Certain members of the Nintendo DS homebrew community found themselves with a near worthless piece of hardware after installing a Trojan that deleted key system files from the little handheld. The Trojan came out on the heels of a similar piece of software that played havoc with the PSP, pissing off a great deal of people in the modding community.
Now, the creator of the Nintendo DS Trojan
has made a public apology. Apparently ostracized by the homebrew community, where he previously enjoyed a good relationship, DarkFader posted his regret on his homepage, along with instructions on how to repair the scrambled innards of your DS (as least as well as we are able, at the moment).
How well his apology will be accepted is yet to be seen, and is probably dependent on how many people actually lost their $150 piece of hardware. While it may be harsh to say so, there are dangers to modifying your game system; breaking it beyond repair is part of the risk a modder takes on when deciding to step outside the bounds of their warranty.
The PSP - and to a lesser extent, the Nintendo DS - has enjoyed strong modding support from the development community, allowing users to do things like play movies, run homebrew games, and emulate past console titles.
Sony has officially said that they will not support any PSP system that has been destroyed by the virus, since installing the software in the first place violates the handheld\'s warranty.