<!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Introduction</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
It seems we saw a couple of pre releases and a whole slew of XBLA dumps now homebrew users can run them (note the demos you can download are but a simple hex edit away from becoming full games so you can do this yourself if you want)- as not that many have homebrew these releases will come under the less notable releases in their own for the foreseeable future.
Once again a load of homebrew development happened- those with updates past August the 11th 2009 and many of those with 360s that were made slightly before it (some have also mentioned those in official repair shops) can not run homebrew at this time and that does not look set to change.
For those just joining us the general idea behind these posts is in each post the days (or time since last post if nothing much happens on a given day) summarises the state of the 360 scene, it is done in the subforum as GBAtemp is mainly geared to towards the GBA and current Nintendo consoles but there are a substantial amount of 'tempers familiar with other consoles as well who discuss such things on the 'temp.
We cover big releases (a short writeup, release name, region locking information and NFO), the smaller releases (those without English in are usually covered here although we will cover a big Japanese release on the rare occasions one happens), any nuke information and likewise any confirmed games added to the 360 game verification tool ABGX360 as well as any homebrew news.
We tend to avoid covering the P2P game releases as they are not especially reliable when they beat the scene to releasing (previous years have seen several big releases made ahead of street dates which were later found to not be up to scratch, this has been repeated this year as well) and afterwards there is not much point, this being said if any are of note they will be mentioned in passing.
If you have any suggestions for the format of the post or things we should add please chime in, things will calm down now but if you want to help out have a look at the recruitment thread:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179009" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179009</a>
The wave 4 and 5 section as well as the notes on banning have been moved to the "useful things to know" section that appears at the end of these posts.
<!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Nukes and related news as well as less notable releases.</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<u><b>Nukes</b></u>
One nuke since last post (ABGX now lists 217).
<b>Battlefield_1943_REPACK_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperPolla</b> got nuked for being a dupe.
Official reason
Nuked on 2009-12-15 19:24:12 dupe.SuperX360.2009-12-15 [EliteNet]
<u><b>Less notable releases</b></u>
Several since last time.
<b>Assassins_Creed_2_KOR_XBOX360-CLARE</b> A Korean region dupe of Assassins_Creed_2
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2033" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Shin_Sangoku_Musou_Multi_Raid_Special_NFOFix_KOR_XBOX360-CLARE</b> and <b>Shin_Sangoku_Musou_Multi_Raid_Special_KOR_XBOX360-CLARE</b>
Korean region dupes of Shin Sangoku Musou Multi Raid Special (Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce) according to the NFO. Set for a US release in early February.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2030" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a> <a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2031" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO fix link</a>
<b>Fallout.3.Goty.Edition.FRENCH.NTSC.XBOX360-IND</b>- Apparently a US source (PAL and US region compatible) French version of Fallout 3 GOTY edition (two discs, one is the original game while the second is the expansions released).
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2007" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Call_of_Duty_Modern_Warfare_2_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan</b>- Japanese version of Modern Warfare 2.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2002" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Samurai_Spirits_Zen_JAP_XBOX360-KFC</b>- A fighting game and part of the long running Samurai Shodown series. Unknown region locking or it would be in the main post.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1996" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Fallout_3_Game_Of_The_Year_Edition_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan</b>- Japanese region dupe of Fallout 3 GOTY.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1988" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>The.Saboteur.PAL.iTALiAN.XBOX360-DNL</b> and <b>The.Saboteur.PAL.GERMAN.XBOX360-DNL</b>- Italian and German region dupes of The Saboteur.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1989" target="_blank">Italian ludibria.com NFO link</a> <a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1985" target="_blank">German ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Assassins_Creed_2_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan</b>- Japanese region dupe of Assassins Creed 2.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1986" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>XBLA games</b>
A new section- the rebooter apps for those with homebrew capable 360s bring many nice features including the ability to ignore signing of downloaded games.
It was also discovered that purchased games differ only from demos by a simple string, apps to edit it yourself also now exist.
Naturally this is about as big a ban me sign as you can get so make sure you know what you are doing.
Our scene only policy still applies here as trying to wade through the p2p explosion is something that is not going to happen. Just release names, ABGX has NFO links and
<u><b>Homebrew</b></u>
Lots and lots of stuff has happened here, I still intend to do a one off round up of the homebrew developments at some point and indeed an abridged version (with minor updates since last post) will appear here.
First bannings, they have happened, they appear to be related to the firmware of the drive being detected (which should be sorted in an upcoming firmware but not with what exists) and have taken some functionality from the console in addition to live.
Several things can be done:
1) restore an old NAND backup from before the ban (but not so early as to be before efuses were blown). Requires you have a pre ban backup.
2) ground the write protect switch of the NAND (people usually stick a switch in too as writing is useful on occasion). Requires you do to it before you get banned.
As an aside there is a crude detection method here, it is not foolproof by any means but it is simple to do, read more here:
<a href="http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1751.nfo" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1751.nfo</a>
3) Due to the way things work there are older secdata.bin files buried within the NAND. As they are already signed you can swap them around at will and some of these backups will be from when you could still use the hard drive installs and sign profiles for other machines.
Knowledge of all three is useful but in the case of 1 and 3 you will need the ability to backup the NAND. You can do this as part of homebrew although it should be noted that the hardware side of the JTAG hack (the part with diodes) is not necessary or even advised you do if you are only playing with previously signed data and your NAND (indeed if you have been banned in this latest wave your homebrew options are non existent) .
More here:
<a href="http://www.free60.org/Reading_out_NAND" target="_blank">http://www.free60.org/Reading_out_NAND</a>
There is a USB version available but it is quite expensive to pull off, search xbox hacker forums for it.
The initial hack required you to manually search the dump but there are now automated tools that can pull the relevant data and pretty much do everything but flash it back for you.
