Earlier this year, known scene member and exploit creator "Grimdoomer" released the BadUpdate hypervisor exploit for the Xbox 360, while also revealing his retirement from console hacking. It looks like he couldn't stay away from digging into how the 360 ticks, however, because Grimdoomer is back, and has a massive announcement: there's an Xbox 360 softmod method on the horizon. In the past, Grimdoomer himself has claimed that there would never be anything more elaborate than the proof-of-concept hypervisor exploit, but he's one-upped himself, with a video that teases a 360 softmod method.

There is no ETA on any release, and Grimdoomer explains that the process will take time.

I know I said I retired from console hacking but I got one more in me. An Xbox 360 softmod is coming, no eta yet, THIS WILL TAKE TIME to finish. I still can't believe this exploit chain works, and I also can't believe I spent 20 hours a day for the last 3 weeks straight working on this. I'm so tired but seeing that coffee cup on screen was worth it

Source

 

[cearp]

The 360 is one of those systems that pretty much have no exclusives anymore worth emulating, conker live and reloaded is the only one I can think of.

I want to try out blue dragon - but yeah I think that can be emulated pretty well.
So I'm not personally interested in the xbox 360, but for those who are, this is great news

 

[jkm81]

all this softmods coming out just after i muster my courage to rgh3 my xbox with a pico with zero soldering experience.

 

[raxadian]

Now that Microsoft has moved on, hacking the 360 is probably less legally troublesome as they are less likely to care.

 

[x65943]

Now that Microsoft has moved on, hacking the 360 is probably less legally troublesome as they are less likely to care.

They did release an update as recently as June 2025, which is nuts

 

[raxadian]

They did release and update as recently as June 2025, which is nuts

Weird as unlike the PS3, the thing is not a Blue Ray player. Also Microsoft doesn't sell it anymore or offers repairs.

I guess they do keep the server online for those 360 games that work in newer consoles or something?

 

[codezer0]

By now people should have better open minds to what modding can accomplish. Too many times I've seen messages like "that will never happen" then it happens.

Still can't cfw a revised Switch whatsoever without a mod chip, that's harder to find now than when it was brand new.

Still can't truly cfw a PS3 that was made after 3.55.

And it's like nobody even bothered to do any such mods with the Xbox one or series consoles, either.

Let's not even bring up the phone scene, where one forum (XDA) gets to have a monopoly on who's allowed to root their phone or not.

 

[K3Nv4]

Still can't cfw a revised Switch whatsoever without a mod chip, that's harder to find now than when it was brand new.

Still can't truly cfw a PS3 that was made after 3.55.

And it's like nobody even bothered to do any such mods with the Xbox one or series consoles, either.

Let's not even bring up the phone scene, where one forum (XDA) gets to have a monopoly on who's allowed to root their phone or not.

What do you mean? Ps3 has permanent cfw just not super slim based on model. Those still can't you mention can easily be turned into its been done when the right modder finds what they need that's my point.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The 360 is one of those systems that pretty much have no exclusives anymore worth emulating, conker live and reloaded is the only one I can think of.

Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, to name a couple.

Yes. With XKey, you can run games off the USB port. Game loading is redirected from the optical drive to an HDD plugged into the USB port. Your game backup will be selected from the HDD and redirected to the optical drive.

Maybe this hack will involve some method like this? It works very well and game speeds are fine from USB 2.0.

This makes XKey redundant. With a softmod you can just install games to the console directly (or to USB if you prefer)

 

[djinc91]

Idk, can anyone with more knowledge comment

That certainly doesn't look stock sticking out the top there

View attachment 525362

It is stock. He just stripped down the HDD housing so it is just the cable for quicker swapping. With the thickness of that HDD, I would say it is one of the stock drives too.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I want to try out blue dragon - but yeah I think that can be emulated pretty well.
So I'm not personally interested in the xbox 360, but for those who are, this is great news

It used to be horribly broken, and then was mostly fixed, but it seems like it was broken again at some point in 2023-2024, there are mixed reports on GitHub: https://github.com/xenia-project/game-compatibility/issues/988
This is the only game I still come back to the 360 for so I really want it to emulate well but it seems hit and miss from the reports.

 

[K3Nv4]

Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, to name a couple.

