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Microsoft stops support of original Xbox
Microsoft has stopped supporting the first batch of original Xbox game consoles that have fallen out of warranty. Users owning newer consoles are still able to get support until their warranty expires. It'll happen in batches and rather gradually over the coming months.
So Microsoft will not support users with out-of-warranty faulty boxes in need of repairing. Microsoft has placed documentation on line allowing users with a little technical skill to attempt to repair their faulty boxes themselves. I am one of those folk with an out-of-warranty Xbox. Nothing to it you'd think - as the boxes have been constructed fairly well and seem very solid.
But what do you know, this weekend my original Xbox (I was a very early adopter) failed - I think it was the power supply. It smelled horrible. I opened up the Xbox - using weird torc screws. Voiding the non-existent warranty and there were black scarred patched on the power supply underneath the hard drive. As I have a wealth of Xbox games with a lot of them not functioning properly on the new 360 I opted to get a replacement Xbox. Which was not an easy task. There's no new ones on the shelves in the shops. There must be some brand new ones sitting in boxes in some warehouse I figure but there is no way of getting a new one here in the Netherlands. So I decided to get a second hand one from a garage sale for only 40 euros. It is slightly more scratched and dusty than mine but I proceeded to connect and it functioned. But it turns out to have the words 'executor 2' displayed on screen underneath a slightly altered Xbox logo when it is booting. Then it dawned on me - I got myself one with a mod chip installed. That is good - for playing backups and imports - but bad since I won't be able to use my original xbox account and live on it.
So now I have a couple of options and questions.
I could find out how to remove the mod chip - if possible. Such devices are always 'bolted on' perhaps even soldered and might actually lessen the life of the Xbox?
Perhaps I should actually take advantage of the mod-chip, install a bigger (say 120Gb+ ATA harddrive) and go all the way with homebrew, emulators and media center etc. I've found extensive rather fool-proof guides, the software to be able to do that and I think I could make it work if I wanted to.
As I wanted a close to virgin/close to new Xbox (pal) as a solid foundation to be able to continue to play my original xbox games I am not necessarily pleased by the fact that the box I got was modded. Are there places that repair Xboxes? Is it possible and easy to fit a new power supply? Do I get another one without a mod chip?
In stopping support of the original Xbox, Microsoft closes the door on an era that started on March 14th 2002(!!) in Europe. The original Xbox was replaced by its successor within 3.5 years, which is rather fast I'd say. Improved backwards compatibility on the 360 is also something I could opt to wait for. But there's always lesser known small PAL releases that will get left out unless they improve emulation in such a way that the emulation is virtually perfect in all cases and doesn't need to be tweaked for certain publishers/games like is the case now.
Comments
I think the Xbox managed to be fairly successful in Canada, even though it cost $450 when it came out here. Someone in my family, who couldn't afford it, bought one anyway, which is why I remember. :-) Too bad it got "killed" almost immediately when the 360 came out.
The machine is actually quite powerful and it is easier to program than the PS2 which needs you to write crazy parallel (multi threaded) code to squeeze a similar performance out of it. When you look at some of the later games coming out on the system it is a shame to see that the full potential of the device has never been met.
The way those original xbox machines disappeared off the shelves the moment the 360 hit was just mind boggling. Especially when considering the ps2 is still being sold by Sony. But the decision to pull the original xbox out of the stores undoubtedly has given 360-sales a big boost, at least it didn't steal momentum from it like the ps2 did with the ps3.
Xbox 360: Lactobacillus P | Wii: 8151 3435 8469 3138
Armchair arcade Editor | Pixellator | www.markvergeer.nl
But the decision to pull the original xbox out of the stores undoubtedly has given 360-sales a big boost, at least it didn't steal momentum from it like the ps2 did with the ps3.
I wonder if Microsoft was disturbed by the amount of "hacking" going on with the original XBOX. Most of the XBox owners I knew had "mod chips" for it, allowing it to do things that Microsoft hadn't intended, and definitely didn't encourage. I recall seeing a book called "Hacking the XBox" (or something like that), and it seemed to take a lot of control of the product away from Microsoft.
I know that other systems have been hacked in a similar manner, but it seems like it bothered Microsoft more than other console companies (except perhaps Nintendo). Perhaps this might be why they want to just bury the system and get it out of the way.
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Mark -
I would actually suggest that you "really lucked out!" in this case.
I'll freely admit that I have modded many an Xbox using that chip. I would do this operation for coworkers in exchange for a season of Star Trek TNG on DVD. It was a fun trade to make. The mod itself is legal, however using a custom BIOS in the chip to bypass the Microsoft BIOS inside is considered illegal. It was therefore up to my peers to deal with the BIOS.
Advantages of a modchip aside for the moment, you should have an external switch board mounted to the Xbox somewhere that lets you enable or disable the Xecutor 2 chip. This switch is installed for the specific purpose of being able to get on Xbox Live without having your system detected as chipped. You'll know you were successful when you flip the switch, boot the Xbox and see the traditional "Microsoft" appear at the bottom of the screen.
As for the advantages of the chip, my original Xbox is still a major component of my home theater as it can play back just about any video file known to man. You can copy your Xbox games to the hard drive, and that makes for better load times as well as preservation of your DVD drive. You may want to keep your broken XBox for parts, by the way. Depending on when your units were made, your xbox that broke may have a superior DVD drive than the one you just picked up. That said, the modder may have upgraded the drive in there already. There were various models used during the Xbox lifespan. The net can tell you which ones are better.
It's a shame that the 360 doesn't have better backward compatibility. I hope your Xbox gaming lives on. Best of luck.
So this Executer 2 chips is a good one then? There's no switch on the outside of the xbox. So there is no way of disabeling it. I could of course attempt to install the switch myself. I did manage to get some emulators - including a version of mame running from a burned DVD which was a treat. I had to use a special program that creates some sort of reverse dvd-rom format iso that is used by the xbox but the iso can be burned by any dvd-burning program.
Finding the binaries for those emulators and applications is a big hassle - probably because the binaries are built using non-legal dev-tools. Which is a shame. The xbox shares so many components with a regular Pentium III pc that developing for it is relatively easy. The quality of the homebrew (emulation & ports of older games) is just amazing. Far superior than the stuff you'll be able to get running on your dreamcast. The DC is almost always able to boot off cd-r's without the need for a mod.
I am still not sure what to do. Make a switch or rip it out or leave it in there. The amount of live-enabled games in my collection is pretty decent but quite a few of the 'ímportant' live games do work on the 360 with Live and the others have just no live-community left. So I'll probably leave it as it is for now and play the live enabled games on the 360.
So I am thinking about the switch and if I leave the mod-chip in there I definitely will upgrade the hard drive to be able to install games it using some nice program that will do that for you automatically. Perhaps I'll just go hunt down an unmodded xbox to sit next to it. Perhaps an unmodded box is even cheaper than what I payed for the unexpected MOD.
Xbox 360: Lactobacillus P | Wii: 8151 3435 8469 3138
Armchair arcade Editor | Pixellator | www.markvergeer.nl