<a href="http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12759.msg87614#msg87614" target="_blank">http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=...g87614#msg87614</a>
Xbox-scene have a list of some others as well but the link above is the "best" at present, you can read more about them on their post:
<a href="http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=697512" target="_blank">http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=697512</a>
Some more links
<a href="http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=697231" target="_blank">http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=697231</a>
<a href="http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12759.0" target="_blank">http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12759.0</a>
For those of you still with homebrew capable consoles a tool was released over at <a href="http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2355" target="_blank">http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2355</a> that allows you to easily fiddle with keyvaults on your 360 to do things like region changing and drive key changing (this might be useful to "clone" a 360 for XBLA stuff.
More importantly for homebrew capable consoles it seems the rebooters have been continued to be worked upon and we now have two
1) Freeboot
2) XBReboot
Freeboot is presently tied to a console with dual NAND but supports more of them while XBReboot is limited to xenon consoles but can be flashed to the original NAND.
The idea behind this is that the 360 only checks the kernel on hard boot but by soft resetting into a kernel you can mess with it as much as you like.
The first thing they do is to make games think they are running on a later kernel (well they actually are) but the mess with it as much as you like thing is what is important.
Even at this stage we have signing checks disabled on hard drives (any hard drive will work), signing on 360 xex files (hacked games), region locking gone, live/pirs stuff not needing to be signed: modding of hard drive content ranging from downloaded stuff like map packs to XBLA stuff.
A thread that discusses it in more depth:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193887" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193887</a>
Although since that thread a new version of xbrebooter has appeared:
<a href="http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1755.nfo" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1755.nfo</a>
As mentioned in the other sections xbox live arcade (XBLA) demos differ only from full games by a few bytes and we can run unsigned code including XBLA stuff. This meant a flood of games and a few tools to patch said change into the game.
A program XeXLoader also appeared. It sports an interesting feature list including
Feature list:
* Launch media-patched XEXs from any storage device
* Manage the filesystems of all storage devices
* Rip any inserted game to any storage device (ISO Extraction) (Still requires patching with XexTool(info) to remove media check)
Those familiar with the wii are perhaps thinking USB loader and you would not be far off.
Perhaps of interest to most is the release of a hacked iextreme 1.6 for the liteon 83xxxxx v2 and 9 series. (This means all drives are once again hackable)
<a href="http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1754.nfo" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1754.nfo</a>
1.6 seems to be what is getting people banned from live but it is there if you want it.
As the drives mentioned were previously deemed not able to be hacked you also have a method to dump the drives, the first methods were somewhat difficult but the current one is somewhat easier (still harder than anything before it though).:
<a href="http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12956.msg88305#msg88305" target="_blank">http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=...g88305#msg88305</a>
GBAtemp thread:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193838" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193838</a>
The LT firmware apparently ran into problems and had to go back to coding again so still no ETA.It has also been mentioned that the new lite touch firmware has been completed and is presently in testing (still no ETA). A few people have tweaked older iextreme firmwares in addition to just falling back to them in light of wave 4 and bans. They are not necessary unless you already know what you are doing.
Finally just to make it a proper roundup a few weeks back the 250 gig HDDSS.bin file was released allowing you to make 250 gig hard drives for about the price of a 120 gig official one (this may be somewhat redundant for some with the release of the rebooter apps which can work with any drive and not the select few the official xbox works with). It also saw the return of interest in the tools to play with 360 hard drives and the guides surrounding it. We have now also seen some of the game updates get bundled and released to the scene (more in the releases section), the main tool of choice is xplorer360:
<a href="http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox360-tools/Xplorer360.php" target="_blank">http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox360-tools/Xplorer360.php</a>
Basically if you encounter/have a homebrew capable 360 hang onto it as things are looking very good.
<b>Additions to ABGX360</b>
We suggest you use the link below and the abgx360 tool as the site does not use scene naming meaning it can be quite hard to tell entries apart, this is just for reference really (RF= region free)
ABGX360 ( <a href="http://abgx360.net/verified.php" target="_blank">Web frontend to verified database</a> ) added:
MX vs. ATV Reflex <i>RF</i> (4th Wave)
Hasbro Family Game Night <i>NTSC/U</i> (4th Wave)
<!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Releases</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Release dates can be found here: <a href="http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/" target="_blank">http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/</a> although the dates on gamefaqs seem to be slightly "off" and as usual are subject to change at the last moment.
You can still consider the year finished but as the post below shows things can still appear ahead of time. Remember Guitar Hero: Van Halen was released months back. Darksiders, Army of Two: The 40th Day and a US release of Divinity II: Ego Draconis are the next things I expect we will see in terms of anticipated games seen as Bayonetta was released (in post below)
As an aside if possible the NFOs are being sent as unicode/some encoding that will not lose the format if possible which means we may not lose the ASCII art any more (I am far too lazy to make up picture NFOs not to mention I like text), for old ones perhaps <a href="http://shailendra88.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-view-nfo-files-in-firefox.html" target="_blank">http://shailendra88.blogspot.com/2009/02/h...in-firefox.html</a> is of some use.
In order of most recent to pre:
<b>Venetica.PAL.XBOX360-DAMNATION</b>
PAL release- unknown region locking
DAMNATION are new to the 360 (there has been another scene group called damnation) and they start off bringing us a new western developed RPG from Deck13 Interactive (probably best know for the Ankh series on the PC) called Venetica. The NFO does not make it clear but this game already has a German localised version released (a bit like Divinity 2 back in September) so until this is cleared up please note it may be German only. The PC version saw very good reviews only brought down for technical issues so this could be one to watch as the 360 version had a few months to sort these.
<b>Bayonetta.PAL.XBOX360-SWAG</b>
Region free, wave 3 (it was set for an earlier release but was pushed back by other games being released at the same time).
Bayonetta appears to fall somewhere Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry in gameplay and all reviews thus far have been overwhelmingly positive. BiscuitBee made a thread for this game in my absence so you are invited to go there for some discussion on the game:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=196150" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=196150</a>
<b>Scene_It_Bright_Lights_Big_Screen_PAL_XBOX360-STRANGE</b>
PAL source, (US release region locked US only Japanese consoles out but left Europe and US consoles)
Some have nuked it for pointless reasons like rar size but I doubt it will stick, some are also not displaying this release.
