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

“Teabag ‘em Larry!” Check out CyberPyrot’s latest and greatest [acid] mod — jump, melee, whatever — you name it.

FYI — the reed relay closing on the controller board causes that clicking noise. Tutorial, more vids, pics — all available via the source link.

- source: AcidMods.com

A new firmware enhancement for the VAD6038 Xbox360 DVD-ROM drive and a new XBC to support it.

XBC 2.8 Build 275:
-Added support for BenQ VAD6038 0800 firmware
(Note: This has had limited testing, be cautious)

The 0800 Release is a firmware replacment for the BenQ VAD6038 drive to allow you to backup your own games. It is, as always, not for use on xbox live.

Download not available yet.

Bunnie has been looking for an RROD Xbox360; and he found, and actually sent one off to MEFAS to get digested for solder joint inspection at the GPU through a process called “dye and pry”. In this process, the motherboard is flooded with red ink, and then the GPU is mechanically pried off the board. The red ink flows into any of the tiny cracks in the solder balls, and at least, in theory, when you pry the GPU off the cracked regions will shear first so you will be left with visible red spots at the points of failure.

TOP: Is what a normal solder ball looks like after the test
BOTTOM: One of several balls on the GPU that exhibited signs of partial failure.

As you can see, by these results, you don’t see any “catastrophic” failure, which would be pools of red ink over a connection interface, here we see it’s just partial cracking. Partial cracking isn’t terribly uncommon, and many products work quite well despite such artifacts. However, after reading the [SeattlePI RRoD] article, if Microsoft shorted safety margins around many of the design parameters to get the product out on time, it makes sense that the summation of many partial failures could lead to a total system failure, and those are failures that have symptoms that vaguely cluster together, but are difficult to point to any single root cause; See Heisenbugs.

Beginning next Wednesday, JAN 23rd, 2:00 a.m. PST through Sunday, 11:59 p.m. PST, Xbox LIVE members worldwide can download the full version of the recent award-winning Xbox LIVE Arcade game, Undertow.

Developed by Chair Entertainment Group, Undertow is one of the highest-rated and best looking games available on Arcade. Undertow redefines aquatic based shooters through a mix of high-definition graphics, intuitive controls and multiple modes of game play action. The game features a full story driven-single player campaign, on and offline co-op, and multiplayer for 2-16 players over Xbox LIVE for Gold subscribers. Players battle for control of the oceans as one of three selectable races, each with four unique, upgradeable units. “Undertow” is available worldwide (normally 800 Microsoft Points) and is rated E10+.

*UPDATE 01/23/08*
Free Game Day: Xbox Live Crashes!

Well if their existing troubles weren’t enough?  As you know, today was supposed to start the free Undertow game?  This was all to make up for those days of system downtime and intermittent Xbox Live users, um, “suffered” (that word sounds familiar) over the holidays.  So, according to Murphy’s Law, this makes today the perfect time for the system to come crashing to its knees again.

When many gamers tried to retrieve Undertow this morning, they got a message telling them the system “can’t retrieve information from Xbox LIVE. Please try again later.” The message also helpfully points out that this is a status code: 8015000a.   Status codes huh?  Gee, what ever happened to a nice verbose reason we can all understand?  Something like:

XBL Server Error - Too Many Connections.
Please try again later.

Or how about “Server Bandwidth Exceeded” haa haa haa!!  The real reason being, the Internet pipelines that carry the traffic?  Those people may have had it with THEIR 3-Lights Of Death returns, and decided to pull the plug…

When three Texas gamers couldn’t get online to play “Call of Duty 4″ or “Halo 3″ on their Xbox 360s last December, they decided to sue (Oh what a damn shame!!!). In a class-action lawsuit filed January 4, gamers Keith Kay, Orlando Perez and Shannon Smith claim that they and millions of other Xbox Live users suffered damages in excess of $5 million. So, these three KIDS (well, their parents, lets face it) are filing lawsuit on behalf of all these other MILLIONS of people?

In his first interview with the press, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jason Gibson, explained the gamers’ side of things to MTV News. These are not guys looking to get rich,” Gibson said in a telephone interview from Houston Tuesday. “They are in their late 20s and 30s (late 30s even makes it worse!). They are college-educated (really…). These are not young kids who just turned 18 and [want] to sue for the fun of it. This is, to them, a real issue.” A real issue? How about going outside once and a while.

“When you have one person who is mad and they can’t get a response, and they can’t get their complaints addressed by a company like Microsoft, the only way to get their attention is in numbers,” Gibson said. He said the company had to have known what was going to happen with the Xbox Live overload. “If they had not anticipated the sales, then they would not have put out that many units of the Xbox to begin with.” Last week, Microsoft announced that Live had reached 10 million subscribers and claimed record-setting revenue for consoles sold in 2007, covering strong sales through the holiday season. Gibson said that proves Microsoft’s priorities were out of order.

“They take the money for the subscriptions, but they don’t make sure that the service is going to be there,” Gibson said. “They kind of put the cart before the horse. To me, you make sure the service is going to be there. Make sure the product is going to be there. And then feel good about taking money for the service and the product.”

Dennis said Microsoft could not comment on the lawsuit because the company has yet to be served. Gibson is in the process of doing so, after which Microsoft will have 20 days to respond to the suit.

With Gibson proceeding and Xbox blogger Hryb gagged from updating gamers about Live’s status via his site and his Twitter (German for Hermaphrodite) feed, gamers will have a harder time figuring out just how well Live is working. When asked where gamers should go for status updates, Microsoft’s Dennis said, “We will be communicating with our customers through our normal channels, such as Xbox.com and other means.”

