Why a Hacked Xbox 360 is STILL awesome in 2023. 

For people who play Rhythm Games (Specially Guitar Hero and Rock Band) is a must buy a modded 360 due to easy installation of DLC (Official and Custom), mods like Rock Band 3 Deluxe and play with Arduino controllers instead of use exclusive controllers. For me, it was like have a huge ocean to navigate.

Xbox live for the 360 will be shutdown sooner or later. This is why online multiplayer should have decentralized servers so the players can always set one up themselves

The 2TB limit has been patched out. There are so called XL patches that allow you to use (iirc) 16TB HDDs.

I have a devkit xbox 360. Specifically the one used to develop Marble Blast Ultra. One of the former employees was selling it on ebay. So glad I got that :D

This was such a special generation of gaming, we had constant bangers of games coming out. I even remember being able to add mods to certain games by using programs like Modio & Horizon with a USB to be able to download modded saves, even had custom player homes in games like Fallout and Skyrim all on a non hacked, non jtagged xbox 360

I didnt realise the whole library was so small. I figured it would take up 10tb or more. I need to look onto this when i get home.

Sad the One was never open like this, just for game preservation alone it's necessary I think. I love having all games of old consoles available on my hardware when it goes EOL, since no publisher is harmed after they stop selling their games actively. It's a huge chest of inspiration for me as a developer to just fire up any game I like on my original hardware.

For Rock Band fans, Rock Band 3 Deluxe + Rock Band 3 Enhanced are incredible mods that make RB3 on 360 (or PS3!) the definitive plastic instrument music game.

Hey MVG, if you turn on Automatic Scrolling in your browser and press the scroll wheel and move the mouse slightly down (the more, the faster it scrolls), it should start to scroll through the page automatically. This gives it a more pleasing effect when you use it in a video. Just my 2 cents.

Just wanna say I appreciate you're still making content even though you mentioned how much time you were taking and that it was getting a little bit more difficult as you got older. Appreciate everything you cover, and you keep delivering with awesome content

Great video @MVG is it just ME but i thought you should know Volume Level in this Video seems a bit low Compared to you normal Videos Thought it should Know and keep up the good WORK Mate

I did this on an Xbox 360 Slim I was given from my old workplace when they were moving. Managed to do it over the Covid period. Did the mod myself from guides on YT, a chip board off eBay and a great modding community on Discord. I didn’t have anything to loose and it works great. I would like to STATE that although the mod isn’t hard, it can be difficult with some of the soldering being very small and does require you to completely strip down the console to the motherboard. If that doesn’t bother you. I can definitely recommend doing this to your console. It’s surprising how much it allows you to do. It also allows you to clean it up and apply some new thermal paste 👍

Love getting to work and having a new MVG video waiting on me. Excellent as always. Thank you!

For the ability to load older versions of games, this can be specifically really nice if you want to get into speed running for certain games, some patched versions remove specific glitches or exploits that some categories want for skips or sequence breaks in different games

So many slick enhancements, I really dig the “versioning” of software available on the hacked system. Great coverage, as always!

@MVG, thank you for this reminder. I have an unmodded XBox 360 that I've kept largely because my kids like a handful of Kinect games. None of these games were included in the Xbox One compatibility layer and they require the original Kinect as well. It's been getting harder and harder to justify keeping a 360 around for such a small selection of titles. Your video serves as an important reminder that there is so much more to modding the 360 than just being able to rip some games. I'm definitely going to add this to my projects with that shutdown deadline approaching. Most of my 360 game library is tied up in the MS Store and I had assumed and was coming to terms with the loss of access. Thank you for pointing out a much more sensible alternative.

Man, I didn't know about the store closure. It stung when Nintendo did it for their platforms, but man, this one hurts. I remember going back onto the 360 marketplace specifically cause it was the only way I could repurchase some stuff I couldn't on the current store, like GTA IV or old ports of games like Sonic 3.

I've done 4 rgh3 in the past couple months for friends after they realised how cool my setup was. Great video and still showing the 360 some love

360 will always be one of my favourite consoles when I think about all the games I’ve played on it over the years. During the pandemic I picked up a 360 Slim and found someone local who could RGH it for me, wow - I’ll never not have a hacked 360 👏

Nice vid, thanks. I recently did a Gears of war (all of them) revisit on my 360 and loved it. Suprising that there are still some really impressive visuals across the board. Even in 2006's Gears 1 (final 2 chapters) looked *REALLY* good by todays standards. Great machine. Cheers MVG!

