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Nintendo DS u/floppy_five25 ·

Why does the Nintendo DS have a second cartridge slot?

I just bought a used original Nintendo DS online and noticed there is a wider slot on the bottom next to the headphone jack. The normal DS games only fit in the top slot. What is this second slot actually for and can I use it to play older Game Boy games?
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3 comments

  • u/lightgunlou ·
    There is also a neat feature called dual-slot integration. If you have a GBA game in the bottom slot and a matching DS game in the top slot, the DS game can detect it and unlock special content. For example, having a GBA Pokemon game like Ruby or Sapphire inserted while playing Pokemon Diamond or Pearl allows you to migrate your Pokemon over or find rare wild Pokemon in the Sinnoh region that do not appear otherwise.
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  • u/quartertank ·
    The second slot on the bottom of the original Nintendo DS and the DS Lite is a Game Boy Advance slot, commonly referred to as Slot 2. It was designed so that you could play GBA cartridges directly on the DS, taking advantage of backward compatibility. The DS hardware contains the actual GBA CPU, which it uses to run these games natively. However, it only supports Game Boy Advance games. You cannot play original Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridges in it, as they do not physically fit and the console lacks the Z80 coprocessor needed to run them.
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  • u/lowres_lo ·
    Besides playing Game Boy Advance games, Slot 2 is also used by certain DS games for special accessories and expansions. For example, Guitar Hero On Tour came with a special Grip controller that plugged into this slot so you could play the notes. Other games, like the Nintendo DS Browser, required a memory expansion pak that had to be inserted into Slot 2 to provide extra RAM for loading web pages. There was also an official Rumble Pak accessory that inserted there to give force feedback to supported games.
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