Film trivia game, you know if you like this sort of thing. Personally I would play a few rounds of <a href="http://www.akinator.com/" target="_blank">http://www.akinator.com/</a> instead.
<!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Useful things to know</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
First the current WIP GBAtemp 360 FAQ (not the same one that is stickied), it should cover most questions you might have on the 360 although it too is looking a bit out of date right now:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=157263" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=157263</a>
<b>XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340</b>
<a href="http://pix.gbatemp.net/32303/XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://pix.gbatemp.net/32303/XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340.png.tn.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Click on the image and it will load up the full picture.
Some sections of the scene also use the general console release standards as well as the 360 ones.
As many of you know modding your xbox can lead to a ban from xbox live (more or less the only recourse Microsoft have), we do not know the exact methods used to detect modding but it is a fair guess that it is related to the games not appearing as originals for various reasons although the last few months have seen this opinion shift to MS being able to detect the hacked firmware by some method.
While playing games prior to street dates has been considered and indeed as of mid October 2009 MS have been seen to be targeting those who have as yet "unreleased" games on their profiles it is still somewhat up in the air.
On the other hand prerelease games can sometimes be bad dumps, dumps from non retail sources, bad packing of dumps like any other dump but without a retail copy it is markedly difficult to verify a release beyond the basics. The tool AGBX360 is used to verify isos, directories and games burned to disc and can fix isos and directories if necessary but requires this data (a basic check using the data the game holds is still possible though).
Those who do not care about being banned from live or are willing to risk it then not much need to worry unless otherwise mentioned (as an example the first leaks of Halo 3 ODST were bad which meant while they would run a good chunk of gameplay was missing).
Little bits of 360 release history will be covered from time to time but if you want to delve into the substantial back catalogue of games for the 360 then
<a href="http://www.abgx.net/filename/?ch=6" target="_blank">http://www.abgx.net/filename/?ch=6</a> has release names and a great deal of info.
Another site that is also very useful is (they are frequently a source of the NFOs posted with these releases)
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com" target="_blank">http://www.ludibria.com</a>
Other sites with useful tools and info are
<a href="http://abgx360.net/" target="_blank">http://abgx360.net/</a> (the homepage for a tool to verify and fix games, once a game is added to their database a more thorough check can be performed).
<a href="http://www.xbins.org/" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/</a> the web frontend to an FTP site dedicated to homebrew for the original xbox and 360, easyxbins is a nice tool to access the FTP site ( <a href="http://www.360mods.net/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=29" target="_blank">http://www.360mods.net/index.php?name=Down...tails&id=29</a> )
We will leave info on how to flash xboxes for games and/or homebrew to other threads as it occasionally moves fast and is better left to them.
The 360 supports region locking leaving it to developers and publishers to choose what is done (other than German releases what will be done is very unpredictable).
Those without a homebrew enabled 360 (even then it takes a bit of effort) will find region locking is not able to be bypassed on the 360.
There is no great worry unless you are sporting a Japanese 360 (English language games are often region locked out and Japanese xbox games can take months to appear) as game releases usually fall very close together region wise these days. Close together means usually within a week and this still usually means before street dates in respective countries.
It has not come up here but it has in other places; region free is region free and it does not matter what territory the game that was ripped comes from so if there is a region free NTSC sourced release and you are in a PAL country do not wait on a PAL release unless you are waiting for a given language as it will not happen (and if it does scene rules tend to mean the release is nuked), similarly we are going to shift to just stating the regions a game is locked to rather than sources to try and eliminate some confusion unless it is unknown at the time of posting.
There are four regions as far as the 360 is concerned being Japan (NTSC-J), USA (NTSC-U), Europe (PAL) and China (NTSC-C), Australia counts as PAL and anyone anywhere else in the world will probably have an imported 360 so I will leave that to the owners to figure out. China and Japan usually overlap along with the rest of Asia but not always (there are not all that many Chinese releases anyhow).
It is incredibly rare but occasionally releases can vary by region, it is mainly a licensing (think music games) or data thing (big games may forgo a language) or even have multiple languages per "area" (Canadian area releases may have French and English while US releases may have Spanish and English).
As mentioned there is now a homebrew method that works on new consoles (previous ones would only work on consoles without HDMI) provided you have not done the August 11th 2009 update or any subsequent ones. Many versions of Xell (the homebrew loader) have now been compiled so most 360 models are now hackable. If you have updated you are out of luck as a fuse will have been blown.
There are two main options being considered:
1) Flashing a different region code- unless you have a dual nand chip (one region on each) this is a fairly long winded process but it does work.
If you can ignore the text speak xbox scene has a guide (we suggest you use it as a rough guide to understand what is going on):
<a href="http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=693753" target="_blank">http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=693753</a>
Also <a href="http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2355" target="_blank">http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2355</a>
If you should manage to have your motherboard/cpu key and provided you do not downgrade then you should even be able to do it on a post august the 11th xbox, this is probably a very small subset of people but if you were hanging on with the intention of doing this sort of thing you might be in luck.
Chip development (NAND chips this is) is also progressing once again.
2) A "rebooter" app- The general idea is to (soft) reboot into a custom kernel/similar which handily ignores things like region checking.
In late November/early December 2009 some tools appeared and they were quite developed at that.
They are called xbreboot and freeboot, development is happening quickly so please consult <a href="http://www.xbins.org/" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/</a> xbox-scene or the forums here for more up to date news.
A handful of 360 homebrew sites and guides exist (our own forums are also filled with knowledgeable people too) so for the curious
<a href="http://www.free60.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">Free60 (the base of the current homebrew work)</a>
<a href="http://www.eurasia.nu/wiki/index.php?pagename=Free60JtagHack" target="_blank">Euraisa writeup of the new hack and how it works</a>
<a href="http://www.xboxhacker.net" target="_blank">Xboxhacker.net (forums frequented by the Free60 crew and many others)</a>
Any discussion on those sites will be of a highly technical nature and a similar level of knowledge/ability is expected of you if you decide to join in.
