If you've been following the handheld modding scene closely over the past couple of years then you will undoubtedly have seen some of Hairo Satoh's creations on his social media channels @haihaisb. He's turned rare and strange controllers into handhelds, made keyrings into Bluetooth controllers, created custom shells, and much more. His latest feat has been to get Mario Kart DS working on two of his creations - a DMG DS with a slide-up screen, and a DS Lite with a flip-back GBA SP screen.
Seeing a Game Boy DMG with a slide-up screen and 4 face buttons playing Nintendo DS games just feels like I've woken up in the middle of a fever dream. It's a great feat of engineering, and while I don't want to take anything away from the NDSLITE backflip Hairo has created as it's a surprising feature that definitely has that 'wow factor' about it, the DMG104-s just feels like something that's come straight from my childhood brain and come to life before my eyes.
Hairo recently posted a picture of him and a companion about to embark on a journey to Osaka with their Frankenconsoles in hand with the caption '2 player wireless mode'. I can't tell you how much things like this excite me; it's the same feeling I got when Brandon and I tested out multiplayer on Delta and were playing Mario Kart DS wirelessly from opposite ends of the country. The retro gaming community across the world never fails to put a smile on my face, and Hairo's creations make me feel like a kid in a candy store gripping my copy of Nintendo Official Magazine tight all over again.
