Hackers Happily Hacking The 360

m3lt writes "Hackers have purchased the XBox 360 so they will have generation 1 models, which are more prone to security flaws. At hackaday there is an article about Xbox 360 First Impressions. More importantly though, it looks as if homebrew browsers are already showing up for the Xbox 360." Additionally, geekylinuxkid writes "It looks like another bounty is being offered for linux on a console. This time it is for the xbox 360 and is provided by the guys at free360.org. Join in, donate, and contribute to the community."

Comments

Early adoption

[Sancho]

It's true that early consoles are more likely to have security flaws, however I'm just not willing to early-adopt a 360. The cost is a bit high, in my opinion, and there's really no indication that there will be a good selection of homebrew apps for it.

One of the things that made the original Xbox so great was that it is based on the x86 architecture. Porting applications to it is very easy, and as such, you got great software projects like XBMC for considerably less work than if you had to port it all by hand. What's more, codec support is improved because of the architecture. Emulators for other systems was also a bit easier for this same reason.

With the new, incompatible architecture, porting existing projects to the 360 will likely take quite a bit more effort. Emulation in particular, which often makes use of assembler instructions, may be a long time coming. We also don't know enough about the security on the 360--it may be that mods will have to be specific to each unit, making said mods more costly and possibly more dangerous (easier to screw up the installation).

I'll definitely be following the scene and watching the progress, but for now, I can't justify that kind of expenditure for this gamble.

Re:Early adoption

[MorgyTheMole]

Well, all of the FAST emulators tend to use assembly and have assembly cores. However, there are plenty of emulators for most systems out there with all C or C++ cores. I think that the 360 should run most of these emulators just fine, given it's speed. What will be more interesting to see is how homebrew apps try to take advantage of the ability to run six 3.2 Ghz threads at once.

Re:Early adoption

[dwandy]

The cost is a bit high, in my opinion, and there's really no indication that there will be a good selection of homebrew apps for it.

Depends on how you count cost.
The shop where I work paid many times more for each CPU in our servers than the entire 3-cpu xbox retails for ... the admins tell me that it's the same cpu...
I suspect that there will be some good efforts into clustering these things -- they are sold below hardware cost!

Re:Early adoption

[Sancho]

Well I said in my opinion :)

If the homebrew scene doesn't take off at all, be it through architecture changes or security measures, then the machine has less value in my eyes. The only reason to buy one now, at the highest retail price it will ever be at, is to avoid future security measures that could prevent modding. I'm just not willing to take the chance that the homebrew scene will be big enough to warrant owning one AND that the security will increase later on to preclude modding altogether.

Incidentally, that I have these opinions sort of exhibits the fact that I'm not interested in piracy. A pirate would want a first generation box because anti-piracy measures will probably be less robust. And piracy will almost certainly exist even if the homebrew scene itself never really takes off.

Trouble brewing

[voice_of_all_reason]

I'm pretty sure the revised EULA allows Microsoft to draw, quarter, and finally vivisect your body in full view of the town square for license violations.

Fair Use

[Chayak]

I'm certain it will violate the EULA for the 360 but they don't hold much legal power anymore as fair use allows you freedom to do what you want with your machine. I know more than a few people who considered it an evil act to mod my old Xbox and PS2, but I'm very well within my legal right to do so.

Free60.org

[Matilda the Hun]

For the record, it's www.free60.org, not free360.org.

Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[Deathlizard]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought that this was the entire reason MS made the Xbox Marketplace, So that independent Dev's could make a game/program and sell it over Xbox live.

What's stopping any Dev from making a NES emulator for example, and selling it on the marketplace for 100 points? Is there restrictions on what you can and cannot sell on the marketplace?

I know linux is a different story, since it's an OS replacement, but I don't see any reason why the Mozilla Foundation for example couldn't make a 360 port of Firefox and sell it for the points equivalent of $0.25 over Xbox Live.

Re:Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[snuf23]

I don't think that's how it works. Executable for the Xbox 360 needs to be "signed" to run on the hardware. This means it has to be Microsoft certified. I don't think you can just post a game for sale. Any programs being made available via Live will have to go through Microsoft for licensing and certification.
I believe the items end users can sell are more like cosmetic changes for games such as skins.

Re:Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[blincoln]

I know linux is a different story, since it's an OS replacement, but I don't see any reason why the Mozilla Foundation for example couldn't make a 360 port of Firefox and sell it for the points equivalent of $0.25 over Xbox Live.

Where are they going to get the 360 dev kit and development license? That kind of thing tends to be really expensive. Not to mention the signing issue brought up by another poster.

I think it's going to be not free for a while

[WebHostingGuy]

Current Bounty Amount: $9.14

That's not much of an incentive and actually is more insulting than inspiring.