The Nintendo NFC adapter is an upcoming external device which adds NFC capabilities for amiibos to old Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 2DS consoles, using the infrared port on the back of the console.

Media preview, as released by Nintendo


Technical details

Based on analysis of the fangate_updater.bin file, which is part of the old Nintendo 3DS operating system since 9.3.0-21 and contains the firmware running on the external adapter; and analysis of the NFC Services running on old 3DS.

  • SOC inside the adapter: Broadcom BCM20791B1
  • CPU: ARM Cortex M0
  • Communications: infrared, with ir:USER running on the console. Uses obfuscated payloads. Baud rate is 115200 bps.

Memory map:

Address Size Description
0x08008000 256KB? Firmware (fangate_updater.bin)
0x20000000 128KB? RAM
0x40023C00 0x0000001C FLASH ROM control
0xE000ED00 ? System control block

External links