Great video, RGH3 makes it super simple to get into these days too. X360 really is a power house which can run so much content. A must have system when hacked. Cheers

I was wondering what you meant by the title, but you clarified very quickly. It's not even about piracy, it's about being able to play stuff that you paid for. I like it.

Love your videos! 1:40 you actually showed my listing! And again at 1:43 which is actually a system I just posted a video of. 😅 ❤ you are the best of the best! Thanks Modern Vintage Gamer! #RMGC

Thank you for the video! I totally geeked out over this!

Not to mention, with the proto stealth plugin you can also (kinda) preserve older dashboard variants like blades and NXE.

The optimal custom dashboard is the original Blades!

Thanks for the video and info MVG

This video inspired me to actually go and do it! I haven't modded a console since my original Xbox, something like 2003, but my memories of that console after it was modded are still some of my favourite. An 80GB hard drive, ripping my games to the console so I didn't need to swap disks. Being able to load Midtown Madness 3 and be in the game playing in 8 seconds was like having an SSD before there were SSDs. After seeing your video on the 6th of November 2023, I didn't want to risk my own Xbox 360 (going to preserve that one), so I looked on Ebay and found a second-hand 4gb slim with no power supply or anything for about £25. But that was fine, because I have my Xbox 360 and can use it's PSU etc. It arrived on the 29th of November, and it took me about 12 days from getting it delivered, had to assemble some items (needed to order resistors, an Rpi Pico and some solid core wire) and getting pockets of free time, but as of last night, I'm up and running! I had a couple of set backs and moments when I thought I had possibly done something wrong or bricked the console, and at the last moment came close to putting it aside for another day. But the whole time your video was in my mind and it felt like it was worth doing and pushing through. * Disassembly was exhausting * Scratching off the silk screen was nerve wracking * Soldering such small points was frustrating (Mr Mario makes it look so easy) * Accidentally powering it on while it had all the wires hanging off it and getting a red ring of death was terrifying * Having the Pico report back "console not found" was dis-heartening * Taking a macro photo to see two wires that might not be connected right was encouraging * Re-soldering those points was doubly frustrating (as now all the others are in the way) * Seeing the pico report "Trinity 16mb found!" was relieving * Booting up the custom dashboard for the first time and playing one of my old games from an SSD I put in, AMAZING! It actually feels like an accomplishment to see this thing boot up, so worth the effort, and I wouldn't have even started this project if not for your video. All of your videos on console copy protection and security have been so interesting, I've re-watched the Nintendo Wii one a few times actually. The subjects you pick and the way you present the videos, especially historical timelines of homebrew efforts etc are so interesting. Thank you for all your hard work.

Nice video. I am considering having my x360 modded but I have the earlier version where you can't expand the hard drive that easily. I feel I may be better off finding a more recent model, upgrading that hard drive for all the game images and then modding that. Keeping the earlier one unmodded (for now).

I never hack my consoles, but as a huge Guitar Hero and Rock Band fan, I think I will absolutely be getting an RGH Xbox 360 in the near future due to the incredible wealth of delisted DLC songs for the games. I've already spent upwards of $1000 on Rock Band DLC alone, so I don't have any moral issue with doing this.

Great job covering the 360 scene buddy! 👍🏻

Thanks MVG, I saw your video and then a few days later I did it to my own R2D2 console with success. It’s really cool

I have one, modded Gears Of War 3 edition slim 320gb. Out of the 9 consoles I have, i play this one the most😅I love the trainers function

I use Xenia and I have an RHG 1.2 that I did back in 2011 or 2012. I setup the rgh in the living room and it’s just convenient. All of my games are on there and the interface just works for a living room setup. Plus I’m a sucker for old dashboards so I have the 2010 version of NXE in it. I do have it able to go online but I run it through a VPN and I do not participate in cheating. Very nostalgic. Preserve your games in ways that best fit you and continue to enjoy them

So glad you made this video. For me, the cave library alone makes it more than worth it. So many good bullet hells!

Great video! Been thinking about picking up a 360 for awhile now, used to have one before it killed itself.

Well...MVG has motivated me again! I'll be looking into modding my Xbox 360 which has been sitting in a moving box since July 2021. Did this for my Wii U last year, did it with my old PSP 1000 and then a renewed PS Vita over summer..time to tackle the Xbox 360.