New to this section is a short note on wave 4 and beyond,
Wave 4 (and wave 5) which has workarounds available is upon us, see wave 4 thread for more: <a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185528" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185528</a>
While wave 4 is now nearly certain in a release there are the odd handful of games slipping through the cracks.
A wave4 and 5 supporting iextreme (version 1.61) is now available for benq and samsung drive users, spoofing is still entirely possible and thanks to tools like jungleflasher or even firmtool it is very simple to pull off if you should you have a spare/old drive around.
1.51 hitachi users should be able to boot without any special measures at all.
1.6 users (available to all but Hitachi) can still use the one shot boot disc.
1.61 for all other drives has been cancelled in favour of lite touch (LT) which is a further branch/evolution of the firmware. No ETA and not a great deal of information is available on it though.
ABGX360 has now been updated to support wave 4 games as well.
Many people who have also been banned and that have older drives have also gone back to the xtreme firmwares or non stealth iextreme.
Guides to and tools to patch a game to a given wave are also available but we strongly suggest you do not use them and certainly do not get to rely on them at this time (even if you are not on live we would say think twice) as updates to iextreme will probably render your discs useless.
MS have started their ban wave (the term wave is looking a bit incorrect mind as it seems to be detection rather than the usual ways) for Autumn/Winter 2009, no word on who how people are being targeted (people with all drive models, all drive firmwares, abgx360 checked games, before release and after release playing have reported bans while others are carrying on business as usual). c4e/commodore4eva has stated that some tests are ongoing to try and determine what goes.
Note that banning is no longer just a lack of live (system link still works and a lot of you will find you are able to use VPN to play with local friends) but a lack of hard drive installs and a few network streaming abilities so it might be worth pulling the network cable for a while.
We have got a few things that can be done though if you are willing to use some of the homebrew techniques mentioned above to restore lost functionality (other than live of course).
Banning thread thread here:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188345&st=0&start=0" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188...t=0&start=0</a>
Some people have taken to trying to see if they have been banned by starting a recall order, if it fails a ban is probably to come shortly after.
Good news is that if you restore a NAND dump from before the ban your hard drive abilities will return for the most part and everyone should now have the ability to do such a thing (you can backup NAND regardless of kernel but be careful if you update and try to restore an old backup as fuses might have been blown and the 360 will fail to boot), MS have also left old copies of data in the NAND so you can dump the NAND and restore an older secdata.bin.
It might have been mentioned in passing but there is also a relatively simple hardware tweak you can do but be prepared to reverse it in months to come.
<a href="http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2483&mode=&order=0&thold=0" target="_blank">http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name=New...r=0&thold=0</a>
This happened a little while back now but they apparently cracking down on games being played before street dates as well (a change from their actions in the past), more here:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186000&hl=" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186000&hl=</a>
<b>Previous 360 release threads</b>
The follow links are to the older release threads, if there is some time between threads anything that happened between threads will be covered.
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=194224" target="_blank">2nd December 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193562" target="_blank">28th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193139" target="_blank">26th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=191910" target="_blank">19th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=191045" target="_blank">15th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=190439" target="_blank">12th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=190082" target="_blank">10th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188435" target="_blank">4th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188435" target="_blank">31st October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=187977" target="_blank">28th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=187667" target="_blank">26th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186802" target="_blank">21st October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186608" target="_blank">20th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186102" target="_blank">17th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185995" target="_blank">16th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185550" target="_blank">14th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185003" target="_blank">11th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=184603" target="_blank">9th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=184168" target="_blank">7th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=183956" target="_blank">6th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=183553" target="_blank">4th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=183171" target="_blank">2nd October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=182346" target="_blank">28th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=181667" target="_blank">25th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=181320" target="_blank">23rd September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=180107" target="_blank">17th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179944" target="_blank">16th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179706" target="_blank">15th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179538" target="_blank">14th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179090" target="_blank">12th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179016" target="_blank">11th September 2009 and the summer releases</a>
It seems we saw a couple of pre releases and a whole slew of XBLA dumps now homebrew users can run them (note the demos you can download are but a simple hex edit away from becoming full games so you can do this yourself if you want)- as not that many have homebrew these releases will come under the less notable releases in their own for the foreseeable future.
Once again a load of homebrew development happened- those with updates past August the 11th 2009 and many of those with 360s that were made slightly before it (some have also mentioned those in official repair shops) can not run homebrew at this time and that does not look set to change.
For those just joining us the general idea behind these posts is in each post the days (or time since last post if nothing much happens on a given day) summarises the state of the 360 scene, it is done in the subforum as GBAtemp is mainly geared to towards the GBA and current Nintendo consoles but there are a substantial amount of 'tempers familiar with other consoles as well who discuss such things on the 'temp.
We cover big releases (a short writeup, release name, region locking information and NFO), the smaller releases (those without English in are usually covered here although we will cover a big Japanese release on the rare occasions one happens), any nuke information and likewise any confirmed games added to the 360 game verification tool ABGX360 as well as any homebrew news.
We tend to avoid covering the P2P game releases as they are not especially reliable when they beat the scene to releasing (previous years have seen several big releases made ahead of street dates which were later found to not be up to scratch, this has been repeated this year as well) and afterwards there is not much point, this being said if any are of note they will be mentioned in passing.
If you have any suggestions for the format of the post or things we should add please chime in, things will calm down now but if you want to help out have a look at the recruitment thread:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179009" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179009</a>
The wave 4 and 5 section as well as the notes on banning have been moved to the "useful things to know" section that appears at the end of these posts.
<!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Nukes and related news as well as less notable releases.</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<u><b>Nukes</b></u>
One nuke since last post (ABGX now lists 217).
<b>Battlefield_1943_REPACK_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperPolla</b> got nuked for being a dupe.
Official reason
Nuked on 2009-12-15 19:24:12 dupe.SuperX360.2009-12-15 [EliteNet]
<u><b>Less notable releases</b></u>
Several since last time.
