July 14^th, 2004 (12:00am) - According to Nintendo Insider, Nintendo has restricted third parties from creating sound engines for Nintendo DS games. The company stated that the DS’ ARM7 processor “has been excluded from direct access for commercial reasons.”

Nintendo Insider’s sources state that in order to create sound engines for Nintendo DS games, a developer would have to take apart the entire ARM7 processor and hardware routines for Wi-Fi, touch screen, and audio to see what memory and function calls the processor uses. Without doing this, a developer would not know where to put the sound engine’s code. In other words, developers cannot write their own “music replayer, sound effects mixer [or] a decent music GUI for musicians" who don’t know much about scripting and programming. Supposedly, most North American and European developers are uneasy with this restriction.

The current line-up of Nintendo DS developers are hoping and expecting a change soon.

"I have hopes they will change it... they say they take our feedback into consideration," said one developer speaking on the situation.