Well, now I have seen it all, ADULTS crying… This is disgusting! Grown men crying over not being able to play with each other on Live! This is a sad day in history for setting an example for your kids; sue when you’re unhappy. I’ll have more later, as I DO have to go and work…

Major Nelson, on his weekly podcast, has revealed exactly why nothing has been said for a while about the Xbox Live issues that still remain. And that is thanks to those lazy, have nothing better to do people in Texas, that filed a lawsuit; Microsoft can no longer update the rest of us on the situation due to legal issues. So, we will never know (till it’s over) when the issues are fixed, or what the status is. So, now WE “suffer” because of their so-called “suffering.”, so why not we all sue them?

Anyhow, this is a major blow for the entire Xbox community as it was at least nice to know that the issues were known about and were trying to be dealt with. Now we wait because of those simpletons in Texas, for it to just be fixed, without ever being told officially.

Now, they also claim that these Live problems has caused them suffering? They’re joking, right, SUFFERING? I mean, what kind of suffering could that have actually caused. Oh, let me guess, the PARENTS had to deal with their, now turned to sissy crying kid, that they can’t get on live? Or, could it be that the parents’ once reliable babysitter (a.k.a. Xbox360) is not doing it’s job now? Know what I think? It’s yet another way for some poor people to get rich over-night. I sincerely hope the court tells them to F, well, I can’t say that now can I.

For the record, here is the legal definition of “Pain and Suffering”: The physical and mental distress suffered from an injury, including actual broken bones and internal ruptures, but also the aches, pain, temporary and permanent limitations on activity, potential shortening of life, depression, and embarrassment from scarring, all of which are part of the “general damages” recoverable by someone injured by another’s negligence or intentional attack. The dollar value of damages for pain and suffering is subjective, as distinguished from medical bills, future medicals, and lost wages which can be calculated, called “special damages.”

People who ARE suffering:
Spouses and Children of those fighting in Iraq.
Cancer patients who have a few days or weeks to live.
AIDS patients that know they are being put to death one day at a time.
People in other countries that are starving to death.
Homeless people who freeze and fear death every winter night;
AND SO ON;
-or-
People who can’t play on Xbox Live, because of technical issues.

Man, you know what? That just doesn’t quite fit DOES IT!!! Losers… So, would any of you like to tell me, because I can’t see it; Just how does not being able to play on line, has caused these people SUFFERING? All it tells me? People today have way, WAY too much time on their hands, and are looking for the get rich quick scheme.

Lian Li has designed an all aluminum Xbox 360 replacement enclosure that lives up to Lian Li’s reputation for quality and sleek, stylish design. The chassis was a prototype, but it contained a fully-functional Xbox 360 on which I had time to do a quick race in PGR4.

bit-tech.net

CES2008: Bill Gates has called Xbox 360 the most reliable console on the market.
His comments were made at CES to the BBC, which fired reader concerns at him - a remarkable amount apparently concerning Xbox failure rate.

“Well we certainly had to apologise to our users about the number of boxes that had to be replaced. We did that for free, for all those people, and we got a lot of positive feedback (really?) about the way we handled it,” said Gates.

“We’ve got incredible reliability on the new work that we’ve done. Our commitment is that it will be the most reliable videogame box out there. People love the Xbox because of the content, but we’ve got to make sure the hardware never stands in the way of that.”

As if everything else wasn’t enough:

Microsoft Corp’s Xbox video gaming unit still fully backs Toshiba Corp’s HD-DVD high-definition DVD format but could consider supporting Sony Corp’s rival Blu-ray technology should consumers want it, an executive said on Tuesday. “It should be consumer choice; and if that’s the way they vote, that’s something we’ll have to consider,” Albert Penello, group marketing manager for Xbox hardware said when asked whether Microsoft would support a Blu-ray DVD accessory in the event that HD-DVD failed.

Microsoft does not believe the surprise decision last week by Time Warner Inc unit Warner Bros, the top seller of home movies, to abandon HD-DVD format in favor of Blu-ray should affect sales of its Xbox 360 video game console, Penello said.
“I fundamentally don’t think … this has a significant impact on Xbox 360 versus (Sony’s) PlayStation 3,” Penello told Reuters in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Well, it may effect sales of the external HD-DVD player…

Microsoft Sued over Xbox LIVE Outage:

Three Texas residents (lazy people who have nothing else to do) filed a lawsuit Friday (Jan 4th) on behalf of themselves and others (oh, others) who have had trouble connecting to Xbox Live in recent weeks. Aww, what a shame, a few days without playing on line, what a bunch of babies. I have had troubles too, but I can deal with it, really…

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Houston, claims Microsoft’s outages represent a breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation for which the software maker is liable. The suit doesn’t claim specific damages, but notes the amount is in excess of $5 million. These idiots are suing for 5 million, for  $1.64 worth of service loss, when they couldn’t play on line for a short while? Any judge with any sense should laugh them out of the court-room, this is absurd.

In the suit, the plaintiffs allege that Microsoft should have known strong holiday sales would tax its servers. “Microsoft knew the increase in subscriptions would increase game-play on its servers, yet failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers.” Sure, but no one can predict hardware failure, or small oversights, it happens all the time - maybe I should sue my boss every year, for overlooking things every year…

For all of you who might think M$ deserves this for banning people for breach of contract, you might want to open your dictionary and look at the meaning of the word PETTY -vs- the word PIRACY… This suit, and suits like this are what drives up costs for everyone. A 5-million dollar award just means no freebies for a while, and higher prices for downloads, and content. Someone has to pay it, and you can bet it won’t be M$, it will be the consumers.