Looks like the X-box has been cracked

[alanrob]

Couple of vids for all you interested parties to have a view at that show a modded Xbox playing copied games on DVD-R disks.

www.technodevices.com/neox.wmv
www.technodevices.com/xt.wmv

Both clearly show an Xbox loading in copied games.

Don't know how Mr Gates is going to take to his new baby being busted only a few months after it's launch. Can't say that I'm too sorry to hear (and see) this happening. I know a few m8's who are suddenly interested in getting an Xbox

I wonder how long it will take before the GC is cracked too?

[pizzed-monkey]

......but surely it gonna be super hard to crack the cube?

.....it uses 'itsy bitsy' disks (thats their offical name).

.....I haven't looked into this much but what the hell would you copy them onto?

....anybody have an 'itsy bitsy' CD burner?



bling!
pizzed-monkey

Yeah, the only point I could see for even trying to hack the Cube would be to bypass regional game coding. But does the Cube even have region lockouts?

Me, I'm looking forward to getting a few decent emulators that run on the XBox.

[hornydragon]

Lik sang are selling craked panasonic Q machines, for DVD anyway, I think nintendo have been V clever, you can buy 8cm CD-R but not yet seen DVD-R in 8CM, any CD-R ,DVD-R writer can write them diameter is not a problem, buying blanks is, you could just add a standard DVD drive to the Cube for copied discs.

[museumsteve]

it's a shame that no forums seem to be excited by the fact we'll be able to play imports on modded Xbox, instead talk always goes straight for piracy..
Very sad..and of course people that buy pirates are just tight-arses with no morals..

[alanrob]

That fact may be true m8, but there is no hiding the fact that the PS1 was so popular due to the fact you could go and buy games for your chipped machine for £5 or less at the local market.

I don't know of anyone that doesn't have (or had) a chipped PS1 and it wasn't for playing import games on their UK spec box. It was to get cheaper games.

Piracy will always be with us and no matter how hard companies try to kill it off it's just grows stronger each year.

[brattle]

Piracy may be rife, but that doesn't make piracy a good thing. No profit is made on hardware so anyone who buys a console just to play pirated games is in fact causing a problem for the industry not helping it.

I'm interested in these mods purely to play rental games on my imported machines. All piracy does is devalue the enjoyment you get from games because obtaining it took so little expenditure, which ultimately defeats the purpose of having the games in the first place.

[alanrob]

Originally posted by brattle
Piracy may be rife, but that doesn't make piracy a good thing. No profit is made on hardware so anyone who buys a console just to play pirated games is in fact causing a problem for the industry not helping it.

I'm interested in these mods purely to play rental games on my imported machines. All piracy does is devalue the enjoyment you get from games because obtaining it took so little expenditure, which ultimately defeats the purpose of having the games in the first place.

I didn't say that piracy was a good thing. All I said was the PS1 became so popular due to the fact that you could buy (or download) copied games for it.

I've always believed that games are to highly priced for what they are (Jak & Daxter was brill, but only last for a few days before I completed it - you tell me. Was £35 worth it for two days?) the consoles themself should be priced higher and software reduced in price.

How often do you hear people moan about having to pay upwards of £15 for a CD from the high street? And the record industry wonders why piracy is huge! I'll say this about piracy, we all have done it at some point in life.

You also say you are interested in these mods just to play UK disks on your USA Xbox, but how do we know that's all you'll be doing with it? The temption to have more games will be strong and will you be able to resist if someone offers you a new game that might not even be released yet for a few quid?

If all this region cack was thrown out when it came to gaming then maybe more people wouldn't need to have things like this new hack, but the hardware companies seem to want these things to happen and tell everyone that they put regions on their consoles so they can control release dates? Question is WHY?

Why can't we all buy the latest release the same time the US or Japan get them? The world is getting smaller and the internet is bringing it even closer. So why tie all our hands to this regional nonsense?

[hornydragon]

I agree region coding is a waste of time, and I think the industry is waking up to the fact there is one global market and language is the only barrier. Episode 2 is having 1 release date, good thing!! I dont know how they do it, buts hats off to the guys that make reasonable quality recordings before the cinematic release. With games its a little different, but without regions for games and DVD's it would be a lot easier to police the people making the mod chips, remove regionaliseation and there is no legal reason for the chips!
Just my 2 Euros.

[John Jennings]

Development costs have got so ridiculously high that it's no surprise games cost so much. The average game costs about £3-5 million to develop now. That's just your average bog standard game, not something like MGS2. I read that Shenmue cost $40million to develop. You've then got advertising spends on top of that. A large percentage of ther retail price goes directly to the retailer too. Only after all that has been recouped will a game make any money for the publishers.

