Slashdot Mirror
No Love From Microsoft For Xbox Modders
RandyOo writes: "Only 4 days after news of an XBox port of MAME was posted to Slashdot, Microsoft contacted the admin of mame.net and downloads have now been removed. Knew I should have downloaded it earlier this morning ... Thank goodness for P2P!" And scubacuda writes: "According to The Register, one group of Xbox hackers have decided to halt development on its Xbox mod chip. It will be interesting to see how other developers follow suit."
Im suprised it didn't happen the day it was announced.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
do you think that if they are doing this with X-Box, that they won't do something similar with Palladium?
It is all that trademark control of the user experience thing happening all over again.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
How can porting MAME to an X-box possibly be either illegal or damaging to Microsoft?
Is it going to get to the point where we have to get their approval for doing anything in life?
And you know what else? Fuck them. They chose a poor business model. I don't care if it's standard practice in the console market. If I want to do something with a piece of hardware I purchased then I'll damn well do it. This bullshit has got to stop. I don't owe them a profit, and I'm not going to bottle up my enjoyment of life for the benefit of a corporation.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Microsoft, like Nintendo and Sony, spends millions developing anti-piracy technology and now they're mad about the cracks - what a surprise. Remember, consoles also thrive on licensing. If anyone could develop software for a console, it would defeat the purpose of the entire business. Of course, Sony's Linux kit is a bit of an exception, but you can't distribute any software for it.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Microsoft: If cars had improved the way software has we'd all be driving a million miles an hour uphill on a shot glass of fuel and the car would cost a dollar.
New response: If cars were like the xbox, we'd be sued for selling after market parts and only be able to buy gas from approved vendors at a dollar a gallon premium.
"Remember; listening to microsoft too much killed Sega as a Console producer; Now they've been reduced to software."
WTF?! Where did you hear there? I realize that MS isn't well liked, that doesn't mean that they're responsible for failures that are even semi-linked to them.
The reason that Sega failed as a console producer dates back to their flooding the market with crap. The Sega CD was was a decent add-on but didn't have very many interesting games (at least compared to the Genesis.) They released the 32x and quickly forgot about it. The Saturn spent all it's time playing catch-up to Sony and failed miserably. When the Dreamcast was released, the PS2 was hot on it's heels.
If anything, MS helped the Dreamcast by providing them with a CE-based OS for developers to port games to it. Unfortunately, though, Sega couldn't afford to keep producing Dreamcast consoles. They'z expensive. With the competition from PS2, MS, and Nintendo, there was just no way they could keep up. So they made the right decision: Make games for all the consoles, make your competitors earn you money.
This has nothing to do with Microsoft. Just because MS has their logo on the Dreamcast, doesn't mean they did anything to lead to it's demise. I realize MS is widely hated here, but if everybody on Slashdot does nothing but bash MS, then nobody'll take you seriously when you have a legit complaint about MS.
"Derp de derp."
TiVo (the PVR) is more friendly to hackers and actively support them, so I came to the following idea where you can piss Microsoft off a little and add to your TiVo at the same time. As Microsoft plan into making future generations of XBox a Personal Video Recorder, what about killing them stone dead by installing MAME on a TiVo?
First generation TiVOs may not have enough CPU power to simultaneously play video games and record, but the second generation ones have faster CPUs. They're probably not up to leading edge games but early arcade games should be no problem.
Demonstrate that being hostile to hackers is not a good thing.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Why waste effort porting or hacking a platform if the vendor tells you it will be "somewhat" open in the future?
Sony did the right thing by saying they would eventually be releasing everything needed to make your own "custom play" console. They defused the desire and efforts of many who would have done otherwise. Since this strategy of "announce and release somewhere a bazillion years from now" was pretty much created by Microsoft I'm not sure why they just didn't do this now?
--- I do not moderate.
Untrue. If one wants to play legally purchased imported titles on a legally purchased console, the only way to do it is to bypass the technical (not legal) region restriction placed on the console by the manufacturer.
Granted, many console mods are done for the sole purpose of piracy. But there are most definately reasons to mod a console for reasons other than piracy.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Mmmm.. no use for Xbox HD, no Inter-Web games?? I believe Morrowind shows what the HD on the Xbox can do. They pre-load the huge levels they have on the Xbox and poof, no more long load times. Add to that unlimited storage for save games and information about the game and poof you've got one of the best reasons to have a HD in your console. As far as internet games, people have been playing multiplayer Halo and other games for months (like a month after the xbox came out). There is quite a large community of players and hackers. Also, MS's plans on internet play are by far the best of the 3 consoles (Nintendo doesn't have a plan really... PS2 is like you'll have to buy these $50 games and then pay $10 to each of the Publishers for the right to play on their network! No thanks to that, 3 games = $150, $10/month * 3 * 12 months = $360/yr, $150 + $360 = $510/yr just to play 3 games on the PS2.)