Id love a modeed xbox 360, it was my childhood console. Unfortunately i cant easily find a decent priced console in my country and i lack the skills to solder, i can barely solder a wire, let alone a mod chip

That title updade menu is incredible. Instantly though of a couple of games that I would love to to play the release version rather than the fully updated version.

Nice video. I won’t mod my main xbox, but I’ll probably pick up a pre modded one online to go with my modded gamecube and ps2 :)

With an RGH system it is also possible to replace a defective drive and remarry it to the system. Very useful if the drive is missing or defective or the drive board is defective. The only requirement is to know the key of the donor drive or to change it to the existing one stored in the system. So I was able to save a few consoles and they are still running today. Thanks for the movie.

I’ve been considering this for a while. These have been popping up on marketplace for $20-40. I got a 360 for the first time last year and it’s been blowing me away how good some of the titles are. I’d love to pass a modded system down to my kiddos to enjoy for years to come.

What perfect timing for this video I just bought a JTAG Xbox 360 last week off Etsy should be coming in the mail later this week

I finally got a Phat Black Jasper 360, and got it RGH1.2 modded!! I LOVE this console and the dashboard is so cool!!! Lot's of stuff to do with it and can't wait to use it for so much :)

Greetings from Russia. I 100% agree with everything you said in the video. Xbox 360, especially the slim version, is one of the best consoles for customization right now. I got myself one three years ago. I would like to add information for those who are interested in purchasing it: 1) to connect a larger capacity sata hard drive, you can buy an adapter case instead of the original hard drive; 2) I recommend that you purchase a USB-Bluetooth adapter for modern gamepads, for example 8bitdo, in order to connect gamepads from other consoles that you already have; 3) don't forget to buy a Kinect so you don't miss out on a whole layer of body control games from that era, like just dance, etc.; 4) I also recommend considering purchasing a guitar for playing guitar hero.

I bought so much digital media back in the 360 days and only recently got back into gaming. There was a good chunk of that library still available to me with my series s but so much that wasn't. Over the years I check on my account and watch my purchase history get deleted that's when I realized I owned nothing.

Back in the day I remember having a 360 dev it and running OG xbox homebrew on it,this was way before Jtag or RGH came out. When Jtag first released you had to use the parallel port on your pc to the flash the bios.

I have an RGH from consolewearhouse. Love playing custom songs for Guitar hero and DJ hero on it. Plus loads of other mods and hacked games as well. Have mine whitelisted to to play OG Xbox games. Also love that you can get all the delisted DLC and delisted games as well if you know how to do it. I will say though it’s not for everyone. It could be hard for a non tech savvy gamer to figure out how to do all of that. I’ve even had a few issues with my RGH that I have no idea what happened but it still works so I’m good

Decided to buy an RGH Halo 4 console after the store closing announcement. It's pretty awesome and I have no intention of going online with it. I've modded all of my other consoles, but the RGH3 goes beyond my capabilities so I bought one modded and then did the software side myself.

I had a good time modding and selling these on eBay several years ago. I sold a few dozen of them and got pretty good at modding them. Definitely a fun experience.

MVG, I love your channel, brother.

Thanks for this - all I want from my X360 is to play Cave Bullethell shooters, so this is exactly what I was looking for :)

Oh nice, been meaning to mod my old launch 360 (still going strong after a RRoD fix) to play all my old games again and check out a few I missed so this is very interesting indeed!

I have around 6 RGH3 hacked X360 - FATs, Slims and the e-Slim. I collect consoles, but I only keep so many units of X360. It's because the hack is awesome. The game presentation is superb. I just upgraded one of the Slims with a 1TB SSD and filled it to the brim with a huge XBL Arcade collection and retail games. It's the best platform to store that generations games. Love it so much I actually left it on the desk to finally finish Forza Horizon 1.

I have modded PS2, PS3, Wii with GameCube back-compatibility, only one non-hacked PS4 and modded Xbox 360. And man, i bought it 4 years ago and i'm still playing. This is my most playable console i have. I have powerful PC, but i spend most of the game time with 360. It has large library of games that still present only on this system and the best hack mode (Freeboot), where you can change and download anything you want to. Didn't like PS3 Multiman much and not a big fan of USB Loader or other things in modded Wii. But Freeboot is just great for user.

