Gaming How does 360 modding actually work?

[Twiffles]

I was talking to Linki a few days ago and I told him I was getting a gift from my grandparents in America. Case in point, the said present can be anything so I might go for a 360. Problem is that it's a NTSC console and obviously can't play JP games. So, I read that there's a way to modify the firmware of the 360 (much like the PSP) so are there actual factors to doing that? Benefits, disadvantages, etc.

Yeah....

 

[DarkSpace]

Well, if I may ask "how are you trying to mod it?" If you can answer I might be able to help. There's peripherals you can attach (I think, I"m not completely sure.) or you may have to open it up.

 

[cory1492]

So, I read that there's a way to modify the firmware of the 360 (much like the PSP) so are there actual factors to doing that?

Nothing like the PSP. If you have a very early revision 360 (which were very prone to overheat problems and are thus quite rare these days), some really good soldering skills, an original edition of king kong where the shaders weren't signed, along with about $100 of aftermarket stuff (infectus, misc parts) and a PC that can flash the SATA drive (and thus a 360 drive that is flashable)... you then would be able to change the region or do something like run linux on it. As far as I know, there is no custom firmware for the 360 - the hypervisor security is pretty tight (not to mention, I'd think the commercial abuse of the xbox1/ps2/wii mods may well be keeping some stuff underground.)

Current 360 mods aside from the one I mention above are just drive firmware mods which you flash the drive chip using a PC with SATA and special flashing software that allow specially created and burned dual layer dvd disks to work with the unit (the data on the disk that can only be pressed normally is shifted to a burnable area and the drive firmware fakes out the authentication responses by redirecting those data reads.) Also, recent machines have a drive which are currently not flashable, so all this banks on getting a drive that actually is flashable.

Region hacks and similar are not possible with this method, as all executables are signed and without the private key they cannot be modified (one exception being the devkits, but thats an entirely different ball park.)

 

[Twiffles]

Hmm, whatever methods that come before getting a actual modchip.

 

[ScuberSteve]

It's much more difficult with a 360 than a PSP, but it's still relatively easy...
You open it up, take out the DVD drive, connect the DVD drive to your computer via SATA, and rewrite the firmware files on it.
By doing this, you should be able to play backed up games on it.
However, I think that region locks are still in place, and are difficult to get around...

EDIT:
No soldering, but warrenties are voided.
Your PC may need a PCI expansion card for the SATA.

 

[cory1492]

Hmm, whatever methods that come before getting a actual modchip.

As I said, the security is pretty tight and most of the hardware is internalized which prevents external modification. I doubt modchips (aside from the "piggyback" ones that already exist for the dvd drive firmware) are in the future of the 360 at all, and from what I know so far anything hardware wise to do such things might well be too invasive to the machine to become any sort of a commercial product that anyone would be willing to use (making commercial exploitation non-existant as there is no market.)

The funny thing is, most of the homebrew 'scene' and discoveries about these systems actually occur before any sort of mod chips are ever made.

 

[Salamantis]

It's much more difficult with a 360 than a PSP, but it's still relatively easy...
You open it up, take out the DVD drive, connect the DVD drive to your computer via SATA, and rewrite the firmware files on it.
By doing this, you should be able to play backed up games on it.
However, I think that region locks are still in place, and are difficult to get around...

EDIT:
No soldering, but warrenties are voided.
Your PC may need a PCI expansion card for the SATA.

Not if you carefully remove the warranty sticker.

If you get the 360 Arcade version, you'll most likely need to solder a 0079 key to it, but the rest you open it up, connect the drive to your PC using SATA and reflash it.

 

[Prime]

It's much more difficult with a 360 than a PSP, but it's still relatively easy...
You open it up, take out the DVD drive, connect the DVD drive to your computer via SATA, and rewrite the firmware files on it.
By doing this, you should be able to play backed up games on it.
However, I think that region locks are still in place, and are difficult to get around...

EDIT:
No soldering, but warrenties are voided.
Your PC may need a PCI expansion card for the SATA.

Not if you carefully remove the warranty sticker.

Opening you console it voiding your warranty.

 

[shaunj66]

It's much more difficult with a 360 than a PSP, but it's still relatively easy...
You open it up, take out the DVD drive, connect the DVD drive to your computer via SATA, and rewrite the firmware files on it.
By doing this, you should be able to play backed up games on it.
However, I think that region locks are still in place, and are difficult to get around...

EDIT:
No soldering, but warrenties are voided.
Your PC may need a PCI expansion card for the SATA.

Not if you carefully remove the warranty sticker.

Opening you console it voiding your warranty.

Not really. They don't seem to check. I sent back my 360 without even bothering to flash back the firmware, with the warranty sticker mangeled and stuck back on (it clearly looked tampered with ) and they sent me back a brand new 360

 

[Salamantis]

It's much more difficult with a 360 than a PSP, but it's still relatively easy...
You open it up, take out the DVD drive, connect the DVD drive to your computer via SATA, and rewrite the firmware files on it.
By doing this, you should be able to play backed up games on it.
However, I think that region locks are still in place, and are difficult to get around...

EDIT:
No soldering, but warrenties are voided.
Your PC may need a PCI expansion card for the SATA.

Not if you carefully remove the warranty sticker.

Opening you console it voiding your warranty.

But if you remove your warranty sticker before they'll have no way of knowing you tampered it >.>

 

[T-hug]

But the only way of them knowing you opened the console is if you ruin the warranty sticker when opening it. A hair dryer should do the job nicely.

Saying that, I sent mine to repairs after RRoD and my sticker was a right mess. Still got it repaired and it has worked just great ever since *touches wood*.
Hell shaunj66 sent his back with a flashed drive and they still hooked him up with repairs.

@Twiffles tbh, with 360 it's best to get a PAL console. Why PAL you ask? Well this is the first scene I can think of where majority of game rips hitting the net are PAL first, and if region free, the USA release is usually region free also.
Unless you can read Japanese well, there's really no point in keeping that 360.

[-EDIT-]
Sorry I got mixed up, I thought it was a JPN 360 you had. Oh well, same applys, as JPN releases are the only ones with full region lock on like 99% of the games.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Yeah like everyone said a lot of games are still region locked even after flashing to iXtreme. I'm pretty sure the PS3 is completely region free when it comes to games however, with no modding required. And at $400 us dollars, it's only slightly more than the 360 (or less if you bought an elite).
There are quite a few 360 region free titles but like thug said when it comes to japanese releases most are region locked.

 

[porchemasi]

All reading devices have pre-loaded firmware built in. You can run a program to flash new or edited firmware legally and illegally. Editing the firmware to allow the drive to read what it can but was restricted to previously is what is done on the 360. Legal uses would be to fix bugs or improve performance on dvd burners ect ....