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MS Employees Debate Mod Chips
Via 1up, a post on Xbox strategy group member Andre Vrignaud's blog discusses the view of mod chips from inside Microsoft. Not surprisingly, he concludes that they're a barrier to a viable business model. Just the same, the post has some good consideration of the issue from both sides. Especially interesting is his comment that "a friend of mine at Microsoft once demonstrated a modded PSP to Bill Gates and showed off all of the interesting things that enabled. According to my friend Bill was intrigued and asked the audience what we might be able to do to encourage this sort of thing without damaging the business." Even if it's a sticky wicket, at least they're thinking along the right lines.
Great, I have a modded Xbox! Now if I could just get rid of that pesky blinking orange light.
EMP1: Apart from legal issues, mod chips contain amazing software.
EMP2: Please pronounce sof'ware like Bill wants you to: SOF'WARE
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
"a friend of my mothers dog's daughthers neighbour at Microsoft once demonstrated a modded PSP to Bill Gates and showed off all of the interesting things that enabled."
Yeah right.
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
I'm glad that Microsoft is actually looking into this. From the business perspective, a lot of money could be made if Microsoft / Sony / Nintendo (are there modded Gamecubes?) would embrace the mod chips.
It's the equivalent of illegally downloaded songs several years ago. Apple was one of the first to "cash in" on it. They had managed to get people to pay for something they could get free.
If the big console manufacturers would do this, not only would it make their game systems more appealing, but it would put some more cash in their pockets...
I guess this is the type of stuff you talk about when you are 0/2 in the console market.
They're all feckin' idiots.
The XBOX, PSP, PS2, whatever, should all be fully documented with SDKs and tools available for free.
This would cause sales of these products to go way up.
He's shown an interest in modded XBoxes...
:rolleyes: He brought this box along to a meeting with Bill Gates. Bill saw a demo of this, was quite impressed, and asked something along the lines of "How can we engage this community?" - instead of saying something like "How can we squash this?" It's long been on the back of everyone's minds in the Xbox group - how can we get students and hobbyists involved without disrupting the console business model? The good news is that it's still on the radar, we'll see what happens in the future.
from Ars
A little over a year ago, one of the people in my group modded an Xbox, installed Avalaunch, and put all sorts of Xbox mod scene apps on the box, like XBMC, RSS readers, etc, along with some "backup" games.
Bill was INTRIGUED and asked how we could help him make another HALF TRILLION DOLLARS. We all hung on his every gesture, his every syllable! What amazing insights could BILL bestow upon us lowly mortals! I actually BREATHED the same AIR as ALMIGHTY BILL.
In all seriousness, I'm getting sick and tired of the hero worship of this HUMAN BEING. Bill Gates is not God. He is a normal human being like the rest of us. Guaranteed he expels solid, liquid, and gaseous waste, just like you, me, and the Queen of freakin England.
I'm GLAD Bill is leaving M$FT. Finally he will stop taking credit for the hard work, blood, sweat and tears of the real engineers at the company. Maybe he'll finally acknoweldge that all the bujillions of dollars are not really the result or product of his own labor, but all the people he had working under him.
Make it so the user can't find a reason to use a mod chip except piracy. Sounds like what it is now?
Except I can't play Japanese or European games with out a mod chip for the most part.
I can't play out of region DVDs.
I can't play any form of a backup of games I legally owned but was destroyed one way or another (I recently lost over 200 PSX and PS2 games because of a moving compnay, they can't find the boxes. Am I supposed to go rebuy Suikoden 1 and 2, Xenogears, Castlevania Symphony of the Night, and Disgaea all from scalpers on Ebay? )
I can't install an OS on the hard drive if I wish to.
I can't install the game on the Hard drive for performance boosts (not all games and systems get it but leave it an option, maybe even allow me to install the game and then use the game as a boot disc but the game must remain in the system)
I can't load music from my disc unless it's a music cd, I own a couple hundred cds, I use mp3s for ease of use, I have my top 200+ songs on a single cd, now the 360 wants me to insert every CD I own to rerip them to get those songs?
All this shit should at least have a way to achieve it. I can live with out backups and OSes, but region coding stuff makes the modchip necessary. Microsoft knows that they lose money on systems, so which is better? Forcing me to buy two systems to play games in two regions or buying one system and spending the other 400 dollars on games in the second region?
If I could ignore region codes on a system and install games for speed benefit, I wouldn't have a reason to get a mod chip except if my video games were destroyed or stolen from me and Microsoft or the developer didn't sell those games any more.
