Xbox 360 Hacked?

R0B75 · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:33

Well if this is indeed true I suppose it was inevitable, but at the same time quite sad that people may soon be playing free games. Shamelessly stolen from AVforums. I haven't linked directly to the article for certain reasons.

Xbox360 DVD FIrmware Hacked - Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyZQ4k7Bi-8

As you know TheSpecialist and his team were working on a modified firmware for the Xbox 360. He already managed to make one for the original Xbox a while ago, and he announced this method was highly likely possible with the Xbox 360 too. From TheSpecialist on xboxhacker.net:

Months of hard work have come to an end. The 360 FW security details were posted a few days ago already, so why not make it official It's been done.

And no, the team decided not to release a hacked FW. The security details are proof itself. The team advocates hacking, not piracy.

What is this? A bit more info...
The hack is a modified firmware of the Xbox 360 DVD-ROM drive.
As you (should) know, all Xbox 360 executables (XEX files) are signed by Microsoft (with a private key only MS has). This means that if you try to change anything to the XEX file, the signature will be wrong and the file will not boot.
Now ... to protect from booting an exact 1:1 copy of a game from a DVD-R or other recordable media, microsoft gave each XEX file a 'mediaflag'. This mediaflag tells the Xbox 360 from which media (cd-r, dvd-r, dvd+r, dvd-rw, hdd, dvdxbox, dvdxbox360, ...) the XEX is allowed to boot. Changing this mediaflag in the XEX header is not an option as it'll break the signature of the file (see above), so ... what's done in this firmware hack is 'break' the detection of the disc.
Retail games usually get a mediaflag where they only allow 'dvdxbox360' (Xbox 360 discs). The modified firmware will trick the DVD drive into reporting a DVD-R (or other) as a DVDXBOX360 to the Xbox 360.

LoadsaMoney · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:48

yeah heard about this the other week, about time, might make them think about bringing the price of the games down from £50 (shops), 360 sales will go through the roof now.

Kainz · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:50

Thing is, how does this affect Live gaming? Would have thought that those dodgy versions would be easy to detect by ms?

Duradrum · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:51

The hack simply allows the 360 to run unsigned copies by tricking it into thinking its a signed disc. Therefore, Live works perfectly as the 360 thinks everything is legit.

cmt · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:52

interesting,

Be even more interesting when it get to a hardware hack, enabling a proper alternative to XBMC on the original xbox.

I have NO interest in pirated games, but Media Center stuff - Oh yes please.

When this happens i will be buying a second 360

cmt

gord · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:52

Kainz said:
Thing is, how does this affect Live gaming? Would have thought that those dodgy versions would be easy to detect by ms?

I was kind of thinking the same thing..

Does this affect the paying customer in any detrimental way?

R0B75 · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:52

LoadsaMoney said:
yeah heard about this the other week, about time, might make them think about bringing the price of the games down from £50 (shops), 360 sales will go through the roof now.

No one is making shops sell games at that price, look at Tesco and Asda aswell as the online stores.

benjo plz. · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:53

Duradrum said:
The hack simply allows the 360 to run unsigned copies by tricking it into thinking its a signed disc. Therefore, Live works perfectly as the 360 thinks everything is legit.

What I was thinking. Were MS really that confident in their security?

james.miller · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:53

sure, id imagine on hearing this news they are already on the way to doing drive firmware detection on xblive

R0B75 · 18 Mar 2006 at 18:55

james.miller said:
sure, id imagine on hearing this news they are already on the way to doing drive firmware detection on xblive

M$ will be worried for sure, they will have to pull something out of the hat if this hack does indeed take off.

Lord-Jaffa · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:02

RoB- said:
M$ will be worried for sure, they will have to pull something out of the hat if this hack does indeed take off.

Why? Console sales will most likely go through the roof once the 360 has a working modchip for it. As with the original xbox, pirated games dont work on live anyway so as a legit gamer it wont affect you or me in anyway.

mmj_uk · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:03

RoB- said:
M$ will be worried for sure, they will have to pull something out of the hat if this hack does indeed take off.

indeed they will be, this could do massive damage to profits and their target of the xbox project 'breaking even by mid-2006', they are already selling consoles at about half what it costs them to manufacture them and relying on game sales to recoup that.

cmt · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:04

Lord-Jaffa said:
Why? Console sales will most likely go through the roof once the 360 has a working modchip for it. As with the original xbox, pirated games dont work on live anyway so as a legit gamer it wont affect you or me in anyway.

True,

Thats why i will have two of them one for media and one for legit stuff, just like i have two original xboxes. - saves all the messing about with live.

cmt

R0B75 · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:05

Lord-Jaffa said:
Why? Console sales will most likely go through the roof once the 360 has a working modchip for it. As with the original xbox, pirated games dont work on live anyway so as a legit gamer it wont affect you or me in anyway.

M$ don't make any money on the console itself. If there's a hack then they won't make any money on thae games either....

Lord-Jaffa · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:08

cmt said:
True,

Thats why i will have two of them one for media and one for legit stuff, just like i have two original xboxes. - saves all the messing about with live.

cmt

I did actually have a "naughty" xbox at one time, the extra functionality it gave was incredible. To be honest i think ms are actually thankfull that people create all this third party stuff as it allows them to incorperate it + additional security and features into their next generation of console. Sure at some point they care about piracy, but what they care more about is development and gaining a larger % of the market. As we have seen from the past, profit is the last thing on their minds as they lost an substantial amount of money on the first xbox. Dominating the market is all they are worried about.

Lord-Jaffa · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:09

RoB- said:
M$ don't make any money on the console itself. If there's a hack then they won't make any money on thae games either....

They dont care about profits from these consoles, they care about development + market share. Plus the fact only real games work on xbox live.

R0B75 · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:10

Lord-Jaffa said:
They dont care about profits from these consoles, they care about development + market share.

A company that doesn't care about profits? Thats ridiculous.

Lord-Jaffa · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:17

RoB- said:
A company that doesn't care about profits? Thats ridiculous.

Because they are going for market domination, they do not care so much about their gaming section loses when the rest of the company makes more than enough to support it.

mmj_uk · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:18

Lord-Jaffa said:
Sure at some point they care about piracy, but what they care more about is development and gaining a larger % of the market. As we have seen from the past, profit is the last thing on their minds as they lost an substantial amount of money on the first xbox. Dominating the market is all they are worried about.

The 'Xbox project' was originally set up with the aim of financially breaking even by mid-2006, this has never looked like happening until recently (with 360), the 'project' has been a constant money pit for MS and the news above is a major setback, they aren't going to throw money at it forever you know.

Lord-Jaffa said:
They dont care about profits from these consoles, they care about development + market share.

they could have 100% market share but if they lose money then what's the point?

Lord-Jaffa · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:20

mmj_uk said:
they could have 100% market share but if they lose money then what's the point?

They don't though do they? Look at what they are doing in Japan, their console is a total failure there and the PS3 isnt even out yet, you honestly think that profit is the first thing on their minds in that market area?