I agree that there have been some lackluster games on the Xbox, but it has enough hits that justify for those. The PS2 had NOTHING for 1 year!! They had no good games, and at the end of the year when the Xbox came out, they got GTA3 and FFX etc...
I'm tired of people bashing the Xbox based on its parent company. Fight MS on the PC side, but let them try to create some competition in the console market. We (the consumers) are the only ones to benefit from this competition. I'm tired of only have Sony or Nintendo as an option, because they don't compete against each other... those that buy Nintendo's products will continue to buy Nintendo products, and those who buy Sony products will continue to buy Sony products. The XBox bring a nice refreshing burst of competition, developers for the PS2 are now having to make their games look much nicer and concentrate on the visual aspects as well as the gameplay elements and Nintendo developers are now creating more mature games.
So in closing... just stop being ignorant... I'm tired of ignorance on Slashdot, are we a community of well educated tech people or are we a community of ignorant bafoons that have nothing better to do at work then spread FUD.
-- DeionXxX
Microsoft being the #1 modder.
You seem to forget that if it had not been for IBM's original open architecture for the PC Microsoft would be just a footnote in history.
Simply put, you wouldn't have the enjoyment of said product because said product would never exist (or it would exist well outside of most peoples budget) so you wouldn't be able to enjoy it anyway.
And maybe that's the way it should be, after all if we could arbitrarily change the laws of physics that would make any number of products possible too. Trying to change human nature is just as prone to failure in the long run as is trying to change the laws of phyics.
Not EULA, but Microsoft's property. Apparently binaries compiled with the XDK end up with some part of them still copyrighted by Microsoft, so they clearly have a case here.
:)
Virulent licensing indeed. And Microsoft complains about how the GPL contaminates projects.
Well, technically, all of Microsoft's software is Microsoft's property. It's never "given" or "sold" to us, but just licensed. So it is a EULA issue.
How Microsoft wishes to explain the fault is something different, but it's the same either way. But, at any rate, good luck fighting the fight further (if you plan to).
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
The line of circular reasoning rather silly, don't you think?
If a company makes a product, I am not obligated to make sure they make money at it - only that the product is useful/enjoyable to myself. That's it. End of my commitment. If I buy War and Peace and use it to beat my groin in a strange masturbatory experience, then Tolstoy shouldn't get all pissed off - he got his money, and I got a bruised crotch.
The same thing applies here. Microsoft's plans for their product do not override *my* plans for their product. Once I've spent the money, they can try to *entice* me to buy games - but if I want to use the Xbox as a doorstop, there's nothing on earth they can do to stop me. Paperweight? My right as a consumer. Potted plants? Same thing.
Put in a mod chip to run Linux so I can put Mame/DivX/a SNES emulator? Still my right - all they can try to do is entice me to spend the money *they* want me to. If they decide to pull the product off the market - that's fine. Perhaps someday there will be a vendor who *will* put that kind of product on the market, and then they will be the one to make money.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
You license the hardware, you don't own it.
Tell that to the secondary market. Hardware is a physical tangible hard-to-copy thing that is owned. If I had an X-Box, I could take little wires and a soldering iron and do anything I want to its innards, risking only voiding the warranty. If I just wanted to use the CPU to keep a little cup of tea warm, I could, and you couldn't stop me.
If you ever tried that with my gaming console (yes, I'm a developer for a major game company, not MS), I'll send my lawyers after you so fast you'll be in jail getting assfucked by Bubba and his friends.
Whatever.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
If you can find me a publisher and programmer of any of those titles who depends on royalties from those games to live, please contact me.
.. did the fact that PacAMan, Asteroids, etc were copied by thousands upon thousands of clones (freeware, shareware, and commercial) somehow hurt the game industry and prevent its ability to invest in games? Looking at the market these days, I cant really believe they are detremental to the point of requiring vigilent lawyer-based protection. If they dont need it, they cant have it. Sorry.
Otherwise, who the hell cares. The best part is, the only people that get up in arms are the companies and their lawyers. Ive yet to hear the designer of Astroids complain bitterly that he didn't get repaid for every Asteroids rip off out there.
Microsoft (and old videogame authors, publishers) can kiss my fucking ass. They'd been paid in spades. Look at the gaming industry right now
Its like a next door neighbour with a house 4,000,000 bigger than mine who's pissed off because I'm blocking the sun to one tiny basement window at the corner of the mansion.
