Despite the exciting developments, Xbox 360 sales reached 900,000 in North and South America, 300,000 in Europe and 100,000 in Asia.  Figures that led analysts to say that the numbers are low because Microsoft's was unable to deliver as many consoles as demanded. 

I remember reading a statement made by Chris Satchell from the Xbox Advanced Technology Group that the console was designed from the ground-up to be as secure as possible.  "One of the reasons we went with custom hardware design for all our silicon is that it allows us to build security at the silicon level, there are going to be levels of security in this box that the hacker community has never seen before," but he admitted that "I'm sure sooner or later someone will work out how to circumvent security. But the way we have done the design doesn't mean that it will work on somebody else's machine." Satchell said.

True enough, someone has decoded the DVD file system used by the Xbox 360 gaming console.  A group of hackers named Team Pi Coders released an ISO (burnable disc image) of the Xbox 360 demo pod disc, potentially paving the way for pirates hoping to crack the console's copy protection software in the process. In a statement made by the coding group, it said: "It seems Microsoft was in such a hurry to get this stuff out that they forgot to set the media protection on this disc. This leaves hackers with the possibility to hack around with this disc that load from a normal DVDR5 backup! Team Pi also notes that the all datafiles on this disc isn't signed in any way, and will allow for extensive modification for producing exploits to further our effort to hack this box!"  Playable game demos featured on the disc include Call of Duty 2, Kameo and King Kong, and there are various videos to view too. All you have to do is burn the ISO and stick it in your Xbox 360 to start playing, according to Team Pi, although such activities are undoubtedly not condoned by Microsoft.

The reason this is significant is because this development could lead to someone coming up with a bootdisk that would allow gamers to play copied games and go hack crazy on their console without having to screw around with mod chips.  But to me, what the group accomplished was to extract the files off the Xbox 360 discs on a PC, they have not worked out how to run them on a Xbox 360.

What Team Pi did is called "softhack" or software hacking".  The same thing happened to Playstation 2 before where all the player needs to do is to insert a bootdisk then one original PS2 game and the console security can be bypassed.  Another method is by opening the actual console and tinkering with its mechanism in an attempt to modify its chip, more popularly known as "mod-chipping". 

Another group called Infinity Mod has announced that they are currently testing mods for the Xbox 360, and will is expected to finish the testing and start sales soon.  "But as the first attempt, the first batch of chips may be complex and they may not function very well." said the group.  Of course anybody or any group for that matter that make any such claims.  Until I see a modified Xbox 360, only then I will say that indeed the Xbox 360 is hackable.

Will the Xbox 360 be hacked? It's a question of interest and demand. If enough people want to see it happen and will be interested to get a hand of it, it probably will.

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