 2004 and it arrived in Europe in March 2005, so it’s pretty like “mid 2000s”, not “early”. In the early 2000s the Game Boy Advance was released, not the Nintendo DS.
Also, that’s a Nintendo DS Lite, not the original model, so certainly it hasn’t been built earlier than the year 2006.
[deleted]
I found one of those while closing down the toys r us I worked at. The Nintendo rep happened to be there so i gave it to him, which I kind of regret. It was the original silver one.
Big_Burg420
Is this one a fake one? I know a lot of fake ones exist out there.is there anything else special about this system? Besides the sticker of course.
Bossman1086
I have a Pokemon distribution DS cart somewhere.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Ninbrine
Nintendo Wants To Know Your Location
AndrewKuen
r/mildlyinteresting
supremo92
Would have been mid to late 2000s. Why am i like this?
Takoto
I’ve always kinda wanted one of those.
ManbosMambo
Wasn’t this a standard DS?
Pretty sure downloads came from game cards that any system could load as long as the internal clock was set correctly
Ayyno
Oh shit, I remember these! Ours would always break and I was the one who knew how to fix it so I had one of the keys for it. I used my powers for good, though, as we’d get a lot of neighbourhood kids come by to get Pokemon. Sometimes they’d come in the day after when the cart hadn’t been changed out yet so I’d pop the casing the DS was in open and change the date for them so they could still get their Pokemon.
Our Nintendo rep let me keep the carts in the store so we could still give out old event Pokemon as long as we kept it quiet. Whenever we got a new one I’d ask kids if they had the older event Pokemon and if they didn’t I’d grab a used DS, pop in the cart for the set they didn’t have, and set the date.
It was honestly one of the most rewarding things I did at GameStop. There was a group of regular kids and they’d be so stoked. Their parents would come in all the time to thank us and my store manager and I would just have the biggest, dopiest grins on our faces.
RallyLancer
Mid 2000s*
PrinceOfBrains
Had one of these from my old Gamestop. It was just a DS Lite (ours may have been black, IIRC) and it was kept in a small lockbox in the backroom. May have had a weird signal booster on it since we got a few complaints from our Nintendo rep that the signal was harder to get in our store. Haven’t thought about these in forever, I kinda miss having to swap out Pokemon carts.
b3anz129
DS Lite was such a fantastic design…
MrGameCollector20
I’m looking for Demo Cartridges and promotional games.
​
Contact me at: [mrgamecollector20@gmail.com](mailto:mrgamecollector20@gmail.com)
_Abbacus
I have one of these as well. Found it in the backroom of the Walmart that I work for a couple years ago. Really cool piece to have in a collection! I’ve been trying to find prices on how much these might be worth but havent found much
43 Comments
I always wondered what the actual physical station looked like. Didn’t realize it was actually just another DS. Cool, thank you for sharing!
That’s a Lite isn’t it? That means late 2000s, technically. Still very cool.
So a DS DS?
How did you get it ?
Can someone ELI5 what a download station is/was?
I used to love bringing my DS to Target for the download stations
Yup, just a DS running under a desk with a special cartridge. Same thing for the Pokémon promotions, hard coded to lock up at a certain date and time. Won’t stop you from setting it back on the DS, though lol.
I remember broadcasting demos from my own computer. It only worked for a very specific type of network card chipset and it required a special driver for it too, Once installed, I could select a file to broadcast and my DS would be able to pick it up via Download Play.
Does it still broadcast?
Ah man. I haven’t thought of these in years. I remember being like 9 and bringing my ds to toys r us just to play a demo of the latest game of whatever.
I remember when I worked at GameStop back when they were doing Events on the Nintendo DS system and I would come to work before the store opened because I missed the previous distributed Event Pokémon and I would change the clock of the system so I could get the Event Pokémon. It worked and I changed the clock back to normal.
That is so cool! I don’t even know how people are able to find stuff like this!
I remember those. It’s how I got hooked on and eventually bought things like Elite Beat Agents.
