Everything There Is To Know About the I.C.E. Modchip (at the moment):

Since January 2nd, 2006, the I.C.E. modchip for the Xbox 360 has been a matter of fairly stringent debate.

The chip first appeared when modchip reseller InfinityMods.com posted a comment on their website claiming that they had received an Xbox 360 modchip called the LiThIuM I.C.E., and that they were testing it and expected the chip to be available for preorder within two weeks. That\'s January 15th or so.

Since then, there\'s been a tremendous amount of information about the chip\'s legitimacy, very little of it conclusive. Three times now GamesFirst has offered to send a writer to Team I.C.E.\'s location in an attempt to help prove its authenticity, and every time the request has been either turned down or ignored in subsequent communications.

Is the ICE modchip for real? Is Team I.C.E. simply unfortunate enough to accidently name themselves after the government agency that recently arrested 3 Xbox modders in California? What can be believed?

\"We leave a standing offer to Team I.C.E.: Upon your request, we will consider sending a writer to... serve as an independent source of confirmation; if Team I.C.E. wants to be taken seriously, it\'s time they open the doors.\"

In our final post on the subject, we combine comments from Team I.C.E., Divineo.com, and other sources to sum up everything we know about Team I.C.E. and the first announced Xbox 360 modchip. Some of this information is public. Other bits of information come from private correspondence we\'ve had with various people and sites.

In our opinion it paints a very questionable picture. Even if the chip does go on sale in the next week, it means nothing without independent verification from a trusted source.


A Time-line and an Interview:

We have no conclusive information about whether or not the ICE Modchip really exists, but we present the information we have in a time-line, followed by an interview with Team I.C.E.

In the meantime, we leave a standing offer to Team I.C.E.: Upon your request, we will consider sending a writer to verify the chip\'s existence and function, and serve as an independent source of confirmation. The gaming and modding community has gone out of its way to verify this chip\'s abilities with no success; if Team I.C.E. wants to be taken seriously, it\'s time they open the doors.


Everything We Know in a Time-line:

• January 2nd, 2006: Infinitymods.com posts a comment to their website stating, \"XboX 360 Chip Recieved, and in testing, expect sales within 2 weeks!\" Other members of the Xbox modding community - including established modding teams - have heard nothing about this chip. InfinityMods.com is the only reseller to have reported receiving test units.
  
  
• January 5th, 2006: Infinitymods.com post a follow-up comment stating, \"Due to massive emails regarding the xbox 360 chip, we will provide you some more details. Price is retail $70, Wires are 20-30, Install time is approx 25 minutes, able to direct boot backups, dumped isos, or full rips. Name is I.C.E. Chip website is I.C.E. ModChip.\"
  
  The link included, icemodchip.com, takes readers to a graphic with a statement that the LiThIuM I.C.E. chip would be coming soon.
  
  Things to note at this point:
  
  
  • There is another modchip that carries the name of ICE. The Xenium ICE chip for the Xbox, created by Team OzXodus. Icemodchip.com is registered to Team ICE.
    
    
  • A Whois search of the two domains involved with the chip, InfinityMods.com and IceModChip.com, show that the two are most likely owned by the same people:
    
    According to a quick Whois search, the contact e-mail for both domain names are sales[AT]infinitymods.com and orders[AT]infinitymods.com. Additionally, the contact phone number for icemodchip.com is the 1-800 number given on InfinityMods.com as their order number. Evan OKeefe (we assume O\'Keefe) is listed as the admin, billing, and technical contact for icemodchip.com. According to the Contact Us information on InfinityMods.com, evan[AT]infinitymods.com will also put you in contact with the InfinityMods sales department. The first assumption is that evan@infinitymods is Evan O\'Keefe, but that could be wrong. Team I.C.E. has repeatedly denied that InfinityMods.com and Team I.C.E. are the same, saying that InfinityMods is an affiliate.
    
    This casts doubt on the chip, since InfinityMods.com is not an established developer, and a relative newcomer to the modding community (InfinityMods.com was launched only half a year ago.)
    
    
  • According to XboXStation.com, an Xbox 360 load disk circulating on the Internet with the name of LiThIuM, spelled in the same style as the LiThIuM I.C.E. modchip, was found to be a fake. A look at the info file that accompanies the disc shows that the file references InfinityMods.com, though the authors at the time refer to themselves as Team LiThIum, not Team ICE.
    
    
  • Later, references to the LiThIum part of the chip were removed from the icemodchip.com site.
    
    
  • An interesting observation: On December 21st, 2005 - 12 days before the I.C.E. modchip appeared - three men were arrested for modifying and selling modded Xboxes in California in a federal sting operation. The government agency responsible for this arrest was Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly referred to as I.C.E. Team I.C.E. has stated that their name stands for, \"Internally Controlled Equipment\".
  
