NEWS - Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Xbox Mod-Chip On Sale
The Xtender, a "mod chip" intended to be added to the main circuit board of the Xbox, went on sale last weekend through retailers such as Hong Kong-based Lik Sang. Three other Xbox mod chips are also in development. Most of the mod chips promise similar functions based on disabling copy-protection features built into the Xbox. Customers are promised the ability to play games copied on recordable CD and DVD discs (and perhaps swapped as files on the Internet), play otherwise inaccessible foreign titles, and copy DVD movie discs otherwise protected by software from Macrovision. The makers of the Xtender, the Enigma and the Messiah mod chips did not respond to e-mail requests for comment. Analysts said the chips are unlikely to promote a wave of illegal file swapping similar to the MP3 phenomenon that has polarized the music industry or to the emerging movie piracy threat. For starters, using the mod chips requires disassembling the Xbox case and affixing the chip to the circuit board, a task that can require more than 20 soldering connections. Click here for the full story. This has been the topic of some heated discussion in the forums, so will you be happy or not if we see a wave of mod-chips?Source: http://dailynews.yahoo.com