Yes, there is a smidgen of irony in there, but if these games' royalties are so valuable, they'd be advertising them and selling them in bundles other than "Top 20 Arcade Hits" etc bundles. Even then, thats 'recycled' innovation, not something I want to support monetarily. Anyone that wants to play Joust, Centipede, etc has undoubedly paid their dues at the quarter-eating-boxes, etc years ago.
Compare this to books: do you really think you should have to buy your favorite books every 10 years, because the paper you read it on becomes obsolete and unavailable every decade?
"Old man yells at systemd"
Take a good look at Sony, your main source of competition. What have they done? Released a Linux kit... and therefore eventual Mame compatibility.
Sony may have released a Linux kit, but that is irrelevant because it's not a "hack" but it's an authorized CD. You are kidding yourself if you think that you can use that CD to make and distribute your own Linux distro, or any other software for the PS2. You are also kidding yourself if you think that Sony doesn't fight hard against pirates and the devices they use (eg mod chips).
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Let say you have your modded Xbox, online, through whatever method you can get your Xbox online.
Then lets assume you have a game you want to play (dupe or not a dupe) online. Halo: Online edition, sports, DOA online, whatever.
What is going to stop MS from giving your Xbox an online update? In order to play online you're gonna need to connect to their servers, right? They want COMPLETE control over the online servers to prevent cheating, so that is gonna give them the ability to roll updates to the BIOS, games, etc, to make sure all of these games are "cheat" free.
A BIOS update, to the Xbox (I'm sure its possible, its a PC, right?) could effectively kill the mod chip(s) in the system. Could they also disable the Xbox until the mod chip is out of the system? Possibly.
Now, lets think about the possibility of someone hacking the game servers and running them? Someone could figure out how to run their own Xbox game servers and MS will shut down them. No on could play online, with the Xbox, without MS in the middle.
Sure, its an Xbox, its from MS, and we own the box, but they certainly could try to enfore their own rules on a system you own and operate. Enjoy the Xbox now, but you *may* not be able to enjoy the Xbox's online with the modifications.
Fah, Nintendo has the cheapest console and they actually make money selling them. Microsoft created a console that is quite a bit more expensive to produce than Sony's or Nintendo's and they sell them at a significant loss because they know that otherwise they wouldn't sell very many. They hope to make back this loss with game royalties and services, but it isn't my responsibility to make sure they do. If Microsoft wants to guarantee that they don't lose money on XBox purchases then they need to raise the price of their goods.
Sometimes companies just come up with bad business plans. Microsoft is apparently not immune to this trait.
You don't like MS's policy for the X-box? Don't buy the X-box. Don't buy accessories for for your X-box if you already have one. And especially don't buy any more games. You want a console buy either a Game Cube or a PS2, and stop whining about Halo or whatever not being available for it.
People whine about Microsoft bashing and whatnot saying that "Not everything that comes out of the Evil Empire is bad". Yes, everything that does come from the Evil empire is bad. Anything that is visibly bad is simply appeasment to get people to look the other way while they keep twisting the knife. The have 40 billion in cash, (probably 45 billion by now), they only way they are going to change is by adamant refusal to buy their products, and showing that everything they do is simply to entrench their monopoly: Palladium and .NET for example. You want to fight policies, hold an X-Box party and run over the damn things with a steamroller.
How many of you MS bashers out there still have an X-box and are still buying games out there? You hippocrits know who I'm talking about. If you want to bash MS, bash your X-box and buy a PS2. Go ahead, put your money where your mouth is.
I'm all for short term protection of copyright. 10 years. 15 years TOPS.
.. I'm expressing my opinion.
... trust me son, its for the good of us all *coughcough*.")
I'm not claiming the moral high ground here (morals are subjective by nature, anyhow)
MAME should be left alone and not considered a piracy-enabling machine. Chasing after its users does more harm to the public than the good that comes from protecting the copyright owners of those old, already-been-paid-for games.
Again, I just stick by my opinion that the grey market has always existed, always will, and has always operated _fairly_ independantly (for the most part) from the economy. I dont know anybody that would outright PAY lots of money for those games, but I sure know that letting people keep playing them for years will immortalize the creators and contributors of the games (nevermind the games themselves); and that is much more significant repayment to society than allowing a company to milk some nostalgic game players for a piddly little revenue stream that goes to one company.
