Aweirdguy's XboxChopShop - Aftermarket Mods

Masterchief meets Team Xtender's XCM Line

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:03:28 -0600

If any one character could represent all that is the world of Xbox, it would have to be Halo's Masterchief. If you want to sell a product to a bunch of Xbox fanboys (or fangirls) the easiest way is to drop an image of Masterchief onto it. Team Xtender has done just that, or as close as they can get without needing a license from Bungie. This appears to be an artists reproduction of the character, changed just enough to avoid the phone call from the lawyers. Of course they don't call him the Masterchief either (for the same reasons) but we all know who he is anyway.

As far as I can tell, this product has not been officially announced yet but is in a pre-order status at the wholesale level. I guess it pays to be observant, huh? There is no sign of it on the official Team Xtender website yet, but I found a photo on this site marked "XCM custom case (Sample)", as well as a product description on their wholesale website:

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User Poll: Does your 360 need tilt control?

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Thu, 10 May 2007 08:46:40 -0600

Well it seems that Microsoft is the only company that decided not to use motion controls in their console this round. Was that a mistake? It's hard to say, but everyone else seems to think thats the right direction to go. The PS3 has tilt sensitivity in the Six-axis controller, and the Wii-mote takes motion control to new extremes... should the 360 controllers support tilt control too?

Spare a couple clicks for me here, and lets see how many 360 gamers want to tilt:

Well, we'll see how the poll goes, but right now there are plenty of people betting you want tilt control so badly that you'd hack your beloved 360 controller apart to get it. Apparently this is a popular thought, because now there are three different aftermarket hacks coming to stores soon.

Let's have a look at the choices, should you want to tilt:

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Colorware - Professional Console Painting

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:06:43 -0600

I just found a professional painting shop called Colorware that does scratch-proof paintjobs on consoles. These look awesome, and you can either send in your 360 or buy a brand new Premium in any color you want.

They offer 28 color choices, and a paintjob on your 360 starts at $99! They had their paints and scratchproof coating created for them specifically to look the best on plastic. They claim that their special stratchproof coating also blocks 99.8% of the sun's UV rays, preventing the color on your console from ever fading due to sitting in the sunlight.

They have several options for painting a 360...

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OVO 360 = UFO WTF?

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:15:00 -0600

I ran across this item, it's supposed to be a replacement case for the 360:

Ok I'm not sure what kind of interesting mind-bending drugs someone was taking, but this couldn't have been designed straight and sober. I think it looks alot more like a UFO than a console, and I'm not sure how many kids are going to want one.

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XILT - 360 Controller Mod

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 09:44:27 -0600

There is a new problem for the exclusive features of the PS3... because the 360 is getting tilt control soon. HDMI, check. Large HDD, check. Tilt control, almost there. I'm not sure what will be left for PS3 fanboys to gloat about, except possibly a free online service that isn't worth what you pay for it. Ok, so the tilt control isn't a Microsoft feature, but whatever.

There havn't been many details released on this mod yet. The official website here just has a release date of "End of April" and these two screenshots of what appears to be a pc-based configuration app.

The guys over at xbox-scene received some additional information from the inventor "GreenGiant", who is the same guy that put out the XIR mod for the original xbox.

New generation of Tilt Mod.

There will be two versions, Xilt Advanced and Xilt Lite.

Written from the ground up to allow for the maximum user configuration, flexible for virtually any game type.

Features:

- Works with Wired and Wireless controllers

- Only 7 wires needed

- Install in 10-15 minutes

- Easily Enable/Disable tilt mod without an ugly switch

- Easily change tilt threshold in all four axis

- USB Configurator for changing any settings

- FW is upgradable (not end user)

- Xilt Advanced: Full configuration of Tilt angle to Controller Axis direction

Expected availability, last week of April.

Educated guesses: Well, the screenshots show buttons for "Read from Xilt" and "Write to Xilt" and they claim it installs with 7 wires. I'm going to assume that this is a small programmable chip that installs inside the controller, and it will some type of unobtrusive plug to hook the controller to your pc. Since they claim it has no ugly switch, they probably have it set up to enable/disable with a button combo like Back+Start.

So... who's up for some tilt control on your 360? Any suggestions on which games would be more fun with this mod? Maybe some driving or flying action?

Official XILT Website

Check out the full size photos after the jump.
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