Xbox 360 Hacked?

Journey · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:28

The average 10% piracy rate would hardly dent MS profits anyhow, most people will not risk killing or voiding any warranty on a £280 console.

I can't see this Mod becoming public knowledge in he short term anyhow, unless someone say offers him a lot of $$$'s

Davey_Pitch · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:36

Usually threads like this are killed but I'll leave it running for now, as long as the discussion remains on the same lines. If people start advocating piracy in any way, I *will* kill the thread.

Continuing on, I don't think MS will be too worried about this. They'll have to be very naive if they thought the console wouldn't get cracked at some point, pretty much every console since the PS1 has been, and the 360 *and* PS3 will be no different. MS and Sony will be expecting it, that much I'm sure of.

bingham67 · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:36

Heard the other day still its only in the specialist hands if he decides to release it or not.

So cant say if its true or a load of lies but no doubt it will eventually be modded the rest have in the end.

Raikiri · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:37

Journey said:
The average 10% piracy rate would hardly dent MS profits anyhow, most people will not risk killing or voiding any warranty on a £280 console.

I can't see this Mod becoming public knowledge in he short term anyhow, unless someone say offers him a lot of $$$'s

When you consider , they have the possiblility of saving a grand just on 20 games a lot of people might change their minds though.

Personally I hope they do bring out mod chips and such as they add so much more versatility to the consoles, rather than the minority of people that do it solely to pirate games. (Not one of those people btw)

norm · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:39

I'm surprised Microsoft let something as simple as this escape their attention.

Although they probably didn't count on hackers figuring out the Filesystem quite as quick either enabling copies of discs to be made.

Bennah · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:41

It was a matter of time till this happened. Cant say Im not suprised. Does'nt effect me in any way. Still going to plod along with a Retail Legit games...

~J~ · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:42

From what I've read of this over the past few days, "The Specialist" is, if there is such a term, classed as a "good hacker". He hasn't made his knowledge public only said 'where' MS have gone wrong. It's others that have listened to him and realise where the fault is.

As for playing backups, the Xbox is different because it doesn't use DVD's but CD's. Doing a 1:1 copy of a CD is pretty easy these days, doing a 1:1 copy of a DVD is somewhat harder, especially on 'game' DVD's.

It certainly doesn't mean the 360 is hackable yet, it's still a loooooong way off. Whilst you could change the firmware to bypass the checking of the DVD because the firmware is going to say "Is this an original disc?", the 'hack' will say "Yes", but then the game will expect to load data from a hidden track which isn't there because of the 1:1 copying that isn't 100% available yet.

R0B75 · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:44

Davey_Pitch said:
....Continuing on, I don't think MS will be too worried about this. They'll have to be very naive if they thought the console wouldn't get cracked at some point, pretty much every console since the PS1 has been, and the 360 *and* PS3 will be no different. MS and Sony will be expecting it, that much I'm sure of.

Like I said, it was inevitable it was goning to happen and you're right, M$ would be naive if they thought the console was untouchable in terms of hacks, but I still believe they will be concerned. It won't be panic stations but they will be looking to nip it in the bud ASAP that's for sure.

I personally have a problem with people playing games for free when I'm paying for them, but I don't have a problem with hacking/modding for extra functionality, but let's not go into that.

McManicMan · 18 Mar 2006 at 20:47

from what i read The Specialist said MS can do nothing to stop it, well he mean't whatever MS did they can change the firmware again abit like what is happening on the PSP with them loaders. Also copied games would be live enabled as already stated elsewhere:

Since its invisible to the console it would be invisble to Live. Another fine reason for not releasing it

but the thing is if one person can do it then its only a matter of time before someone else leaks the info then it grows from that

~J~ · 18 Mar 2006 at 20:52

You're right, MS can do nothing to stop it, but why should they? The idea behind the firmware been flashable is literally what a lot of us were saying when we first got the console "Loud innit?", "Yeah well MS will be able to give a firmware update".

Truth betold, for the determined 'hacker' (read thief), this is probably good news, but for the average common gamer, it's just impracticle to keep flashing the BIOS for the sake of gaming.

Added to the fact that there's still the worry over having to return borked console back to MS, if anyone DOES flash the BIOS, then I'd love to see the response from MS and the look on their faces!

McManicMan · 18 Mar 2006 at 21:01

~J~ said:
You're right, MS can do nothing to stop it, but why should they? The idea behind the firmware been flashable is literally what a lot of us were saying when we first got the console "Loud innit?", "Yeah well MS will be able to give a firmware update".

Truth betold, for the determined 'hacker' (read thief), this is probably good news, but for the average common gamer, it's just impracticle to keep flashing the BIOS for the sake of gaming.

Added to the fact that there's still the worry over having to return borked console back to MS, if anyone DOES flash the BIOS, then I'd love to see the response from MS and the look on their faces!

lol, true, But The Specialist has already said that it may be possible to flash via software as others are working on that side of things, meaning if it goes worng (360) then you'd just reflash to normal firmware via the software (i presume) and nothing has been touched.

MouseMat2004 · 18 Mar 2006 at 21:06

It looks like it's something that will happen, he probably wont release it but has given people enough info to make it themselfs. Wont be to long before theres a windows based flasher, I'm sure M$ will be able to detect the change in the firmware so early testers may find themselfs banned from XBL.

/runs out to buy a load of dual layer DVD's

McDaniel · 18 Mar 2006 at 23:26

roffles at the "McD" mention in that video

PiKe · 18 Mar 2006 at 23:31

Someone I was speaking to just brought up a very good point.

How do we know thats not just a video dvd in there?

McDaniel · 18 Mar 2006 at 23:33

PiKe said:
Someone I was speaking to just brought up a very good point.

How do we know thats not just a video dvd in there?

we dont however it was just last week the info about the DVD firmware was released and how it wasnt exactly havk proof, so chances are its real

Energize · 18 Mar 2006 at 23:36

Maybe this will teach companies to sell games for less.

PiKe · 18 Mar 2006 at 23:38

Problem is, they sell the console at a loss and have to recoup it some other way...

Bobbler · 19 Mar 2006 at 00:07

Energize said:
Maybe this will teach companies to sell games for less.

I very much doubt it will. TBH every console has been hacked in some shape or form as far back as I can remember.
Nintendo cartridge based machines have always had some sort of flash device to get round them, CD based consoles either booted the copies anyway or had some swap/hardware device, this is just another in a long line of failiures to protect their software thwarted in a relatively short space of time. Its MS based people are gunning for it just like their apps/os software
Its never going to teach any company anything regarding the prices, they will just continue to annoy those who buy games with things like Starforce and continue to justify the large price tags based on having to add these security measures into the software.
Software prices have always risen with each new generation right from back in the days of ZX Spectrum software where you where talking up to around £7 for a game, which then went up to £10 for Atari ST/Amiga software and so on...
As has already been said hacks being available is a relatively low percentage of lost sales to the software. It may actually drive sales of hardware upwards...who knows.

@ ~J~ - Xbox software IS DVD based not CD based

~J~ · 19 Mar 2006 at 00:17

Bobbler said:
@ ~J~ - Xbox software IS DVD based not CD based

The original? Crikey, never knew that, always thought the original was CD based. O well, learn summat new every day.

MouseMat2004 · 19 Mar 2006 at 00:28

Like has been said the avg Joe Public wouldnt even know howto hack a games console or even know how to get hold of it so it doesnt make a huge difference for games sales (Just like MP3/Xvid etc), Also I bet the original Xbox made a lot of extra sales with all the homebrew stuff.

Besides, most of the 360 games I've seen have been over 4.3GB so not atm easy to copy.