Yes, the PS1 sold loads because of the availability of pirated games. However, it did nothing for anyone in the industry. Obviously none of the money went to developers or publishers. None of it went to Sony either. All console manufacturers sell their machines at a loss and make money on the games that are sold (Sony take a licensing fee for each game duplicated. Don't know what it is on PS2, but on PS1 it was £7 for each game duplicated).

Cheers,
John

[alanrob]

Very true, but why spend so much on making games that have little or no depth compared to games I grew up with on the Spectrum and C64?

The games industry needs to take a good look at itself as spend $40M on a game is just crazy. Gone are the days when a few m8's would sit round their computers and knock out a classic game. They now spend more time trying to get their games to look nice and have even more videos than the last release.

As a gamer I want more GAMEPLAY!!! Not cool graphics and jaw dropping videos. Maybe that's why I'm more tempted by the GC than the Xbox at the mo.

[John Jennings]

Indeed, I remember the 8-bit days well, but you're talking about a videogame market that doesn't exist any more. In those days it was a cottage industry, appealing to relativley hardcore gamers.

These days, thanks to the marketing of the PlayStation, the games market is completelty mainstream and games are played by all age ranges. The casual gamers now outnumber the hardcore gamers by a large number. These kinds of people want a game based on a cool license, they want flashy graphics and a game soundtrack with all the latest hip tunes on it.

These are the audience that publishers want to attract as they're the majority of the market. Publisher and developers aren't some altruistic industry, they are here to make money, and this is the best way to do it.

If you really don't care about graphics and presentation there are plenty of PD and Shareware games being produced with great game-play. Also there's there's a mine of emulatiors and ROMs out there to play the old games. However, you're not going to see commerical games going back that way, as that industry is long dead.

[alanrob]

Got MAME on my PC and love playing the old arcade games
But I have to disagree about gaming now.

Having just played Super Monkey Ball (SMB) on the GC I can tell you that top quailty game play is still here. I'll bet it didn't cost millions to make this game, but it's simplicity is something to marvel at.

This is a problem with most games now, they try too hard to be better than everything before. Game developers are needing to take a few steps back and see what it is they are producing instead of trying to be flasher and louder than they were before.

Nintendo (Sega did SMB for them) seem to have the upper hand when it comes to gaming. They would rather give you a game that has great depth of game play and a massive amount of levels instead of giving us games that take a few hours to complete. Now with the GC they can supply this type of game with cracking image and sound.

[John Jennings]

Oh I agree, the occasional gem does still come along, but look at how rare they are these days. I'm also a huge Nintendo and Sega fan; they make excellent games.
However, look at what happened to the Dreamcast and N64 when compared to the PlayStation. If you were in the business of trying to make money from producing computer games then who would you try and emulate; Sony... or Sega?

I consider myself a true gamer and would much rather see games as original as I used to play on my Speccy, they're what made me want to work in games in the first place. I'm just commenting on the current state of the industry though (which I think is very sad at the moment). But don't blame the developers. They all know what makes a good game, as they're nearly all hardcore gamers (why else would they choose to pursue a career in it? It's certainly not for all of the incredible late hours and bad working conditions); blame the PR & Marketing fools at the Publishers who've, more often than not, never played a game in their lives. They don't have the faintest idea about what makes a good game, they just want a clone of whatever's been selling well recently. It's them who determine game content unfortunately. It's a tough time for devlopers at the moment, a load are going out of business. If a publisher comes along and says "We'll give you £5 million to make 'Super Metal-Gear Lara-Croft Pro-BMX Skateboard Xtreme Snowboard Stunts Solid 7' for us." you're not going to say no... unfortunately.

I cant help thinking we sometimes look at the past with rose tinted glasses .

Yes i agree there are loads of rubbish games out there but there has been some really good stuff as well .
Doom was brilliant but it doesn`t make Halo worse because its not the first of its kind.
When the new Zelda or Mario Sunshine come out even if their brilliant someone will moan oh its not original though I remember Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner .

They are making them because we want them . As i say there is loads of rubbish out there esp the film licenced games but there are millions more games Deus Ex, TH3 ,JSRF all the command and conquers all great games .
If you played Tony Hawk and feel TH3 is no different don`t buy it they will get the message .

As for being a "true gamer" what the hell is that ???
Just cause you had a poxy spectrum .
People try to make other gamers inferior because they have played an Atari or something .
Anyone who has bought a game is a true gamer becuase they have an opinion .
I have had most consules about inc spectrum,DC etc and i`d swap all for a GC or X box .
Sega stick to making games if you can`t make consules simple as that .