Isn't anyone afraid we wont have a history and culture 30 years from now, because companies will hold all the copyrights to our childhoods' cultures? ("Yes, son, we used to play this game called Asteroids, but I cant show it to you, because its not profitable for Activision to sell it anymore. I could get it myself, but their lawyers are afraid of letting it into the commons on the off-chance that they decide to release another version of it any year now and our little father/son fun will dillute the value of their brand
"Old man yells at systemd"
hmm, time to troll...
"If you can find me a publisher and programmer of any of those titles who depends on royalties from those games to live, please contact me."
i can live without a car(in fact, i could probably live without a lung), that doesnt mean i dont mind having it taken away from me(car or lung)
Why doesn't someone make a system that uses a chip that coincidentally can replace the X-Box chip...and then sell components.
same thing they're smoking every day.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Virulent licensing indeed. And Microsoft complains about how the GPL contaminates projects. :)
They already said that anything put through Hotmail belongs to them. How long before Microsoft claim copyright on anything produced by MS Word?
What Palladium is proposing is that the boot decryption keys are embedded in the CPU itself. They need AMD & Intel's cooperation for this, of course, and now they have it. This way, it's all but impossible to modify the boot code or to view the encryption keys, except perhaps by shaving the top off the CPU & examining the ROM mask directly with a (very) high-powered microscope.
Palladium may not take off (there's going to be a lot of privacy concerns, and it's going to be very difficult to secure comprehensive industry support, or it just won't fly), but they sure as hell can implement it in Xbox 2.
Even this approach can be defeated by e.g. bugs, human error, social engineering etc etc, but it makes things a lot harder to crack/reverse engineer from the hardware/software aspect. Look for Xbox 2 as a feasibility study of the Palladium concept.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Refillable ink cartridges are an excellent analogy to this XBOX situation - if I remember correctly, the major printer manufacturers are getting sued over the way they handle the pricing of their printer cartridges. The point is that both businesses sell the major hardware so cheap that they lose money on it, assuming that they will make the money back from sales of accessories. From a business standpoint, this approach is flawed because of the changes in the ways consumers approach intellectual property.
Let's extend your analogy a bit. I'll start a car company, and make cars that require a special type of fuel. I'll price the car competetively against others on the market. How long before someone else starts producing my fuel at a cheaper price? Not long. Who cares if it "costs the company money" when you buy from the cheaper source?
Now hackers have provided alternative "accessories" for the XBOX, and no one cares about Microsoft's business plan.
-dbc
"I'm tired of only have Sony or Nintendo as an option, because they don't compete against each other..."
I'm sure they'd like to know this...
"those that buy Nintendo's products will continue to buy Nintendo products, and those who buy Sony products will continue to buy Sony products."
So... you're saying having a choice between two different philosophies is bad, and being able to choose between three carbon copies is good?
You may have a point about Nintendo fans being in it for the long haul, but please remember that this is only Sony's second console to date. Just because they're buying PS2s today doesn't mean they'll buy PS3s tomorrow (or even continue to buy PS2s). After all, most of the people that bought PSX today bought Sega yesterday, Nintendo the day before and Atari before that.
A lot of Nintendo people buy Nintendo stuff because they are God's gift to game developers (a point that has proven itself far too often to bother arguing about). Generally speaking, we don't care if Nintendo's new system will be two tin cans and a rock as long as we get to play Miyamoto's next games on it.
Sony, on the other hand, has shown a reliance on third-party developers, and their PSX sales were high because of the wide number of third parties that developed for it instead the N64. But even then they lost out to the N64 in many areas (including North America). In short, Sony isn't selling a Sony system, they're selling a non-Nintendo system. And Sony is heading for trouble because the vast majority of third-party games today are hardware agnostic. Even Final Fantasy's next installment will be on all three consoles.
If you say that Nintendo and Sony don't compete with each other, then by your own definition Microsoft is only aiming to compete with Sony. The majority of the games on both of those systems are aimed at the same audience.
"and Nintendo developers are now creating more mature games."
Pet peeve time: Anybody who says something like GTA3 is more mature than something like Zelda: Majora's Mask needs to have their head examined. That, or they're still in high school.
A dollar a gallon for premium???
This is what I immediately thought, but the confusion comes from the fact that "premium" appears in both the phrases "pay a premium" (pay more than one would normally pay) and "premium petrol" (petrol with more than 90 percent octane). Grandparent was referring to the former sense, such that if 93% octane petrol normally cost US$1.50 per gallon, Microsoft Gasoline would cost US$2.50 per gallon, a $1.00 premium over the other brands.
And with the combination of the CBDTPA mandating DRM and Microsoft's patent on DRM, Microsoft may be able to pull it off with the force of U.S. law.
Will I retire or break 10K?