Looking back historically, one of the things that has benefited the Xbox 360 undoubtedly was the fact that pirated copies were able to work for a while; the same has happened with PSX and PS2. This brought games to a large mass of people who for economic reasons could not access this hobby.
This is so, as is, and let’s not tear our clothes off when we recognize it as it is part of the history of these machines. However, over time, hardware manufacturers, who now know the business is in software, they protected their consoles much better. And is that if you look at it in perspective, a large percentage of those who have modified their equipment to be able to access cheap or free games, now saw in the digital market a good way to save money. ‘silver.
Can Xbox One and Xbox Series be hacked?
The answer is not clear and simple. To date, there is no effective method for a user to download pirated copies in what is called a “real environment”. Maybe in developer mode some progress has been made, but that doesn’t seem like much either since there’s not really a need to touch anything under the console’s hood.
Xbox One now provides access to homebrew cheap thanks to Dev Mode, so there isn’t much excuse to perform an exploit other than loading illegal copies. That and the low prices or Xbox Game Pass prevent many from trying.
There are several reasons why this cannot be done, but I am listing the ones that I consider most relevant. Here’s how Microsoft protected the Xbox:
- You cannot execute signed code if you are not in Dev mode. Even with the console connected to the PC, you can load this type of code.
- You cannot download content such as maps or music to your hard drive if it is not signed by Microsoft (you download it from their store), and again I am referring to point one .
- Xbox One operates in a virtualized environment, which makes it difficult to load exploits. Hyper-V (or Hypervisor) is constantly updated since it is a commercial product for large multinationals, so it is not possible to bypass its restrictions.
- Constant system updates provide fixes to memory, which would be the only place an exploit could be executed at the moment.
Like I said, Microsoft even made it easier for us to use emulators with some homemade software, the only thing is that they are not available in your store. Why even try to take advantage of a bug?
Xbox One hacker no, but games yes?
The correct term here would be hacking and yes it is possible to take advantage of in-game glitches to gain perks like targeting enhancements or the like, but not to download an illegal copy. We have already seen this on several occasions with games like PUBG or the recent Call of Duty and Fortnite among others.
But the point is that these bugs are in the game code and do not apply or affect the system as has happened in the past. I remember that on some consoles like PSP, it was enough to open a simple PNG to load the exploit. But like I said, it doesn’t seem necessary anymore or the machine itself allows it.
So if you came here to hack Xbox, sorry to lower your expectations.