The guy still thinks like a corporation with regards to imports and homebrew games. He says: >Sure, there are games you might want to play that are either released earlier or, quite possibly, not released at all in your region. But sometimes companies have good reasons to either not release a title into a region or release it at different dates. It may be because of the time and cost of localization, marketing plans, ad buys, cultural considerations, or perhaps even because of the impact of piracy in the region. Whatever good reasons they might have, there's no reason why their business model considerations should override the inalienable right I have to use the things I have paid money for. If I pay money for an xbox, and I pay money for some japanese game, then I have the right to use them. Marketing considerations shouldn't be more important. If I want to play homebrew games or write my own, it's my own friggin xbox that I bought with my money. That your business model is not compatible with this has, or should have no moral or legal weight whatsoever. That you lose money on every xbox sold? Not my problem. Should have sold it for a profit. I pay money for it, it is as mine as my groceries or my car. Corporations desperately want to move to a model where you don't buy hardware, you "license" it, but when that happens, that's the day I stop buying it.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
Importers don't care about the cost or time that goes into localization because they're playing a game without localization. None of those reasons make a lick of sense. Why should importers be affected by the costs of things they don't benefit from? And the cost of ads is beyond irrelevant to the ethicality of importing games.
This guy said it better than I did:
http://ozymandias.com/archive/2006/07/31/The-Prob
And Lose!
I'd mod a console if only for the ability to install a bigger drive and an alternate dashboard. The killer feature in my mind is without a doubt the ability to switch between different games without fumbling with the physical media. Kids destroy physical media at an astonishing rate, CDs get lost, they're hard to find, and they're a pain to organize.
Yes, I realize this facilitates piracy, and that this is something that many modded console owners do. I don't care. I have a good enough job that I could buy enough old console games to keep my busy for a good while. I'm not going to let weak copy protection and the letter of a EULA stand between me and something I see as a reasonable extension of console functionality, especially on a console which comes with a hard drive.
As for #3, which the author "cannot condone," I'm not eating into their profits by extending the functionality in this manner. I'd still be buying all of the whizbang accessories and games that they use to put themselves in the black. They don't provide a product (so far as I know) that allows the user to load a game which they own without the CD, so I'm not eating into their profits as long as I don't violate my own mores and pirate a game.
I'm not asking that they condone mod chips, I'm just asking them to explore the ability to do something that a console with an upgradable hard drive is just BEGGING to do. It's like they're shipping cars with 4 disc brakes and the rear brakes are disconnected, and connecting them is illegal. It's just stupid.
... and amazingly they can do it without damaging *their* core business. :)
The tone throughout the article was one of "A business model exists. Nothing that breaks that business model could possibly be ethical." WTF? Business models, and companies, don't have a right to make profits, goods are worth only their market value, etc.
Why is it that nobody has any trouble telling that to laid of workers; but they gather round to cry for the poor business models?
You could have just softmoded your xbox, and saved yourself money and effort.
Basically the author comes up with a convoluted reason to oppose mod chips which all resolve to the same basic argument: Microsoft should dictate how you use your property - you should not have a moral right to decide how to use your own property that you paid for.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
"Business model" == barriers to a fully free market == artificial obstacles to competition == preventing a fully optimal economy
Their main argument seems to be the razor blade model. If they sell them below cost, this kind of things loses them money. If they sell them at cost, no one buys them.
That's fair enough, but they have a third option. Sell consoles as they are, only make a special version (that will make up all your lost money then some) that lets users develop home brew stuff. Just charge 'em more. If you don't want to make a 2nd or 3rd SKU for that, sell a kit that does the same thing (and is priced accordingly).
The other option is what the Wii is doing. Some of the statements made by Nintendo seem to imply they are going to let users develop content (maybe for a small price). Or, the Wii dev kits are supposed to be only $1000 which would fall within the range of a hobbyist who is interested enough if they are willing to sell them.
It's obvious people are willing to pay for this. They develop the mod chips at great time expense, and others buy the chips and pay to have people put them in.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Microsoft wants a community to be developed around the Xbox, with hobbyists or fans making stand-alone games, utilities, and content for pre-existing games much like they do on the PC. Sort of like add-on modules for RPG games like Oblivion or (gasp) Grand Theft Auto.
What Microsoft wants to avoid is losing control of their monopoly of hardware. It is a slippery slope: Give users the ability to make homebrew games and content risks leaking the secrets of the console booting process.