I love Love LOVE my RGH3 Trinity box. just upgraded it to a 1tb SSD which really sped up the random access reads which I notice most in Aurora. I've got almost all of my 360 library as well as a bunch of my OG Xbox library stored on the hard drive now. It's just such a big quality of life improvement to not have to be up swapping disks or having them all out and accessible to play what I want.

Getting those RGH boot timings down can be a fine art and a test of patience. I've had systems be in range of anywhere from instaboot to 5 minutes, which is why I always loved the JTAG. No fuss, no timings to mess with! Excellent video, my dude.

Scary! I just got my 360E modded with RGH3.0 to future proof it, and here MVG uploads a video on the topic!

Awesome video MVG! Which model 360 would you recommend as the best to mod?

Thanks for the recommendation. Just ordered one. I got a ton of OG xbox games I can't play anymore since my OG Xbox died of Capacitor Plague.

That's my biggest issue. I BOUGHT games that through the years simply disappeared from my online library. I keep a 360 to play the games I still have access to, but would love to be able to get back some of the other games I legally bought but can no longer download for whatever reason. The freakin achievements are still listed, and I've sent screenshots to MS but always get a generic canned response telling me to go to my downloads history, yeah I never thought of that...

My favorite game on the OG Xbox was Quantum Redshift. The only thing that annoyed me was the soundtrack. On the Xbox it was possible to rip audio CDs to the hard disk and then choose from that library if the game supports it. If you play QR on an unmodified 360 this feature doesn’t work. While the 360 has a media library, it was always shown empty in the game menu. So is there a way to get this going on a hacked 360?

im not good at hardware modding but imma make it a mission to get a hacked one online before the end of this year. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Great vid

Xbox 360 is a legendary console. I still have mine hooked to my TV and play a game from time to time.

Blows my mind that this is still the easiest way to mod a 360, i remember doing all those years ago and even then I thought 'we'll be doing this with a usb in 12 months time' 😂

You know what's still awesome in 2023? You, the reader

I was just waiting for a MVG video to be released today after rewatching the PSX quake video for the 4th time lol

Lol I literally watched your 2019 video last night. Glad you elaborated a bit more on the modding process. Definitely not for the beginners

MVG always dropping videos exactly when I need em. First time 360 player looking for one in the market!

I ripped all of my (hundreds of) purchased physical games to my modded 360. It took several DAYS to complete this but it's absolutely worth it to load anything from my collection at any time. The whitelist feature, for original games, is also nice but as noted in the video they don't always run as they should.

Brook wingman x2 converter work incredibly well, i use an Xbox one elite controller on my 360

I still use my 360’s as WMC extenders. They still make great cable boxes.

A list of reputable and fairly priced modders would be helpful. As you said having to know how to solder well can be a limiting factor.

The only issues I have with these hacked Xbox 360s is that these custom dashboards just looked so ugly , I just want my Xbox to look like a retail model but with all the mods enabled...

If i bought a modded 360 is it possible to install a larger hard drive later without hassle? Is it a case of simply swapping it out and reformatting? Thanks for any advice.

I was lot of time wondering how it could be, as my Fat XB360 (no-HDMI) is supposely immune to the Reset Glitch Hack. Nice to see this video.

My understanding is that FSD and Aurora are 2 separate projects. Due to nagging issues with FSD I load Aurora on all the systems I sell. Also with a patched freeboot you can now have up to 16TB, not that you need that much space, but larger drives are now an option.

When a game gets delisted, it doesn't become unplayable for those that already own it. It just means it can no longer be purchased. I own many delisted games that all remain downloadable and playable.

Hello MVG You clearly state that the game engine has been built from scratch as id tech would have been too heavy on memory, doesn't that make it not a port but instead a game of its own? Great video as always, love the story and lore of game development! 😁

Perfect timing, I literally just got a modded 360 and PS3! Excellent choice with the Cave shmups, btw.

So you are saying I can play Pokémon Red by emulating a Game Boy in Pokémon Stadium 64 on a N64 Emulator for Xbox while emulating Xbox on an Xbox 360?

