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XBox Netplay Already

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the surprises-nobody dept.

ElectusUnum writes "Well, it's been a little while since the XBox was released and people are already playing online! The folks at xboxgw.com have written a program to create an ethernet bridge between xbox's over the net, fooling the xbox's into thinking they're on a LAN. 1v1 seems to create no major lag and reports have come in like this one that claim up to four xbox's work fine. It seems a DSL connection is preferred for hosting the server." I want an X-Box so bad, or as I would call it, a DOA3-Box.

6 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft can't be to happy about this... by autopr0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There goes the revenue I'm sure they were hoping to get off online gamers. How much do you want to bet future games won't work like this? Or even have any LAN support at all.

    While it's true that developers can do whatever they want, I doubt Microsoft would let them use the system however they want (after all, do you think Sony would be very happy if someone released a 'game' that let people pirate PS2 games easily?)

    This hack is pretty sweet, though. It would be really cool to play online games with people across the country (or world) without going through some stupid intermediary.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
    1. Re:Microsoft can't be to happy about this... by Telek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      don't you think that it might be a good thing for them, since if it becomes this open, then more people will buy them, and more and more games? It's bound to make them more money in the long run.

      The only thing that they might be angry about is that they didn't get there first, or they won't be able to provide the service if it's free.

      --

      If God gave us curiosity
    2. Re:Microsoft can't be to happy about this... by alen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My guess is that Microsoft will allow this and maybe even encourage it. All to sell as many X-Boxes as possible. Then in the next version of the X-Box or X-Box version 3 they will crack down and lock the system down. But by then Nintendo and Sony may only be shadows of their former selves and it will be time for the X-Box to be a money maker.

      Just like MS looked the other way at casual piracy of Win9x and NT for years it will probably do so with the X-Box. But sooner or later payday will come.

  2. Re:Net Ready by damiam · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The XBox is the whore of gaming consoles. It's a celeron processor with an nvidia video card. Whow, some great amazing technology that Microsoft gets to put their name on.

    And the GameCube has a PPC processor and an ATI video card. AFAIK, all modern consoles have parts not made by the company that sells them. The XBox is no different.

    --
    It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  3. Re:Kali? by Forkenhoppen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That was for piping IPX traffic over TCP/IP. This is for piping whatever comes out of an XBox (lan TCP/IP, I'd expect) over internet TCP/IP. Same idea, different protocol.

    See, essentially you just wrap all the packets coming from the XBox in a TCP/IP packet, and throw 'em over the internet. On the other end, you unwrap 'em and send 'em on. Not too difficult. (in theory..)

    Main problems are looking after people joining and quitting, and the problem of finding other people to play against. These are reasons why services like Battle.net and Kali took off; not so much because of the software, but because of the meet-others service that they provided.

  4. Re:Someone tell me by Have+Blue · · Score: 3, Insightful

    According to the site, it's different in that it doesn't require a huge investment in professional VPN software and a huge investment of time in learning how to set it all up.