360 Hackers Claim Full Read/Write Ability

Technology Sweden writes "According to the site Xbox-Scene, a program is available to transfer saved-games and more from the memory card or hard drive. This opens up a whole new world for the 360. Soon we might be able to run our own home brewed games and show our favourite Xvid movies."

Comments

Argh, Matey!

[AKAImBatman]

Soon we might be able to run our own home brewed games and show our favourite Xvid movies.

Which is to say that piracy of 360 downloadable games will soon flourish.

Are there really any examples of "homebrew" games for modern systems? Being as complex as they are to program, I don't really see why anyone would bother homebrewing a game on the 360 when they can produce the exact same software for the PC. (Much quicker and easier, too.)

I could see the possibility of turning the 360 into a PVR, but doesn't it seem like purchasing or building a dedicated PVR for less $$$ would make more sense? Do you really want to spend $400 just to hack it into a machine that you could have had for $150-$200?

I'm all for the school of thought that says, "It's my hardware, I want to do with it what I want." But sometimes it's okay to say, "this is cool, even thought I don't really have a real use for it yet." :-)

Re:Argh, Matey!

[christopherfinke]

Are there really any examples of "homebrew" games for modern systems?

I don't know if this counts, but there is the newly available "Mario Adventure," which was produced by an individual who hacked the SMB3 game engine to produce an entirely new 2-D Mario adventure. I played it on my Dreamcast last night, and it is a great deal of fun.

Re:Argh, Matey!

[Valdrax]

I could see the possibility of turning the 360 into a PVR, but doesn't it seem like purchasing or building a dedicated PVR for less $$$ would make more sense? Do you really want to spend $400 just to hack it into a machine that you could have had for $150-$200?

You're looking at this problem from the wrong angle. Would you rather spend $550-600 for an Xbox 360 and a PVR, or just $400 for an Xbox 360? What if it could also serve as an emulator, a wireless A/B/G router with firewall, and a three-processor, Linux, websurfing / media PC that runs on 160 Watts? Heck, the thing already plays DVDs and streams music without hacks.

The moment that Linux becomes available for the XBox 360, I'm buying one even if it means that I can never boot a game on it without Microsoft patching and eliminating my Linux system. I don't care about Xbox 360 games and plan to never buy one; I just want a cheap, powerful, energy efficient Linux PC. Making MS subsidize my Linux box is only a cherry on top.

Don't celebrate just yet

[Anonymous Coward]

This is basicly a file system driver and nothing more. In fact the free60 devs(free60.org) have had a filesystem driver like this for thier linux project for weeks. This is just the windows flavour. there is not a ata password on the harddrives this time around. They harddrives even advertise the feature or switching between systems. it didn't take anything special to read/write the drive. It is standard sata. Homebrew is no where near possible yet. the xex(360 executables) are signed. the pirs archives which all live downloads are stored in are signed. the harddrive is signed based on its model and serial number so you can't upgrade to a larger one. everything is very protected. This is merely a tool to explore and transfer some savegames right now.

XP Media Center lock-in?

[tepples]

You can already play your favorite movies that are on your XP Media Center PC on the 360.

So now, with a Linux server, how do I emulate the necessary parts of an XP Media Center PC to get Xbox 360 streaming to work?