Wow, do I miss the OG Xbox scene. The modding, XBMC, making it a linux box, it was just insane of all the possibilities. Far more fun modding the box than actually playing the games. The hours spent on Xbox-Scene are surely missed. I feel the 360 never got that much love because a softmod was never possible, well none for a dashboard that is, only for the CD ROM. The OG Xbox softmods were so easy you could practically sneeze at an OG Xbox and unlock it. I never tried the Jtag mod on the 360, but when the RGH mod became available, I was on the waiting list, and it worked flawlessly provided you had the timing adjusted right with the use of a specific resistor. The 360 was fun AF too, and I loved the original Freestyle dash, Auroa not so much in terms of its UI, but the scene was nothing like the OG days. The OG Xbox scene felt like a tight knit family, the 360 scene felt like everyone was on their own.

Great video thank you

There's a lot of classic arcade ports I'd like to try

I've been waiting and hoping for a softmod for years but finally gave up and sent it off for a RGH3 mod and honestly wish i'd done it years ago, its absolutely fantastic. Aurora is also great but I do wish I could create custom categories. (I'm aware there are genre filters but these aren't what im looking for)

I've been thinking about getting one for a good while. Soldering isn't my thing, though, so I'll have to buy one already done. Quick question for those of you that have a hacked system already. Can Aurora use a dark theme for its menus? I always hates the menus since they switched them to White.

Another nice thing of the 360 is that it’s old enough that MS won’t bother retroactively removing access to non licensed peripherals like the Brooks adapter on the series X

The 360 + OG Xbox makes for a killer setup when it comes to modding, seeing people in the 360 home brew community in 2023 makes me happy

Having Aurora made me want to buy more OG games, specially for the price of the games of Xbox 360 in UK. I own a huge library now, and I NEVER thought I would own. Play almost everyday to games I thought I would never played, like After Burner Climax, World of Sensible Soccer, and Daytona USA for example, and there are not better versions of these. I love mine and thinking about getting another one for the future for when it inevitably dies. Not interested on Series X though....

With games going digital it's also getting more expensive to preserve all of this media if you want to at home. But people who do want this also should think about realistic expectations where if they legit plan on playing these titles or a couple of them. I'm personally curious MVG if you do store all these titles at your home, and if so, how do you preserve it?

I love these annual xbox 360 videos, they always get me to go back and hook up the 360 again lol

If I get one should I use it with my modern HDTV or my retro CRT?

Hey, no mods man.. Xbox 360 is the last greatest console because without any internet connection or updates games just worked. (I'm talking about the pre Wii avatar phase it went through in it's last third lifespan) We got Doom II No Rest for the Living first, Perfect Dark remaster, Halo 3, RAGE and GTA 5 Alright the last 2 games had to be installed on the harddrive but they were amazing. No updates every week, if I bought a game for the 360 it worked. Also Quake 4 came with a HD port of Quake II that I played more than the bonus DOOM 3 engine game. Oh! And it had backwards compatibility to Doom 3 and Ressurection of evil! By the way, Xbox 360 was the greatest console ever released. 😃 Also, wireless controllers!

the soldering job needed to rgh3 an x360 is pretty easy if you have even a little solder experience. and best of all, it's technically free, all you need is some wires and a resistor, no modchip needed. tho you may need a postfix adapter if you are unlucky enough, but is pretty cheap. i modded 2 consoles and upgraded mine from rgh2 to rgh3 without any issues.

Woah that first option u showed is literally perfect with the patches too damnnnnnn eating good

Best time in gaming was the x360 era and i started playing games back in the 90s😊

i have played so much 360 games in the past, more than my ps3. my first hack i have installed on it was the X-key 360, that allows you to play games on external drives on ISO format without losing online features, then on my next consoles i just install RGH and i still using my 360 to play some of the games on my collection. before the pandemic, i was able to find a lot of 360's in the thrift stores for nothing as well as games and i still own a decent collection of physical games(about 150 games). in my personal opinion and despite the software and some hardware issues Xbox 360 is the best xbox that microsoft have created so far, very simple menu, good catalog of games, and xbox live was super fun to play. thank you for this video.

Will Aurora let you create your own custom box are? Because I noticed the non-360 titles seemed to have only boxart from the emulator, not for the individual game.

Perfect timing for that video. I just got a modded xbox and I immediately ran into a roadblock with my old cronus max or any of my non licensed xinput controllers. Those always worked fine on a stock xbox. Why not on a modded one without a usb security patch?

Is there any sources you trust and would recommend to get started, from hardware to the software installation? There's a lot out there that is quite different from one another.