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Modding Community Gets Head Start on Xbox 360
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happening
posted by: Aaron Stanton
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date posted: 12:55 AM Wed Aug 31st, 2005
last revision: 12:59 AM Wed Aug 31st, 2005


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Click to read.The makers of the SmartXX mod chip for the Xbox have gotten hold of three Xbox 360 developer kits, and doing what they do, they immediately dissected the systems and posted a number of internal Xbox 360 screenshots. You can take this as being an indication that the modding community is already getting started on Microsoft\'s upcoming toy, and you\'re probably right, but I wouldn\'t be surprised to find out that the motherboards of these development kits are substantially different than the final product. If that\'s the case, they might not be all that useful in the actual designing of the next generation modding chips; I\'m not technically briefed enough to say.

These Xbox 360 development kits might be more a technical curiosity than actual launch pads into the world of modding super consoles.

You can find photos of the system below, or you can surf over to Team-Xboxes site for a whole pile of photos.

For those of you less familiar with the modding community, the original Xbox system revolutionized system modding. Before the Xbox came onto the scene with its standard 8 GB hard drive inside every box, modding was limited to what could be done with a processor, memory stick, and CD. With a hard drive, the Xbox became the most modifiable game system around, allowing tech savy users to install larger hard drives, alternate operating systems, run NES & SuperNES emulators (among others), run homebrew software, and generally wreak havoc on Microsoft\'s organized plan of what is and is not allowed on the Xbox.

Since the Xbox 360 is at heart little more than a powerful computer, modding the system to run alternative operating systems like Linux makes it possible to pick up an extreamly powerful computer for extremely cheap. In fact, the system will be more powerful than you could reasonably purchase if you were trying to find equivalent processing power at a computer store.

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