I have one of the DS Download Station cartridges and took a bunch of pictures and whatnot here: [http://www.whattheycallgames.com/2013/11/whats-in-ds-download-station.html](http://www.whattheycallgames.com/2013/11/whats-in-ds-download-station.html)
And here’s another, not by me: [http://www.cabel.name/2006/04/inside-ds-download-station.html](http://www.cabel.name/2006/04/inside-ds-download-station.html)
Neat-O! thanks for sharing this interesting tid bit
The ROMs for those were available online, and I had a flash cart that I used to get the Pokemon distributed in places I couldn’t physically get to, or which I missed. It felt close enough to legit that I felt okay using it to fill the Pokedex back in HeartGold.
Never got far enough in Black to carry it forward though, so they’re all still on there.
I can’t believe you stole it
Is it any different in terms of hardware/functionality to a normal DS Lite, or is it just a normal retail DS with a few stickers on it?
Probably impossible but one day I hope someone gets a hand on the pokemon ranger series dlc and mystery dungeon stuff that extra bit of story is nice to see.
There is no way that that is from the early 2000s, thats model wasn’t even around back then.
Slut
I have a demo station cart for children of Mana. Has a sticker on the back saying property of Nintendo. Got it at GameStop. Seems to be the whole game?
At my old EB Games it was initially an OG silver DS, followed by a DS Lite. They often were housed in a locked plastic case that only the manager was allowed to open.
In reality we used it all the time to trade Pokemon from traded-in games to our DSes.
Never seen one these. Always wondered how they worked.
How much you want for it?
I was a GameStop store manager when these came out! Mine had a grey one in it and they sent special cartridges to broadcast different Pokemon and events! Awesome to see!
Is this what they used for Pokemon distributions before WiFi distribution got big? I never knew you could go and download demos for games too
“Early 2000s?” The Nintendo DS was launched on the US market in November 2004 and it arrived in Europe in March 2005, so it’s pretty like “mid 2000s”, not “early”. In the early 2000s the Game Boy Advance was released, not the Nintendo DS.
Also, that’s a Nintendo DS Lite, not the original model, so certainly it hasn’t been built earlier than the year 2006.
I found one of those while closing down the toys r us I worked at. The Nintendo rep happened to be there so i gave it to him, which I kind of regret. It was the original silver one.
Is this one a fake one? I know a lot of fake ones exist out there.is there anything else special about this system? Besides the sticker of course.
I have a Pokemon distribution DS cart somewhere.
[deleted]
Nintendo Wants To Know Your Location
r/mildlyinteresting
Would have been mid to late 2000s. Why am i like this?
I’ve always kinda wanted one of those.
Wasn’t this a standard DS?
Pretty sure downloads came from game cards that any system could load as long as the internal clock was set correctly
Oh shit, I remember these! Ours would always break and I was the one who knew how to fix it so I had one of the keys for it. I used my powers for good, though, as we’d get a lot of neighbourhood kids come by to get Pokemon. Sometimes they’d come in the day after when the cart hadn’t been changed out yet so I’d pop the casing the DS was in open and change the date for them so they could still get their Pokemon.
Our Nintendo rep let me keep the carts in the store so we could still give out old event Pokemon as long as we kept it quiet. Whenever we got a new one I’d ask kids if they had the older event Pokemon and if they didn’t I’d grab a used DS, pop in the cart for the set they didn’t have, and set the date.
It was honestly one of the most rewarding things I did at GameStop. There was a group of regular kids and they’d be so stoked. Their parents would come in all the time to thank us and my store manager and I would just have the biggest, dopiest grins on our faces.
Mid 2000s*
Had one of these from my old Gamestop. It was just a DS Lite (ours may have been black, IIRC) and it was kept in a small lockbox in the backroom. May have had a weird signal booster on it since we got a few complaints from our Nintendo rep that the signal was harder to get in our store. Haven’t thought about these in forever, I kinda miss having to swap out Pokemon carts.
DS Lite was such a fantastic design…
I’m looking for Demo Cartridges and promotional games.
​
Contact me at: [mrgamecollector20@gmail.com](mailto:mrgamecollector20@gmail.com)
I have one of these as well. Found it in the backroom of the Walmart that I work for a couple years ago. Really cool piece to have in a collection! I’ve been trying to find prices on how much these might be worth but havent found much