Cyberock

I see Microsoft is up to its old tricks again. I got bored and read the agreement. Goodbye privacy in gaming. Read this article:

http://www.game2extreme.com/news/art...?articleid=718

bluntman72

I don't mind the part about not being able to modify the x-box since it will hopefully keep people from finding ways to cheat online. The part about using any information that they have could be annoying if they sell the information to telemarketers, etc.. but since I am not going to load my unlicensed version of XP on my x-box I don’t expect any legal issues to come up.

I will be signing up for X-box live as soon as it comes out

Trigger

Me too - I don't care if they get info on the amount of gaming I do. I also don't want them to sell my info to 3rd parties, but what company doesn't do that? This is mostly for stats and to protect themselves from theives and cheaters. I don't suspect they'll do anything malicious with the info. Part of the whole appeal of the Xbox is that they're gonna keep track of gamer stats. What kind of privacy do you need while you are gaming? It's not like they're actually gonna have a camera watching you play Bloodwake in your underwear like the article suggests.

Aghama

I dunno, the fact that they are able to sue you for opening your xbox is hogwash.

Cyberock

the agreement basicly says you couldn't even do modifications to add hard drives or anything like that. I really don't care if they check for mod chips cause I have no interest in doing that. I'll probably never modify my xbox either but there are some who want to make it into a more powerful system.

Trigger

Well I still walk around a free man and I've torn off all the tags from my mattress.

Trigger

Their reasoning is just to keep software piracy from happening - there's already a mod chip that will allow you to play "backups" so what's to stop someone from selling copies for 20 bucks? This is there to protect them from software piracy. I doubt they would go after someone who had extra hard drives in their Xbox.

Cyberock

The questions is how will they determine it was modified? For example, some Dell computers have something that detects if the cover was removed and then a message will be displayed everytime the machine is turned on. You don't have to do anything illegal to the machine, maybe replace a bad card and now it notes you may have modified the machine. Does the xbox have a similiar thing where all they will know is that the machine was modified but not know exactly what was. The agreement says any type of modification.

jeffdsmith

Agreed. I can see MS actually finding someone and taking them to courst as an example. As Trigger sugests, I doubt it will be the norm. but I can see a couple people being fried as examples.

darkside

Those tags have to be on up until you buy them. Its the seller that can't tear them off not the buyer.

I really have no problem with them checking for mod chips. Anything to stop piracy is good.

Josh H

I especially have no problem with this for the X-box as there's no real legitimate reason to mod an X-box.

With the PS2 and GC gamers at least have the excuse that they want to import games that are only available in Japan. Of course many times more gamers mod them to play "back ups" than to import games.

Anyway, the X-box isn't selling well over there, so it's unlikely there will be many (if any) Japanese only games worth importing, so there isn't even that excuse to justify modding the system.

Pretty much the only reason to put a mod chip in an x-box is to rip off companies by playing "back ups."

Aghama

You are incorrect, there is much more of a reason to mod the Xbox than just playing pirated games.

jeffdsmith

Agreed. When I won my xbox I seriously considered holding onto it for all the possabilities it has. Once I realized that modifications were going to take a while to figure out I sold it quickly before the price drop.

Once some good hacks come out I can see the Xbox as being a great MP3 box for a nice cheap price. We should be able to load a full OS on there and utilize it like a computer, but at a fraction of the cost. And that's only the begining. (IMO )

mljones99

I agree.

Gallant Pig

Well it is already a great MP3 box for a nice cheap price right?

Jeff, glad to hear you got a good price for it after you had to pay to get it fixed.

johnglad

If you are using it as an MP3 player and want to modify it for that then why is XBOX live even an issue?

Josh H

By modding I meant a mod chip that's usually used for playing back ups or imports, not things like adding hard drives. I think MS would only crack down on people that had modded there X-boxes to enable them to play back ups.

What else can an X-box mod chip do? I hadn't heard that the mod chips could do more than play back ups.

tygloalex

But ya gotta admit.....95 percent of the "modders" are using it for boots.........

darkside

Thats the big problem. I have no doubt many people do just mod for imports or other legal reasons, but its that large group of thieves that screw it up for everyone.

Darknight

Josh, and everyone else who are against mod chips but want to add HDDs, the simple fact is you can't at this moment without a mod chip. Any modification, be it hdd, new optical drive or anything needs a mod chip. Each component in the XBox is tied to your system by a unique id number. That means you can't swap out a component and upgrade it nor can you even take someone else's xbox hdd and put it in your system. Thus at this time you need a mod chip. There are some early stage methods to adding a new hdd by locking it to your system but that is still in the early stages and I wouldn't say it's a safe to do yet. You could ruin the hdd completely if you screw up.

So yes, there are legitimate things to do with an XBox mod chip and backups is only one of the things in a long list of other things you can do with the system. The fact is, as it stands anything other than playing XBox originals will require a mod chip. However, since usually MS would only be able to detect if there is a chip, there would be no way to tell the difference between someone using it for legit reasons and someone using it for back ups.

Trigger

If it's that big a deal then buy 2 Xboxes and have a clean one for Xbox live and a modded one for extra hard drives, mp3 player, pirate game player, dreamcast emulator, coffee maker, whatever. Simple.