360 Dashboard Update ‘Bricking’ Modded Consoles

In the past week, there have been reports of Microsoft attempting to sniff our users hacking their Xbox 360, with a number of innocent victims who haven’t cracked open their machine caught in the crossfire. The march to eliminate piracy stepped up with today’s early morning dashboard update, as Microsoft implemented security updates that "brick" consoles — which basically makes your Xbox 360 useless — with modified firmware.

Figuring out a workaround, however, didn’t take long. The message boards at Xbox Scene, which follows Xbox-related hardware and software modifications by the modding community, had dozens of users working together to figure out what changes Microsoft’s made this time around. Very quickly, however, they discovered that removing the modified firmware solved the issue (and for Microsoft, at least temporarily). Hardcore PSP users have run into the same issue with Sony, leading to a firmware "war" with each new update.