Xbox 360 Hacks - News, Hacks, Cracks, Mods.

From Major Nelson:
“As you may have read online, we’ve been actively banning consoles from Xbox LIVE that have been modified to play pirated games. Our commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox LIVE community remains a top priority. All consumers should know that piracy is illegal, and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs, violates the Xbox LIVE terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox LIVE. The health of the video game business depends on customers paying for the genuine products and services they receive from manufacturers, retailers, and the third parties that support them. This would also be a good time to remind you that the warranty on an Xbox 360 console is not transferrable and if you purchase a used console that has been previously banned, you will not be able to connect to Xbox LIVE.”

This was November 4th, and some reports have already come in from console owners.

Our Ban thread

What’s new/fixed:
* iXtreme 1.61 support
* 1 minor bug
* other work was planned but leak of 1.61 prompted this quick fix

Official Site: http://jungleflasher.net

IXtreme fw for Benq and Samsung drives!

Features
——–
-Strict Wave 4 compliance! hybrid (modified disks) will not boot!
-Strict Wave 3 compliance! hybrid (modified disks) will not boot!
-Strict drive speed compliance – 12x only for game discs!
-Support for SS V2!
-Integrated 0800 for game dumping including SS v2!
-Full support for all known game exceptions! eg ddr etc!
-One shot boot mode! – allows a one off boot of gamedisc without -stealth/partition checks (will still use stealth), use activate.iso disk to activate each time!
-Support for easy drive key/version info cmd, same as liteon!
-Strict stealth/wave checking, one shot boot mode will boot wave(x)!

eam HyperX now officially released the new firmwares and the readme/nfo confirms it comes with ‘Strict’ Wave 4 compliance:

-Strict Wave 4 compliance! hybrid (modified disks) will not boot!
Strict Wave 4 compliance means wave 4 games will only boot if they have correct PFI/DMI/SS and timestamp for wave 4

Note for unofficial releases:
It is highly recommended that you do not flash unverified or unofficial releases. We often do not implement specific security features in beta firmwares that are neccessary precaution’s to help keep everyone as safe as possible on Xbox Live.

Microsoft Confirms LIVE Console Ban Wave to IGN: “We have taken action against a small percentage of consoles that have been modified to play pirated game discs,” a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN. “In line with our commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox LIVE community, we are suspending these modded consoles from Xbox LIVE.”

Microsoft also added this is a standing policy and isn’t tied to any specific time-frame.

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New Console Ban Wave on Xbox LIVE? We are getting some new information on console bans in the forums, and home page.  Use the the thread HERE to post your ban info only.  As always, it doesn’t seem to be linked to any particular FW version or drive model.  Users with all type of CFWs, and drives, have report bans, while others with the same configuration still seem fine.

A new version (v1.61) of the iXtreme DVD Firmware for both Samsung and BenQ DVD drives has been released. A Lite-on version is still in development and will be released later (NO ETA).

These were released without any type of readme or NFO, but early user reports claim they work fine like v1.6 with added support for ‘Wave 4′ discs.

Xamp from Xbox Scene has released a patched version of Xplorer360 to work with the 250GB HDD.

The Good:
* Drag and drop content to and from (inject/extract) confirmed working on both Partitions 2 and 3.

The Bad:
* Do not use any sort of backup or restore image features with this patched version.
* Do not use this version with 20, 60, or 120 gig drives.

The Details:
* Changed the cluster chain length value to 00 08 39 at offset 0xF0C2.

As it says, DO NOT use with the other drives, and backup does not work. So, maybe a later release will be fully functional.

When you sign in to Xbox LIVE you will receive a prompt to accept this mandatory update. If you are signed into LIVE already, you may be signed out and asked to accept the update and you’ll be back online in a few moments.

This update does not include the Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and Zune features. Those will be coming to Xbox LIVE later next month. This update adds WPA2 support for the Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter.

IT was said that an update for the product will be released shortly to enable the device once again!

“Due to recent actions by Microsoft, there is a possibility that these memory units will not fully function after the upcoming Microsoft Dashboard update.

Datel are aware of the changes that are required to remedy this problem and will shortly release a solution in readiness for this potential update. This will be made available to you and your retail / domestic customers shortly. In the meantime if you are holding any stock of this product you can, if you wish, return this to us and we will exchange / replace with new updated versions in readiness for the Microsoft Dashboard release.”

mputten from ombouwservice-webshop.com reports that he’s seen new Xbox 360 consoles without the 2nd-GPU heatsink/heatpipe (like the early Xenon consoles). This European Forza3-pack Xbox 360 Elite has a MFG 2009-08-17, LOT 0942. It seems like Microsoft is now confident enough their HW no longer needs the extra GPU heatsink.

The device also came with an Philips-LiteOn DG16D2S-09C drive which seems unreadable by DOSflash atm (’Invalid Drive Data’).