<b>Assassins_Creed_2_KOR_XBOX360-CLARE</b> A Korean region dupe of Assassins_Creed_2
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2033" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Shin_Sangoku_Musou_Multi_Raid_Special_NFOFix_KOR_XBOX360-CLARE</b> and <b>Shin_Sangoku_Musou_Multi_Raid_Special_KOR_XBOX360-CLARE</b>
Korean region dupes of Shin Sangoku Musou Multi Raid Special (Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce) according to the NFO. Set for a US release in early February.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2030" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a> <a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2031" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO fix link</a>
<b>Fallout.3.Goty.Edition.FRENCH.NTSC.XBOX360-IND</b>- Apparently a US source (PAL and US region compatible) French version of Fallout 3 GOTY edition (two discs, one is the original game while the second is the expansions released).
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2007" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Call_of_Duty_Modern_Warfare_2_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan</b>- Japanese version of Modern Warfare 2.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=2002" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Samurai_Spirits_Zen_JAP_XBOX360-KFC</b>- A fighting game and part of the long running Samurai Shodown series. Unknown region locking or it would be in the main post.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1996" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Fallout_3_Game_Of_The_Year_Edition_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan</b>- Japanese region dupe of Fallout 3 GOTY.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1988" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>The.Saboteur.PAL.iTALiAN.XBOX360-DNL</b> and <b>The.Saboteur.PAL.GERMAN.XBOX360-DNL</b>- Italian and German region dupes of The Saboteur.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1989" target="_blank">Italian ludibria.com NFO link</a> <a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1985" target="_blank">German ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>Assassins_Creed_2_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan</b>- Japanese region dupe of Assassins Creed 2.
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1986" target="_blank">ludibria.com NFO link</a>
<b>XBLA games</b>
A new section- the rebooter apps for those with homebrew capable 360s bring many nice features including the ability to ignore signing of downloaded games.
It was also discovered that purchased games differ only from demos by a simple string, apps to edit it yourself also now exist.
Naturally this is about as big a ban me sign as you can get so make sure you know what you are doing.
Our scene only policy still applies here as trying to wade through the p2p explosion is something that is not going to happen. Just release names, ABGX has NFO links and
UNO_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Undertow_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Ultimate_Mortal_Kombat_3_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
The_King_of_Fighers_98_Ultimate_Match_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
R-Type_Dimensions_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Mr_Driller_Online_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
1942_Joint_Strike_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Castlevania_SOTN_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Gyromancer_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Marvel_vs_Capcom_2_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Puzzle_Fighter_HD_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Garou_MOW_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Bomberman_Live_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Ikaruga_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Outrun_Online_Arcade_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Qix_Plus_Plus_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Triggerheart_Exelica_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Triggerheart_Exelica_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Qix_Plus_Plus_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Puzzle_Fighter_HD_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Outrun_Online_Arcade_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Marvel_vs_Capcom_2_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Ikaruga_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Gyromancer_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Garou_MOW_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Castlevania_SOTN_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Bomberman_Live_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Battlefield_1943_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Call.of.Duty.Classic.XBLA.PAL.XBOX360-SLV
Shinobi.XBLA.PAL.XBOX360-SLV
Prince.of.Persia.Classic.XBLA.PAL.XBOX360-SLV
Sam.and.Max.Beyond.Time.and.Space.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
NBA.Unrivaled.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Magic.The.Gathering.Duels.of.the.Planeswalkers.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Duke.Nukem.3D.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Defense.Grid.The.Awakening.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Zombie.Apocalypse.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Trials.HD.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Splosion.Man.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Shadow.Complex.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Inferno.Pool.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Castle.Crashers.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Undertow_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Ultimate_Mortal_Kombat_3_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
The_King_of_Fighers_98_Ultimate_Match_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
R-Type_Dimensions_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Mr_Driller_Online_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
1942_Joint_Strike_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Castlevania_SOTN_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Gyromancer_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Marvel_vs_Capcom_2_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Puzzle_Fighter_HD_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Garou_MOW_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Bomberman_Live_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Ikaruga_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Outrun_Online_Arcade_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Qix_Plus_Plus_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Triggerheart_Exelica_NFOFIX_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Triggerheart_Exelica_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Qix_Plus_Plus_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Puzzle_Fighter_HD_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Outrun_Online_Arcade_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Marvel_vs_Capcom_2_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Ikaruga_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Gyromancer_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Garou_MOW_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Castlevania_SOTN_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Bomberman_Live_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Battlefield_1943_XBLA_XBOX360-SuperX360
Call.of.Duty.Classic.XBLA.PAL.XBOX360-SLV
Shinobi.XBLA.PAL.XBOX360-SLV
Prince.of.Persia.Classic.XBLA.PAL.XBOX360-SLV
Sam.and.Max.Beyond.Time.and.Space.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
NBA.Unrivaled.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Magic.The.Gathering.Duels.of.the.Planeswalkers.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Duke.Nukem.3D.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Defense.Grid.The.Awakening.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Zombie.Apocalypse.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Trials.HD.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Splosion.Man.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Shadow.Complex.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Inferno.Pool.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
Castle.Crashers.XBLA.USA.XBOX360-Open360
<u><b>Homebrew</b></u>
Lots and lots of stuff has happened here, I still intend to do a one off round up of the homebrew developments at some point and indeed an abridged version (with minor updates since last post) will appear here.
First bannings, they have happened, they appear to be related to the firmware of the drive being detected (which should be sorted in an upcoming firmware but not with what exists) and have taken some functionality from the console in addition to live.
Several things can be done:
1) restore an old NAND backup from before the ban (but not so early as to be before efuses were blown). Requires you have a pre ban backup.
2) ground the write protect switch of the NAND (people usually stick a switch in too as writing is useful on occasion). Requires you do to it before you get banned.
As an aside there is a crude detection method here, it is not foolproof by any means but it is simple to do, read more here:
<a href="http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1751.nfo" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1751.nfo</a>
3) Due to the way things work there are older secdata.bin files buried within the NAND. As they are already signed you can swap them around at will and some of these backups will be from when you could still use the hard drive installs and sign profiles for other machines.
