1. Actually, the new mod is for the Hitachi-LG drives only. Different drives = different firmware, so the same solution cannot be used for both.

Also, thanks for implying that people that are interested in modding are also devoid of ethics, it's awesome when stereotypes like that are perpetrated, especially by sites I used to have some respect for! Kudos!

Granted, I realize that this mod doesn't really (yet) open up the 360 to homebrew possibilities, but there are many among us, myself included, who mod for the joy of modding (perhaps you're not a geek, but for geeks it's actually pretty fun to open up something electronic and make it perform in ways it wasn't originally designed to).

Also, let's not forget that 360's like to scratch disks to the point of being unsuable; which is a better solution in your mind? 1 - back up the software that you bought, 2 - pay EB an extra $10 insurance.

Finally, on the subject of your fear-mongering, while it may be funny (even more so if you BELIEVE it) There is NO POSIBILITY WHATSOEVER that MS will "brick" your console. Why? Because even in a post-dcma world that crosses so many legal lines that they would be driven out of business overnight. Doing something like that is 100x more illegal than a firmware mod. Worst case scenario they'll ban your Xbox from live permanently, and most likely your account. But hey, thanks for playing :)

Posted at 6:57PM on Jun 15th 2006 by AoE

2. Please keep in mind that I mentioned that developers deserve their money. People who hack their console for homebrew won't be hurting developers. You'll notice the other -- positive -- story I posted about a full case mod today, too. Any implicit condemnation of *all* modders was unintentional.

And, as always, to each his own.

Posted at 8:11PM on Jun 15th 2006 by Richard Mitchell

3. AoE, Quit moving your 360 around while you play it for one, and modding just to do it. Thats fine. But like the writer said. Microsoft can brick your console faster than you can bitch on a blog! Who says they can't brick it anyway? Being banned from live or better yet, totally removing any way to connect to live or the marketplace or anything like that from the console is something they can totally do, and that would be bricking it to me.

So ethically speaking, any form of breaking copy protection is against the law. Doesn't matter if you want to "mod" it just to watch your geek porn on it"

Posted at 8:17PM on Jun 15th 2006 by djphatjive

4. Perhaps I over-reacted some, in which case I am sorry. Please understand though, until a year or so ago I was a happy care-free modder who used to spend much of my free time making skins for one of my favorite xbox games/game series in general; that is until the manufacturer decided to crush us and ruin our fun; even though we were anti-piracy (in fact pointed pirates who visited toward the nearest game store to get a legit copy if they wanted to enjoy our mods).

I hope you'll understand if I over-react to misinformation about modding and the modding community these days...

Posted at 8:30PM on Jun 15th 2006 by AoE

5. AoE,

No harm, no foul. By all means correct me if I make a mistake. That's why we have comments.

Believe me, I tinkered around with my Dreamcast :)

Posted at 9:33PM on Jun 15th 2006 by Richard Mitchell

6. What is the percentage of modders who do not possess pirated software for the modded console?

Simple question. What is the honest answer?

Posted at 12:00PM on Jun 16th 2006 by Thomas Crymes

7. AoE: I understand your frustration, and I'm the author of the quoted article where I also take some potshots at warezkiddies, but comeon answer Thomas' question honestly? As frustrated as you are about people overreacting to modding and everything, so frustrated are the game developers at "real do-good hackers that only hack the system because we want to run homebrew yessirree!" and as such then publicly release a firmware that can only do 1 thing: play illegal software, play illegal software and play illegal software. Don't give me that crap about backups, if your disc gets unusable because of a scratch that wasn't caused by you doing the unspeakably stupid thing of rotating your console while running, you call the publisher and you got a replacement disc within a few days. Nobody needs backups, this hack is only intended to facilitate warezkiddies that can laugh Beavis&Butthead style at the fact that they only paid $10 for their copied games. To an even bigger criminal than they themselves are.

Luckily, Microsoft can completely legally brick the machine, despite your avid claims otherwise. No ofcourse they won't overwrite the whole kernel of the machine with #BAADF00D or #DEADBEEF or anything, that would indeed cross some legal boundaries that even MS would have troubles with. However, as long as unsigned code is lightyears away, every new game can happily enforce the latest dashboard update and contain tons of detection code that cannot be modified. As such, modding your console in June 2006 may very well, in a very likely scenario, completely legally render it incapable of running any games released after June 2006. Good luck with your $400 machine that cannot run homebrew or new games. I call that effectively "bricked".

As for hacker ethics, this Commodore4Eva guy is a plain old criminal that has nothing to do with being a hacker. Read my interview with the real hackers that invented this hack: http://www.xboxic.com/news/501

All C4e did was take somebody else's work that they explicitly didn't want to publish, and make it available to the general public with no other purpose than allowing them to run illegal copies. The guy is a criminal and should be locked up, simple as that.

Having said all that, I have no principal objection whatsoever to hacking or modding, I think both are great hobbies. But both have to serve a purpose, and a legal one at that. Ofcourse running homebrew can be great (although my honest opinion is still "buy a PC you retard" if you buy a console for homebrew), but keep Thomas' question in mind: I know lots of people with modded boxes. And none would be able to plead non-guilty to his question.

Posted at 4:27AM on Jun 19th 2006 by Curry