Modding your XBOX for Dummies

The XBOX is now officially an old system. Yet, a huge percentage of the gamer population has one- chances are, if you are reading this, you know someone who has one, or you own one yourself. Well, let's face it- the XBOX has always been kind of a dead system. It doesn't seem to have the huge library of titles that the Playstation or the Nintendo series has, it seems to kind of stroll down the path of mediocrity, holding the only few games worth playing in it's hands.

So, just to let you into a little secret, the Gametrash authors are all friends generally before authors, and we were having a discussion about this. Taylor, one of our authors, is one of those guys to run out and try something insanely odd, and end up getting miraculous results. So when he mentioned what is known as Softmodding his XBOX, I was laughing. How in the hell could you exploit a game to completely overwrite the XBOX OS? But, believe it or not, he did it- and now, he stands as one of the few people I know to actually modify XBOX Games this way. Ignoring his obvious 1337-itude with this, I felt somewhat pressed by the need to enjoy this for myself- and now, I write this article, while I use my Softmodded XBOX to watch ?Onegai Teacher?. But ignoring my obvious faggotry, I'm going to use this article to not only show you what modding the XBOX is, but I'm also going to include instructions on how to do it, and also the downloads you need.

1. What is Softmodding?

Softmodding on the XBOX, is, for the most part, overwriting the XBOX Operating System. You see, every single Video Game console has basically what we can consider an Operating System of sorts, usually stored in the form of a rudimentary BIOS. What this means to the layman is that every video game machine out there has a program in it designed specifically to run the video games you pop into it, be it the NES or the XBOX 360. However, in more recent years, Video Game consoles (Most notably the XBOX) have begun to contain Hard Drive Disks, which are like instant cheat sheets for the hardware developers for these systems. Instead of having to dump a huge program into embedded memory of a system (Like the PS2 and Gamecube do), the XBOX saves time and loading speed by just dumping most of the XBOX Dashboard onto the Hard Drive. While everything CD booted (Like the graphics drivers) are still stored in the BIOS, everything else (Such as the booting dashboard, the ability to copy music, the memory card manager) is stored on the Hard Drive.

Now, onto what we're talking about- Softmodding it. See, theoretically, if you were to take that dashboard and modify it, you could also have write access to the BIOS, among other things. Long story short, you can take all of that stuff that gets installed on the XBOX in the warehouse, and overwrite it. The explanation of what goes on and exactly how to do it is somewhat complicated, so the tutorial I'll include is stupidly basic, but just understand that the way to do this involves an exploit that hooks into the system via Linux commands implemented in some games and it injects the script in.

Why Softmod? Easy. Softmodding is basically like taking your DOS computer and putting Windows on it- it's opening up so many new features and ?Things to do?, that it can turn anyone's XBOX from the official "Halo Machine" to something much better. My XBOX has gone from the machine I literally kept at the bottom of my entertainment center for rare use to the system I keep on my coffee table 24/7. By softmodding, you can not only give your XBOX the ability to read DVD-Rs (Which, for you pirates out there, allows you to play downloaded games, but it also allows you to watch DVDs without the remote, thus the Onegai Teacher...), but you also allow it to run virtually any program that is encoded with the XBOX header files (Which are like .exe files, except .xbe) and run it as an HTTP/FTP server.



What does all this mean? Well, let's see. Not only do I have every single old school game on my XBOX right now (All my NES games, all of my SNES games, all of my Nintendo 64 games, and a few Final Fantasy games on my Playstation emulator), but I can also listen to Internet radio, surf the web, play Homebrew XBOX games, and view pictures on there. All on that little black machine that was covered in dust not two months ago.

How is all this done? The mod community. Originally, these programs were written for hardmodded XBOX consoles (That is, you open up the case and add a chip, whereas Softmodding doesn't require you to ever open the system or modify anything like that). It wasn't until people discovered the Linux Softmod exploits in Splinter Cell, Agent Under Fire, and MechAssault, that these programs skyrocketed in popularity and now essentially become the most run things on XBOX consoles today. The big name projects are obviously replacement Dashboards, from UnleashedX (Which I use and prefer), to Evolution X, to XBOX Media Center (Which I have running as an application, the best program out there in my opinion). These programs each have individual bonuses, but when it all boils down to it, at the end of the day, they all rule.



Now it's time to move on to actually how to do this.

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