The real question is this: Does the risk of losing business from pirated copies of games outweigh the benefits of a more robust user community? Microsoft will still stand to gain from public ignorance or fear of mod-chipping, and most people who rent games and burn them at home are the vast minority of users.
IMHO, their business model is semi-flawed to begin with. No matter your console preference, Microsoft trails Sony in an extremely competitive and brand-loyal market. More and more titles are being made cross platform. Sony's PS2 network abilities are free compared to Xbox live, although Live is still a better product. Microsoft's profits from the Xbox division remain dismal, but within the company it is still seen as the most innovative.
Good thing or bad thing? Hard to decide I say...
Here I am, here I remain.
It happened that Microsoft indicted a meeting regarding the same topic ("Modchips: hot to get some bucks off them") in their offices. Not to say this time it has only been a top-management meeting.
The secetary in charge for the redaction of the meeting-report had an hard-time to follow all the brainstorming. Obviously she had the aid of a computer and the top-of-the-edge tecnology for her duty.
So, here's what the report looked like:
"Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all"...
You could have just softmoded your xbox
.com instead of .org). The access requirements to forums make one have to use Google to search for information, so sticky threads don't help. Errors and omissions don't get corrected or filled in.
As someone who has done that, I can tell you it isn't that easy to do, mainly because sites with the information seem to want you to sign up for membership to their forums before they'll let you access the instructions. (I just wanted to get the info and go; I don't want to have to subscribe to a forum and bother veteran modders with newbie questions.)
It is also getting harder and harder to find compatible USB thumbdrives with which to perform a softmod. The only drive that I could find that would work completely with the XBOX would cause my PC to hang until it was removed and available instructions to store the image to the drive with a Mac just didn't work. Luckily some newer thumbdrives with acknowledged issues could be used on the PC to put the gamesaves on and copy to the XBOX, but could not be used to transfer data from an XBOX (failed writes).
Many tutorials' links to essential resources now lead to sites that have become ad farms or pointed to the wrong TLD (e.g.
Older methods which work with MechWarrior provide images to store on the drives, but newer methods that work with SID4 require another application to move bare gamesaves to the device, and further require you to download another program to get thumbdrive make and model code numbers and alter the application to recognize a USB thumbdrive as its proprietary storage device. Even the free version apparently only wants to work with the proprietary devices.
And then, once you get the mod in, you can't find any of the hacks in precompiled form. I have still to find where I can get a cross compiler to build my own binaries for emulators and applications, and still haven't found any public information on where to store them on the box's filesystem. Even with telnet enabled, the only command I can find that works is DIR; no CD command.
BTW, be careful with SID4. It doesn't seem to like it when you use a component video display instead of a composite and if you try hitting buttons blindly you may wipe out your EEPROM and/or drive backups. (I couldn't find SID4.5 or anything newer so I don't know if this issue has been fixed.) SID4 also apparently doesn't support component video (black screen and failure to exploit), so keep your original composite harness handy.
And if you can't get the maps to load in Halo 2, check to make sure your cable is firmly connected to the hub or switch before opting to revert your mod.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Why doesn't Microsoft make the mod chip?
That way, Microsoft could recover the console subsidy and let amateur (home) developers try to develop software for the XBox?
about Microsft's opinion on this?
Look, being proprietary software, they already have a vested interest in this. And, given their past performance, they don't really care about whatever problems it might cause the users of their software. So my guess is, in response to anything like "MS Employees Debate Mod Chips", the consensus is "we are for it!".
Fuck 'em. Just fuck 'em!
Microsoft sells a devkit (either as an addon to an existing 360 or a special 360).
With this devkit, you can build and compile XBOX 360 code. But, the code would only be signed for (and run on) the specific devkit.
If you want others to be able to use it, you can post the code and other devkit users can compile it and sign with their devkit key.
The libraries would provide access to the DirectX stuff and other features of the console with the following differences:
No access to run code from or read data from any disks in the optical drive. Everything would be loaded onto the hard disk only
Changes to the library to prevent pirate copies of normal 360 games from being made and run with this devkit and also to make it useless for real shops doing game development (licence aggrement would also prevent real shops from doing anything with this cheap kit)
Limits would be placed on network access
Then, there would be a way where people with something worth selling could approach microsoft and if its good enough, microsoft would allow it to be sold on XBOX live marketplace with microsoft getting $$$ from the sale.
They could even allow things like 360MC (to let you play all your media files on the 360) or the like. (as long as they get their cut)
nt
I wash mah-self with a rag on a stick.