Knowledge of all three is useful but in the case of 1 and 3 you will need the ability to backup the NAND. You can do this as part of homebrew although it should be noted that the hardware side of the JTAG hack (the part with diodes) is not necessary or even advised you do if you are only playing with previously signed data and your NAND (indeed if you have been banned in this latest wave your homebrew options are non existent) .
More here:
<a href="http://www.free60.org/Reading_out_NAND" target="_blank">http://www.free60.org/Reading_out_NAND</a>
There is a USB version available but it is quite expensive to pull off, search xbox hacker forums for it.
The initial hack required you to manually search the dump but there are now automated tools that can pull the relevant data and pretty much do everything but flash it back for you.
<a href="http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12759.msg87614#msg87614" target="_blank">http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=...g87614#msg87614</a>
Xbox-scene have a list of some others as well but the link above is the "best" at present, you can read more about them on their post:
<a href="http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=697512" target="_blank">http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=697512</a>
Some more links
<a href="http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=697231" target="_blank">http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=697231</a>
<a href="http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12759.0" target="_blank">http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12759.0</a>
For those of you still with homebrew capable consoles a tool was released over at <a href="http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2355" target="_blank">http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2355</a> that allows you to easily fiddle with keyvaults on your 360 to do things like region changing and drive key changing (this might be useful to "clone" a 360 for XBLA stuff.
More importantly for homebrew capable consoles it seems the rebooters have been continued to be worked upon and we now have two
1) Freeboot
2) XBReboot
Freeboot is presently tied to a console with dual NAND but supports more of them while XBReboot is limited to xenon consoles but can be flashed to the original NAND.
The idea behind this is that the 360 only checks the kernel on hard boot but by soft resetting into a kernel you can mess with it as much as you like.
The first thing they do is to make games think they are running on a later kernel (well they actually are) but the mess with it as much as you like thing is what is important.
Even at this stage we have signing checks disabled on hard drives (any hard drive will work), signing on 360 xex files (hacked games), region locking gone, live/pirs stuff not needing to be signed: modding of hard drive content ranging from downloaded stuff like map packs to XBLA stuff.
A thread that discusses it in more depth:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193887" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193887</a>
Although since that thread a new version of xbrebooter has appeared:
<a href="http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1755.nfo" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1755.nfo</a>
As mentioned in the other sections xbox live arcade (XBLA) demos differ only from full games by a few bytes and we can run unsigned code including XBLA stuff. This meant a flood of games and a few tools to patch said change into the game.
A program XeXLoader also appeared. It sports an interesting feature list including
Feature list:
* Launch media-patched XEXs from any storage device
* Manage the filesystems of all storage devices
* Rip any inserted game to any storage device (ISO Extraction) (Still requires patching with XexTool(info) to remove media check)
Those familiar with the wii are perhaps thinking USB loader and you would not be far off.
Perhaps of interest to most is the release of a hacked iextreme 1.6 for the liteon 83xxxxx v2 and 9 series. (This means all drives are once again hackable)
<a href="http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1754.nfo" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1754.nfo</a>
1.6 seems to be what is getting people banned from live but it is there if you want it.
As the drives mentioned were previously deemed not able to be hacked you also have a method to dump the drives, the first methods were somewhat difficult but the current one is somewhat easier (still harder than anything before it though).:
<a href="http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12956.msg88305#msg88305" target="_blank">http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=...g88305#msg88305</a>
GBAtemp thread:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193838" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193838</a>
The LT firmware apparently ran into problems and had to go back to coding again so still no ETA.It has also been mentioned that the new lite touch firmware has been completed and is presently in testing (still no ETA). A few people have tweaked older iextreme firmwares in addition to just falling back to them in light of wave 4 and bans. They are not necessary unless you already know what you are doing.
Finally just to make it a proper roundup a few weeks back the 250 gig HDDSS.bin file was released allowing you to make 250 gig hard drives for about the price of a 120 gig official one (this may be somewhat redundant for some with the release of the rebooter apps which can work with any drive and not the select few the official xbox works with). It also saw the return of interest in the tools to play with 360 hard drives and the guides surrounding it. We have now also seen some of the game updates get bundled and released to the scene (more in the releases section), the main tool of choice is xplorer360:
<a href="http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox360-tools/Xplorer360.php" target="_blank">http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox360-tools/Xplorer360.php</a>
Basically if you encounter/have a homebrew capable 360 hang onto it as things are looking very good.
<b>Additions to ABGX360</b>
We suggest you use the link below and the abgx360 tool as the site does not use scene naming meaning it can be quite hard to tell entries apart, this is just for reference really (RF= region free)
ABGX360 ( <a href="http://abgx360.net/verified.php" target="_blank">Web frontend to verified database</a> ) added:
MX vs. ATV Reflex <i>RF</i> (4th Wave)
Hasbro Family Game Night <i>NTSC/U</i> (4th Wave)
<!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Releases</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Release dates can be found here: <a href="http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/" target="_blank">http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/</a> although the dates on gamefaqs seem to be slightly "off" and as usual are subject to change at the last moment.
You can still consider the year finished but as the post below shows things can still appear ahead of time. Remember Guitar Hero: Van Halen was released months back. Darksiders, Army of Two: The 40th Day and a US release of Divinity II: Ego Draconis are the next things I expect we will see in terms of anticipated games seen as Bayonetta was released (in post below)
As an aside if possible the NFOs are being sent as unicode/some encoding that will not lose the format if possible which means we may not lose the ASCII art any more (I am far too lazy to make up picture NFOs not to mention I like text), for old ones perhaps <a href="http://shailendra88.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-view-nfo-files-in-firefox.html" target="_blank">http://shailendra88.blogspot.com/2009/02/h...in-firefox.html</a> is of some use.
In order of most recent to pre:
<b>Venetica.PAL.XBOX360-DAMNATION</b>
PAL release- unknown region locking
DAMNATION are new to the 360 (there has been another scene group called damnation) and they start off bringing us a new western developed RPG from Deck13 Interactive (probably best know for the Ankh series on the PC) called Venetica. The NFO does not make it clear but this game already has a German localised version released (a bit like Divinity 2 back in September) so until this is cleared up please note it may be German only. The PC version saw very good reviews only brought down for technical issues so this could be one to watch as the 360 version had a few months to sort these.