  
• January 6th, 2006: InfinityMods.com posts a comment on their site, \"We were contacted today, from Team I.C.E. There wensite will fully launch tomorrow evening approx. With information, f.a.q. and more ! stay tuned! http://www.icemodchip.com\"
  
  
• January 7th, 2006: GamesFirst.com sends Team I.C.E. an e-mail offering to send a writer to help verify that the chip was able to do what Team I.C.E. claimed. Team I.C.E. replied that they, \"Hey we would love to but we are currently covering press with divineo at the moment over in france :) Stay tuned to the website, we will be posting os pictures soon!\"
  
  
• January 7th, 2006: icemodchip.com launches, stating that the \"When\" date for the chip is January 31st, 2006. Subsequent e-mails to Team I.C.E. result in claims that the chip will actually ship, not just preorder, in early February of 2006. The January 31st, 2006 date is later changed on the website to TBA. Click here for more information about what was published on the icemodchip.com site.
  
  
• January 7th, 2006: icemodchip.com launches with a number of photos which are labeled as prototype units. Later, the pictures disappear, replaced by a statement that the pictures were fake, not the chip, and that they were posted as a result of a falling out between the webmaster and Team I.C.E. The pictures actually came from here and here.
  
  
• January 8th, 2006: GamesFirst contacts Divineo.com to verify that Team I.C.E. is working with them. Divineo.com replies that, \"They were supposed to meet with us and they cancelled at the last second with totally unclear reason. We are 99% sure it is fake.\" Divineo.com subsequently sends e-mails to Xbox-scene.com and other prominent modding sites stating the same. Based on this e-mail, Xbox-scene.com basically concludes that the I.C.E. chip is a fake.
  
  
• January 9th, 2006: When presented with the Divineo\'s comments, Team I.C.E. replied by accusing Divineo.com of attempting to buy them out, and then slandering the I.C.E. name instead. Divineo.com, a longstanding site of solid reputation, denies they ever had interest in buying Team I.C.E. out in any way, saying, \"...we were looking to be their best customer.\"
  
  
• January 9th, 2006: The Team I.C.E. website posts a video that appears to show a girl placing a back-up copy of Call of Duty 2 into an Xbox 360 and playing it. The video does not show close up images, and does little to satisfy the gaming community. Many accuse the video of being faked, siting a scene splice 34 seconds into the video. The video is subsequently removed from icemodchip.com.
  
  
• January 10th, 2006: Team I.C.E. continues to be defiant, saying that they will be vindicated when the chip launches. Every time an inconsistancy is pointed out on their website, the subsequent files (pictures, dates, movie) are removed. Subsequent requests to allow a writer to verify the chip are ignored, or not addressed in replied e-mails.

A Brief E-mail Interview With Team I.C.E.:

On January 9th, after a number of e-mails between GamesFirst and Team I.C.E., the team agreed to answer a few questions for us. Below are our questions, and Team I.C.E.\'s responses.

Q: When do you expect the chip to actually ship, and be available to customers? On the website you have the date Jan. 31st listed. Is this the ship date, or pre-order date?

A: Chips is expected by the end of the month early feb.


Q: Has there been a great deal of interest in the chip? Have you received pre-orders, yet?

A: Pre-orders have only been gathered as a list, no payment or stock, have
been taken or received.


Q: What does I.C.E. stand for?

A: Internally Controlled Equipment


Q: Was it difficult developing the chip as a newcomer to the development scene (assuming that you are newcomers; feel free to correct us on this).

A: Very, as everyone seems to always wish to bash, and call us fake, but
they will see when it launches.


Q: In the video, the system does not appear to boot to an OS that is any different than normal. Earlier, you released screenshots of an OS for the Xbox 360. Is there a reason we didn\'t see it?

A: The os was not listed as it is going to now be applied to newer versions
of the modchip, Microsoft has done a full scale recall on all first
generation units.

Editor\'s Note: We\'re not entirely sure what is meant by the statement about Microsoft\'s full-scale recall of first generation Xbox 360 units. As far as we know, Microsoft has done no such thing. Perhaps they meant a redesign?


Q: Is there a reason that you decided not to follow through with Divineo.com for verifying the chip?

A: Divineo wished to buy us out, at which time, we refused, so they choice
to try and slander our name.


Q: Is there anything you\'d like to say to people in the online community that might question the validity of the modchip?

A: This chip will launch, that\'s a given, we are more so focused on
perfecting the unit, so that all users will be greatly surprised with the
features, from this new team.

Our Final Thoughts:

We here at GamesFirst are hesitant to pass judgement without absolute proof. However, it seems to us that the I.C.E. modchip would have been fairly easy to verify as legitimate if it were truely functioning. Is it a fraud? A hoax? A young modding team jumping the gun when they thought they had a chip ready to go? Is it legitimate? We have no way of saying. However, even if the chip is real, how confident would you be in the product after reading the above? We here at GamesFirst honestly hope that I.C.E. is vendicated, but there are a great deal of holes they\'ve not addressed. There\'s no way in the world we would consider purchasing this chip from any retailer without solid, independent verification of the chip.

So far, that hasn\'t happened, and there has been plenty of oppertunity.


One More Place to Research:

As we said at the start of the article, this is the last time the I.C.E. chip will be addressed here on GamesFirst.com, short of some substantial happenings. However, we\'ve been in communication with BlackListed411.net, which claims to have an extreamly indepth report on the situation coming up soon. We\'ll link to it when it publishes.