Andre Vrignaud hit the 3 main reasons people mod their consoles and argued why these are bad. He says piracy is bad. I think most people can agree on principle, you shouldn't pirate, regardless of whether or not you actually partake in such practices.
What gets me is when Andre suggests that you don't have a right to do something with hardware you purchased because you got it below it's real value. If someone wants to sell you something cheap, that doesn't mean that you own it less.
Bill Gates honestly seems to have changed his outlook on life in many ways. He went from publicly saying he doesn't believe in charity to becoming Time's Man of the Year for charity work. He claims that he wants to change Microsoft's business practices to be less confrontational, perhaps forced by the EU's fines.
I'm not shocked that Gates wants to reach out to creative people who are using the XBox in innovative ways. I believe that you can encourage this market, and use it as a means to showcase the power of your console, while at the same time discouraging piracy.
Right now despite all the anti-Sony sentiment, I'm seriously considering the $500 PS3 which I believe provides more value in the end than the $400 360. (Both have HDD's, neither have HDMI, PS3 has more power, Blu-Ray and free online play). Sony is also talking about allowing Linux on the PS3 out of the box, and allowing full homebrew development. If the 360 allowed me to run stuff like XBox Media Center, perhaps I'd be more interested in the 360. But given that the XBox is largely an x86 PC that runs a gimped version of Direct X, if the PS3 does allow for proper homebrew applications, I wouldn't be totally surprised to see an XBox emulator on the PS3. Hell, I have a PS1 and N64 emulator on my XBox right now.
Can you imagine a PS3 that plays PS3/2/1 and XBox games?
I think I need a wet-nap.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
As an indicator that there is a target market here, I recently bought 2 X-Boxes, but no games. I've got no intention of buying any games either.
My *sole* reason for buying them is to convert them to X-Box Media Centre players. I've got all our music CDs ripped and stored on a file server, along with my (bought) DVDs and TV recorded with Myth TV. After getting the X-Boxes chipped and attached to wireless bridges, I can play all this content through any TV in the house, without running wires around.
Although it was a big disappointment for the kids ("Where are the games????", "Feel free to buy them yourselves!"), my SO *loves* it. She can pick the music she wants to listen to when she's e.g. on the treadmill, and all the CDs are now in storage; she can watch "her" TV shows (from Myth, after they've been run through nuv2avi) whenever she wants, on any TV in the house. The X-Box Media Centre interface is via the DVD remote, which has a minimal set of buttons that need no explanation. From power on, it takes ~30 seconds to access any DVD, TV show or songs we have, which is at least as fast as finding the physical media, loading it into a player, and navigating through menus. The X-Boxes themselves are pretty easy on the eye, and small enough to hide out of the way. Even the Media Centre screensavers are pretty cool.
X-Box Media Centre has a really good interface, and original X-Boxes are a whole lot cheaper than dedicated media players as well as a whole lot more flexible. Who knows, we might even play games on them one day!
There are many restrictions on the use of hardware that you may have purchased. For example, in my state, one is prohibited from converting a semi-automatic weapon into a fully-automatic weapon. One is prohibited from converting a HAM radio to a radio that interferes with the AM/FM bands. There are tons of other examples. So, there is no "right" to do with owned hardware whatever you please.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
just build a ms xbox360 ppc ubuntu and deliver it signed per live service for those parties interested, it only needs small additions like the appropriate (and already existing) drivers for the hardware ...
it could be an easy way to convinve me to eventually buy it
I never considered that angle before. Your two examples are covered by specific legislation. As it stands in this country, the sale and use of mod chips is legal in and of itself, and there is no legislation preventing the use of a mod chip, only legislation preventing the piracy of games (which is how it should be).
However, a gun has no real purpose other than killing things, which is rarely legal. A fully automatic weapon isn't exactly necessary for hunting geese. If you modify your radio to transmit on AM/FM bands, you may interfere with others from receiving radio signals. There are victims here in these cases, and that is why legislation has stepped in.
A modded XBox can be used for illegal activity and often is with piracy. However, a modded XBox does have valid legal uses, such as media center functionality and other such homebrew apps.
What I'm advocating is a middle ground. Allow people to develop homebrew software and have Microsoft digitally sign it. Microsoft still fights piracy with digital signatures, but creative people can still do nifty things with their hardware that they purchased.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
... price discrimination, in the economic sense. Suppose you sell English language software in the United States and India. The marginal cost of production of the software is the same in both countries, and is pretty close to zero. The maximum cost the market will bear in the United States is many, many times what it is in India. Transportation costs between the United States and India are very tiny relative to the value of your software. Presto changeo, rather than your company profiting in both the US and India you will have people begin to arbitrage your software by buying at Indian prices in India and selling at half of America prices in the US. Your official "US English" software sits on the shelves, your retailers get furious, and you watch someone whose only contribution to the process was filling out a FedEx form make the lion's share of the profits. Its not so happy.
