# The wonderful (possibly illegal) world of XboX



## DreG_02 (Nov 2, 2004)

Bought an Xbox from a friend recently, got it modded within one week. It's really interesting the things you can do with a modded xbox. 
Cant wait for halo 2 to come out, I'll tell ya, it's really fun .

Any of the rest of your xbox gamers out there? want to mod your box or just talk xbox lingo? come one come all!


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## aftermath (Nov 2, 2004)

I am fairly certain modding is illegal  I modded my playstation. it was great. but i think it breaches copy right laws, making it illegal. so i discarded my ps when someone told me that. 

I'm not a huge fan of the xbox because i'm more into rpg's. the xbox does have some great rp titles, but ,ost of them are for the pc, and i already have one. halo 2 does look cool, but i bet it'll be on pc a year after its released. 

Has anyone heard rumors about the next gen systems yet? is microsoft going to continue with the race, because a xbox 2 just mite tempt me enough....


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## Brian G Turner (Nov 2, 2004)

Excuse my ignorance, but what improvements or features are involved in "modding" an Xbox or PS 2?


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## aftermath (Nov 2, 2004)

When you 'mod' a console system, it will allow you to play burnt games. the only problem with modding the new consoles is that it with sometimes fry the motherboard or overheat the system, melting it. 

and you need a dvd burner to copy the games properly.


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## mac1 (Nov 2, 2004)

The modification of consoles is something of a grey area, it is perfectly legal to modify something that is your own propery, however, the purchase or use of "backup" games which you do not own the originals to, is illegal. 

Anyway enough of that, Hi Dreg, can I ask which mod chip you went for, and how much did it cost? Did you send it away to be modded, or did you do it yourself? If you sent it away, was the company that did it reliable? I have been half considering modding my box for years now, but when the mods first came out, it was a case of using a soldering iron to reroute connections on the motherboard, i had just forked out £300 for the X-Box and didnt want to mess it up, the companys that did the mods were all too expensive too, but I would guess thats probably changed.

To answer your question Brian, a remarkable amount! There is a Unix based operating system now available for the box, it can play DivX and Xvid movies as well as VCD. There have been emulator releases allowing you to play SNES, NES, Gameboy, Genesis, Master Sytem, Gamegear ROMs on it, all well as practically every other console before them, from the Atari 2600, to the Amiga, to the Intellivision and the C64. As aftermath points out, it also allows for copyed DVD games, but its uses are far more extensive than simple piracy! If you wanted you could do desktop publishing on the X-Box, and run it as a fairly simple PC. If you had the programing knowledge, you could even turn your X-Box into the hardware workings of a MAME emulator based home-built arcade machine!


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## Brian G Turner (Nov 2, 2004)

Ah - now that makes sense. 

 I remember when people talked of modding the Playstation 1 with chipped versions, or else buying from Japan. But those were the days when a bit of blutack on the eject would do the trick.


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## Spirit_Caller (Nov 3, 2004)

Sony have been in uproar about folks chipping or modding their sets and have taken the issue to the courts. Sadly it has now been found to be illegal to modify your set from its original state. Though the still is the grey area about having backup copies of your original, as the law at present says you can. Why you would want to have a backup when it wont run on an unmodified set I dont know!!???? Personally speaking we have had both our PS1,2 and XBox tinkered with and haven't looked back. Maybe the producers of the games should look at their pricing and think why people do do this.


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