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->Venetica.PAL.XBOX360-DAMNATION
Release: 17/12-2009
Platform: Xbox360
Source: DVD9
Region: PAL
Genre: Action/Roleplay
Gameinfo:
Venetica stars Scarlett, the daughter of Death who
is the world's last hope at stopping an evil
necromancer whose ultimate goal is to bring death
and destruction to the world.
With no knowledge of her origins or the power
that she possesses, Scarlett must learn how to
develop and use her powers to save her father and
defeat the necromancer and his henchmen.<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
Release: 17/12-2009
Platform: Xbox360
Source: DVD9
Region: PAL
Genre: Action/Roleplay
Gameinfo:
Venetica stars Scarlett, the daughter of Death who
is the world's last hope at stopping an evil
necromancer whose ultimate goal is to bring death
and destruction to the world.
With no knowledge of her origins or the power
that she possesses, Scarlett must learn how to
develop and use her powers to save her father and
defeat the necromancer and his henchmen.<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
<b>Bayonetta.PAL.XBOX360-SWAG</b>
Region free, wave 3 (it was set for an earlier release but was pushed back by other games being released at the same time).
Bayonetta appears to fall somewhere Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry in gameplay and all reviews thus far have been overwhelmingly positive. BiscuitBee made a thread for this game in my absence so you are invited to go there for some discussion on the game:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=196150" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=196150</a>
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<b>Scene_It_Bright_Lights_Big_Screen_PAL_XBOX360-STRANGE</b>
PAL source, (US release region locked US only Japanese consoles out but left Europe and US consoles)
Some have nuked it for pointless reasons like rar size but I doubt it will stick, some are also not displaying this release.
Film trivia game, you know if you like this sort of thing. Personally I would play a few rounds of <a href="http://www.akinator.com/" target="_blank">http://www.akinator.com/</a> instead.
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ÂÂÂÂÂÂ▄▀ Release date: 02/12/09 Source: DVD9ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ▀▄
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ÂÂÂÂÂÂ▄▀ Release date: 02/12/09 Source: DVD9ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ▀▄
▄▄▄█▀ Platform: Xbox360ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂRegion: PALÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ▀█▄▄▄
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<!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Useful things to know</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
First the current WIP GBAtemp 360 FAQ (not the same one that is stickied), it should cover most questions you might have on the 360 although it too is looking a bit out of date right now:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=157263" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=157263</a>
<b>XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340</b>
<a href="http://pix.gbatemp.net/32303/XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://pix.gbatemp.net/32303/XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340.png.tn.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Click on the image and it will load up the full picture.
Some sections of the scene also use the general console release standards as well as the 360 ones.
As many of you know modding your xbox can lead to a ban from xbox live (more or less the only recourse Microsoft have), we do not know the exact methods used to detect modding but it is a fair guess that it is related to the games not appearing as originals for various reasons although the last few months have seen this opinion shift to MS being able to detect the hacked firmware by some method.
While playing games prior to street dates has been considered and indeed as of mid October 2009 MS have been seen to be targeting those who have as yet "unreleased" games on their profiles it is still somewhat up in the air.
On the other hand prerelease games can sometimes be bad dumps, dumps from non retail sources, bad packing of dumps like any other dump but without a retail copy it is markedly difficult to verify a release beyond the basics. The tool AGBX360 is used to verify isos, directories and games burned to disc and can fix isos and directories if necessary but requires this data (a basic check using the data the game holds is still possible though).
Those who do not care about being banned from live or are willing to risk it then not much need to worry unless otherwise mentioned (as an example the first leaks of Halo 3 ODST were bad which meant while they would run a good chunk of gameplay was missing).
Little bits of 360 release history will be covered from time to time but if you want to delve into the substantial back catalogue of games for the 360 then
<a href="http://www.abgx.net/filename/?ch=6" target="_blank">http://www.abgx.net/filename/?ch=6</a> has release names and a great deal of info.
Another site that is also very useful is (they are frequently a source of the NFOs posted with these releases)
<a href="http://www.ludibria.com" target="_blank">http://www.ludibria.com</a>
Other sites with useful tools and info are
<a href="http://abgx360.net/" target="_blank">http://abgx360.net/</a> (the homepage for a tool to verify and fix games, once a game is added to their database a more thorough check can be performed).
<a href="http://www.xbins.org/" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/</a> the web frontend to an FTP site dedicated to homebrew for the original xbox and 360, easyxbins is a nice tool to access the FTP site ( <a href="http://www.360mods.net/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=29" target="_blank">http://www.360mods.net/index.php?name=Down...tails&id=29</a> )
We will leave info on how to flash xboxes for games and/or homebrew to other threads as it occasionally moves fast and is better left to them.
The 360 supports region locking leaving it to developers and publishers to choose what is done (other than German releases what will be done is very unpredictable).
Those without a homebrew enabled 360 (even then it takes a bit of effort) will find region locking is not able to be bypassed on the 360.
There is no great worry unless you are sporting a Japanese 360 (English language games are often region locked out and Japanese xbox games can take months to appear) as game releases usually fall very close together region wise these days. Close together means usually within a week and this still usually means before street dates in respective countries.
It has not come up here but it has in other places; region free is region free and it does not matter what territory the game that was ripped comes from so if there is a region free NTSC sourced release and you are in a PAL country do not wait on a PAL release unless you are waiting for a given language as it will not happen (and if it does scene rules tend to mean the release is nuked), similarly we are going to shift to just stating the regions a game is locked to rather than sources to try and eliminate some confusion unless it is unknown at the time of posting.
There are four regions as far as the 360 is concerned being Japan (NTSC-J), USA (NTSC-U), Europe (PAL) and China (NTSC-C), Australia counts as PAL and anyone anywhere else in the world will probably have an imported 360 so I will leave that to the owners to figure out. China and Japan usually overlap along with the rest of Asia but not always (there are not all that many Chinese releases anyhow).