Its extremely similar to the problem textbook manufacturers have when they sell books in Hong Kong (identical to the American content except adding the extra u's causes the price to go down by 80%, yet strangely enough American college students can still read them after they've been airmailed). The difference is that, unlike for textbooks (which, doctrine of first sale and all, are pretty hard to control once you sell them anywhere) there is a technologically enforceable way of limiting importing.
I'm not entirely sure its wrong, either. Supposing you're an American gamer buying Japanese games. You're not costing the Japanese publisher anything directly, but you're hurting the American company which is paying (dearly!) for the exclusive rights to exploit that property in the United States. Taking the long view, the one major contributing reason to "Dang it, why does Market X never get so much of what is released in Market Y" is because importing suppresses the market for above-board international transactions. Translation is a major expense which has to be spread over a bunch of units to make money.
If the natural market for the translation has already bought the original, and will not buy the translated version (applicable to most people and most, but not all, translated content), then it makes no sense to translate the game. And subcultures like Americans-who-love-Japanese-tactical-RPGs continue ensuring that only the most guaranteed-smash-hits (Disgaea, etc) will make it across. So they import the next game, and the cycle continues... So if you don't agree there is anything ethically wrong with importing, suit yourself, but next time you're wondering "Dang, why don't companies realize that these would be hits if they were released in the US" you can find the answer in the mirror.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
The problem with mod-chips for the business model is that console makers are losing a lot of money on the hardware. This loss is then compensated for by increasing the prices of games.
This is fundamentally the same issue as in the mobile phone industry, where the phones are often sold at steep discounts - in exchange for being tied to a contract with increased costs of actually using the phone and/or a monthly charge.
At least here in Denmark, rules disallow many "deceptive" business practices, resulting in virtually all subsidized phones being sold with a contract that forces 6 months of payment (after which the monthly charge is typically reduced to zero (unless the plan includes free minutes / text messages or the like)). Additionally, stores are required to give the total (minimum) cost of the phone over the contract period. This allows consumers to easily compare prices.
Thus consumers are perfectly willing to pay for a mobile phone by laying down X dollars now and Y dollars a month for Z number of months. Maybe some are deluding themselves into thinking, that they're actually getting something for those Y dollars a month, but I'd wager most aren't.
Why shouldn't this exact same "solution" work for console makers? Especially now that consoles feature internet accounts.
Microsoft could then sell its console for the same price as before, but include a contract for 6 months of "Xbox Live Diamond" access at some monthly charge.
Microsoft won't sell a mod chip, because it looks really bad then.
Right sir, here are the keys to your new Ford. For a mere $1000 optional extra, we'll sell you the additional key that operates the aircon system we've already installed, but won't let you use.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
So make a devkit that costs (losses from console sale + profit) and contains SDKs to make Live Arcade games. That way you can make homebrew Live Arcade games that you can send to friends (or with approval, put on the Marketplace). The SDK DOESN'T let you make the 360 into a Media Center PC, server, or other device.
What, you Microsoft to make it easy to use their underpriced box as a PC? So they can lose money to businesses who buy tons of 360s on the cheap because they are cheap PCs?
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That's news to me. I bought my mod chip in a store legally here in the US. You can sell modded XBox'es on Ebay so long as you don't include games on the HDD. Every time I see someone busted in the news, it wasn't for the mod chip itself, but rather including pirated games on the XBox. And xbox-scene.com is run out of the US, which provides full modding tutorials.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Just a small comment on topic of PS3's power. In general, it has not been proven to be more powerful. Many of the recent stories show that the development for PS3 is much harder than Xbox 360. This would mean that exploiting all of the power would be hard for most developers who aren't exclusive.
Another point is that at the current time, the online game play on PS3 is a wild card. The E3 presentation slides that showed the features of PS3 online play only listed having an online presence, but nothing about playing games for free. That would make the PS3 version be equivalent to Xbox Live Silver. (Which allows you to download things from Live [paid or free], and chat with other Live players, but no matchmaking)
I'm still waiting for the PS3-specific feature other than BD-DVD. (The tilt controller is a complete wash, as there were third party controllers for the PSX/PS2 that had that feature.)