AfterDawn: News

The hunt for stolen Xbox 360 development kits

The hunt continues in Europe for some of the ten Xbox 360 development kits that were stolen from a German Warehouse as Microsoft fears they may have fallen into the hands of hackers. A shipment of ten dev kits were delivered to a warehouse in Germany in unmarked packaging. They were to be distributed to developers who could use them to create games for the console. However, the shipment went missing and photographs of the kits with the serial numbers removed surfaced on the Internet.

An investigation has already recovered three from several raids in Austria and Germany, but the other seven haven't turned up yet. The first Xbox console was plagued by modifications and piracy. It's easy to purchase modchips for the console to bypass security measures. J Allard, Microsoft's Chief Executive, told Gamespot that piracy on the Xbox 360 console was a given, which the company has already accounted for.



"The philosophy that we applied on 360 is 'It's going to happen'," he said. He hinted that the bypassing of security on the 360 console was less important from a financial perspective but was a significant threat to online multiplayer game experience to genuine customers. The console will be released in Europe on December 2nd 2005.

Source:
Eurogamer

Written by: James Delahunty @ 11 Oct 2005 15:24

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• 15 comments

• dikdimond

  Hmm...curious that J would mention "security on the 360 console was less important from a financial perspective but was a significant threat to online multiplayer game experience to genuine customers"...are they afraid that there is an exploit in Live that would allow 'Backups' of games to be used to play online,that will be discoverd? K

  11.10.2005 16:16 #1

• Mik3h

  Hope it was stolen by hackers, I'd like to see some mods before the machine is even released! lol
  
  -Mike

  11.10.2005 16:19 #2

• Dela

  dikdimond, check the source, i think it says something about homebrew aspplications giving players an unfair advantage on xbox live, only not in those same words! that's probably what arrald meant!

  11.10.2005 16:29 #3

• Dela

  allard even ;-) sorry!

  11.10.2005 16:30 #4

• Mik3h

  Spelling... o/j Dela :P
  
  -Mike

  11.10.2005 16:32 #5

• dikdimond

  You mean like the Halo 2 BS that happens on Live...never thought of it that way,Dela...check this out eveyone,a little added reply from Team Smartxx http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEklAEVplZYuqLANUS.php

  11.10.2005 17:06 #6

• Alien13

  Well that would be great to have modchips out when the console comes out :) Even tho i most probably wont be able to afford it, the revoloution, is my first one i want to get :) But this is great news :)

  11.10.2005 17:37 #7

• borhan9

  This seems to be good news for XBOX Fan's but to be honest with u from this article it does not seem to b a big problem from what i just read... besides the $$$ involved...

  11.10.2005 17:56 #8

• MXGzX

  Quote:A shipment of ten dev kits were delivered to a warehouse in Germany in unmarked packaging.ha and we hope it did fall into the hands of "hackers" lol that would be awesome

  11.10.2005 18:16 #9

• blues03

  I think he was talking about cheating online, not playing backup games. Also, I think it's interesting how the article described the Xbox as "plagued." Certainly, piracy is a horrible thing and proves how humans aren't basically good, but modifications are far from a plague. For a user to take their system, unlock its capabilities, play around with writing their own programs, using media capabilities, and truely "making it their own," to use Jason Allard's own words, is what Xbox modding has always been about. Plus, running games from the hard drive makes load times as fast as PC games.

  11.10.2005 21:24 #10

• blues03

  If mod chips are available at the release, I think I might actually buy a Xbox360 instead of a X1800xt.

  11.10.2005 21:27 #11

• TheKasinO

  I've been searcing for a question i havent found an answer to. If there is reverse capabilities is someone going to make a softmod for the XBOX360.that would probally be the fastes distribution of modding ever. Softmodding is so cheap and easy is omeone going to make softmodidng possile i dont see y not with Reverse compatibility. :)

  12.10.2005 16:58 #12

• Reasons?

  We're set, mod chip away, this is a beautiful moment. Hackers will have this figured out in no time with those dev kits.

  20.11.2005 11:36 #13

• xhardc0re

  I will love it WHEN the modchips for Xbox360 start hitting in a few months. Okay, I'm being overly pessimistic. Most likely in a few weeks. Whatever happens though, this story http://www.xb360info.com/xbox/news/168 is hella funny. Guess M$oft is scared to death about more kits being stolen. They are putting RFID tags on their Xboxes at the factory to prevent more thefts. All I can say is....LOL

  21.11.2005 05:55 #14

• Reasons?

  You can't say LOL, it's an action.
  

  Formerly "cmmnsense", banned for lack of restraint.
  
  Fanboy is a term used to describe someone who is utterly devoted to a single subject. This generally is followed by the devotion and support even when proved wrong.
  
  Anecdotal, by my definition, it's the way too many people here think. It's also all the evidence you have.
  
  

  21.11.2005 08:01 #15