It is incredibly rare but occasionally releases can vary by region, it is mainly a licensing (think music games) or data thing (big games may forgo a language) or even have multiple languages per "area" (Canadian area releases may have French and English while US releases may have Spanish and English).
As mentioned there is now a homebrew method that works on new consoles (previous ones would only work on consoles without HDMI) provided you have not done the August 11th 2009 update or any subsequent ones. Many versions of Xell (the homebrew loader) have now been compiled so most 360 models are now hackable. If you have updated you are out of luck as a fuse will have been blown.
There are two main options being considered:
1) Flashing a different region code- unless you have a dual nand chip (one region on each) this is a fairly long winded process but it does work.
If you can ignore the text speak xbox scene has a guide (we suggest you use it as a rough guide to understand what is going on):
<a href="http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=693753" target="_blank">http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=693753</a>
Also <a href="http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2355" target="_blank">http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2355</a>
If you should manage to have your motherboard/cpu key and provided you do not downgrade then you should even be able to do it on a post august the 11th xbox, this is probably a very small subset of people but if you were hanging on with the intention of doing this sort of thing you might be in luck.
Chip development (NAND chips this is) is also progressing once again.
2) A "rebooter" app- The general idea is to (soft) reboot into a custom kernel/similar which handily ignores things like region checking.
In late November/early December 2009 some tools appeared and they were quite developed at that.
They are called xbreboot and freeboot, development is happening quickly so please consult <a href="http://www.xbins.org/" target="_blank">http://www.xbins.org/</a> xbox-scene or the forums here for more up to date news.
A handful of 360 homebrew sites and guides exist (our own forums are also filled with knowledgeable people too) so for the curious
<a href="http://www.free60.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">Free60 (the base of the current homebrew work)</a>
<a href="http://www.eurasia.nu/wiki/index.php?pagename=Free60JtagHack" target="_blank">Euraisa writeup of the new hack and how it works</a>
<a href="http://www.xboxhacker.net" target="_blank">Xboxhacker.net (forums frequented by the Free60 crew and many others)</a>
Any discussion on those sites will be of a highly technical nature and a similar level of knowledge/ability is expected of you if you decide to join in.
New to this section is a short note on wave 4 and beyond,
Wave 4 (and wave 5) which has workarounds available is upon us, see wave 4 thread for more: <a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185528" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185528</a>
While wave 4 is now nearly certain in a release there are the odd handful of games slipping through the cracks.
A wave4 and 5 supporting iextreme (version 1.61) is now available for benq and samsung drive users, spoofing is still entirely possible and thanks to tools like jungleflasher or even firmtool it is very simple to pull off if you should you have a spare/old drive around.
1.51 hitachi users should be able to boot without any special measures at all.
1.6 users (available to all but Hitachi) can still use the one shot boot disc.
1.61 for all other drives has been cancelled in favour of lite touch (LT) which is a further branch/evolution of the firmware. No ETA and not a great deal of information is available on it though.
ABGX360 has now been updated to support wave 4 games as well.
Many people who have also been banned and that have older drives have also gone back to the xtreme firmwares or non stealth iextreme.
Guides to and tools to patch a game to a given wave are also available but we strongly suggest you do not use them and certainly do not get to rely on them at this time (even if you are not on live we would say think twice) as updates to iextreme will probably render your discs useless.
MS have started their ban wave (the term wave is looking a bit incorrect mind as it seems to be detection rather than the usual ways) for Autumn/Winter 2009, no word on who how people are being targeted (people with all drive models, all drive firmwares, abgx360 checked games, before release and after release playing have reported bans while others are carrying on business as usual). c4e/commodore4eva has stated that some tests are ongoing to try and determine what goes.
Note that banning is no longer just a lack of live (system link still works and a lot of you will find you are able to use VPN to play with local friends) but a lack of hard drive installs and a few network streaming abilities so it might be worth pulling the network cable for a while.
We have got a few things that can be done though if you are willing to use some of the homebrew techniques mentioned above to restore lost functionality (other than live of course).
Banning thread thread here:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188345&st=0&start=0" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188...t=0&start=0</a>
Some people have taken to trying to see if they have been banned by starting a recall order, if it fails a ban is probably to come shortly after.
Good news is that if you restore a NAND dump from before the ban your hard drive abilities will return for the most part and everyone should now have the ability to do such a thing (you can backup NAND regardless of kernel but be careful if you update and try to restore an old backup as fuses might have been blown and the 360 will fail to boot), MS have also left old copies of data in the NAND so you can dump the NAND and restore an older secdata.bin.
It might have been mentioned in passing but there is also a relatively simple hardware tweak you can do but be prepared to reverse it in months to come.
<a href="http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2483&mode=&order=0&thold=0" target="_blank">http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name=New...r=0&thold=0</a>
This happened a little while back now but they apparently cracking down on games being played before street dates as well (a change from their actions in the past), more here:
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186000&hl=" target="_blank">http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186000&hl=</a>
<b>Previous 360 release threads</b>
The follow links are to the older release threads, if there is some time between threads anything that happened between threads will be covered.
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=194224" target="_blank">2nd December 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193562" target="_blank">28th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=193139" target="_blank">26th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=191910" target="_blank">19th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=191045" target="_blank">15th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=190439" target="_blank">12th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=190082" target="_blank">10th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188435" target="_blank">4th November 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188435" target="_blank">31st October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=187977" target="_blank">28th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=187667" target="_blank">26th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186802" target="_blank">21st October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186608" target="_blank">20th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186102" target="_blank">17th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185995" target="_blank">16th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185550" target="_blank">14th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185003" target="_blank">11th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=184603" target="_blank">9th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=184168" target="_blank">7th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=183956" target="_blank">6th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=183553" target="_blank">4th October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=183171" target="_blank">2nd October 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=182346" target="_blank">28th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=181667" target="_blank">25th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=181320" target="_blank">23rd September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=180107" target="_blank">17th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179944" target="_blank">16th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179706" target="_blank">15th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179538" target="_blank">14th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179090" target="_blank">12th September 2009</a>
<a href="http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179016" target="_blank">11th September 2009 and the summer releases</a>