This makes XKey redundant. With a softmod you can just install games to the console directly (or to USB if you prefer)

Xkey came out around the time people were hunting down iHas drives to patch isos and burn to DVD. It was like $100 or so well worth it considering you could go online with Xkey and back ups from external drive, didn't have to have a large collection of burnt discs. I still have it in my system. You can't even buy them anymore.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Xkey came out around the time people were hunting down iHas drives to patch isos and burn to DVD. It was like $100 or so well worth it considering you could go online with Xkey and back ups from external drive, didn't have to have a large collection of burnt discs. I still have it in my system. You can't even buy them anymore.

You can't buy them new but I wager a lot of people will be willing to sell theirs when this softmod is released. My dad still has one brand new never used.

 

[K3Nv4]

You can't buy them new but I wager a lot of people will be willing to sell theirs when this softmod is released. My dad still has one brand new never used.

If anything Jtags will get cheaper than they already are. Xkey isn't as huge it wasn't even during it's prime days just not that many were printed and they sold quick when they did.

 

[RyanTheArchivist]

This is why it can't be done in modding should never be worded.

People love to say that about any system that takes even a few years.

 

[DAZA]

It will be the same as BadUpdate. The kernel patches to give softmods equivalent functionality to RGH are already implemented in FreeMyXe and XeUnshackle so it's a relatively simple copy paste to make them work with the new softmod. That is to say Dashlaunch and Aurora etc will all work as expected, but there might still be certain limitations like not being able to upgrade the internal drive to unsupported capacities/models.

Not sure on the latter. BadUpdate works on all of them so I would expect this to do the same. Winchester can't be RGH'd because they fixed the glitch method in hardware, but it shouldn't affect softmods.

I appreciate the insight to my questions!!

 

[Lostbhoy]

A 360 softmod from the 360 modgod? Nice!

 

[Armadillo]

People love to say that about any system that takes even a few years.

This took 20 years (15 or so if you count King Kong as a softmod). That's way more than a few years.

People only say can't be done because that's the "up to date" info from the "experts" (and by experts I mean the people actually working on it) for whatever system.

Is it really helpful when people ask about softmods to say "maybe one day, might have to wait a few decades" or better to give them the current situation on it.

Current info for the original Switch is "no softmod ever for patched units" when people ask, would it be better to tell people "one day" and just hope for the best even if it's decades (like with the 360) away?.

Onto the mod itself, cool. I wonder how it works and how reliable it is. Guess we will see soon.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Current info for the original Switch is "no softmod ever for patched units" when people ask, would it be better to tell people "one day" and just hope for the best even if it's decades (like with the 360) away?.

I think so, because it's more descriptive/accurate. I always say this: Maybe eventually, but probably not soon.

 

[RyanTheArchivist]

This took 20 years (15 or so if you count King Kong as a softmod). That's way more than a few years.

People only say can't be done because that's the "up to date" info from the "experts" (and by experts I mean the people actually working on it) for whatever system.

Is it really helpful when people ask about softmods to say "maybe one day, might have to wait a few decades" or better to give them the current situation on it.

Current info for the original Switch is "no softmod ever for patched units" when people ask, would it be better to tell people "one day" and just hope for the best even if it's decades (like with the 360) away?.

Onto the mod itself, cool. I wonder how it works and how reliable it is. Guess we will see soon.

This is the very first time we have ever had any form of coldboot exploit for the system. Though really when things look super grim for a console in the modding department it will happen one day but it would be 20 years for example.

 

[rull_bull]

Still can't cfw a revised Switch whatsoever without a mod chip, that's harder to find now than when it was brand new.

Still can't truly cfw a PS3 that was made after 3.55.

And it's like nobody even bothered to do any such mods with the Xbox one or series consoles, either.

Let's not even bring up the phone scene, where one forum (XDA) gets to have a monopoly on who's allowed to root their phone or not.

You have not been around the switch scene much it seems…. The days when SX Core/SX Lite did have a crackdown from Nintendo it was really expensive and hard to find a modchip, then came HWfly and it was even more expensive.

Then came the picofly, since then you could use any rp2040 chip.
And they can be bought of the shelf at a well sorted electronic store typically.

So no, hacking a switch is easy peasy and a couple of bucks these days.

Post automatically merged: Sep 1, 2025

My guess @ the softmod is a HDD with hacked fw that bypasses certain checks just like c4eva did for the Xbox 360 drive.

And just as a entry point, then there is a whole another level to defeat HV and the rest of the security.

But I believe this will require certain hdd revisions and brand for it to function. Just like the c4eva hacks on the disc drive.