What do you do with an original Xbox that you find cheap at a thrift store?
Convert it into a badass emulation device.
I found this little beauty at a local store for $10.
OG Xboxes in stores isn't uncommon.
They are pretty cheap and easy to find, especially in North America.
But I've passed on many systems in stores as they were clearly in poor condition.
The trick is making sure that they work.
This one here is decent.
But turning it upside down,
you can tell that it's never been opened,
which means unless it was softmodded,
it's never been tampered with or chipped.
Again, that's not a bad thing,
but it's usually a better sign that things will work.
So, why do we still care about the original Xbox in 2019?
The simple answer is that they still make excellent emulation boxes, even to this day.
Yes, I am aware that you can use a Raspberry Pi, or a PC, or some modern hardware.
What makes the system so good is that you also get a massive library of original Xbox games to play,
many of which are exclusive to the system and haven't featured on backward compatibility
on the Xbox 360 or on the Xbox One.
"But what about the Xbox emulator on the PC?", I hear you ask.
CXBX-Reloaded is making great strides,
but it's fair to say that it still has a long way to go to be considered
something that many people would use to replace original Xbox games.
It's still very impressive and worth checking out,
if you want to see how much original Xbox emulation
has improved over the last 18 months.
And hey! It's an original Xbox, the console that started the homebrew in emulation revolution in the first place.
So let's get started. The first thing is: this system is filthy. So let's clean it up.
Even with cleaning products, it looks like someone has tried to take a magic eraser to it
and taken some of the plastic off.
Still, all things considered, this Xbox is in pretty decent shape.
Now of course, the next thing we want to do is plug it in and actually see if it works.
For the first thing that I try is to plug in a regular composite signal into a CRT.
And turning on the Xbox,
yep, it boots up and gets to the dashboard
which is a great sign.
Incidentally, the previous owner was a gamer. There's a ton of saves on here and I don't notice anything that indicates the system was ever softmodded, either.
Now, the next thing I test is the DVD drive.
This works, too.
I tested out with Quantum Redshift no trouble at all.
This is an awesome game, incidentally. Check it out, if you are a fan of Wipeout-style racing games.
I test each of the controller ports and, yes, they all work fine.
And finally, I test an HD cable to make sure that the video scaler is working,
and it can boot into widescreen and high-resolution modes.
Now normally, when you buy used Xbox from a garage sale, or a thrift store,
there's the potential for it to have issues.
Now, the good news is: this Xbox that I picked up has no issues whatsoever.
The DVD drive works, the hard drives work, it boots games.
Everything looks to be in order.
So now, we're going to go ahead and perform a softmod on this device.
Now in the past, I would have recommended we utilize something like the SID Softmod Installer
which is the Softmod Installer Deluxe method.
But that has been superseded by a newer method known as the "Rocky5 Softmod".
Now, I'm going to go ahead and install the Rocky5 Softmod onto this Xbox
and show you how it's done.
But I will say: "If you want a comprehensive end-to-end look at the Rocky5 Installer for your original Xbox,
check out Mr. Mario 2011's video that I will have a link in the description below."
It covers all aspects of the Rocky5 Softmod,
and it's a comprehensive guide and one that I definitely recommend you, guys, to check out.
So, onto the softmod.
With your PC, navigate to github.com/Rocky5
and then select the "Xbox-Softmodding-Tool" project.
From here, select "Clone or download"
and download the .zip file.
It's about 600 MB in size.
Now, what you want to do is extract the contents of that .zip file
somewhere onto the filesystem, it doesn't matter where.
Now you should end up with a folder called "Xbox-Softmodding-Tool-master".
Inside this folder, find and double-click the batch file "Build Softmod zip".
This will package up the softmod files for you,
and you should end up with a .zip file called "Xbox Softmodding Tool".
Double-click on this file and select the folder "Softmod Package"
and drag to extract this folder only onto your Windows filesystem.
Now inside this folder, you will notice the zipped up save files for each of the softmoddable games.
In this episode, we are going to use MechWarrior.
But of course, Splinter Cell, 007: Agent Under Fire and Tony Hawk can also work.
In the "Softmod Package" folder, right-click and extract all the files.
You will notice that it creates a folder called "UDATA"
which contains all the save files.
Now from here, we need to insert an Xbox-formatted USB flash drive.
The first thing to mention is not all USB flash drives will work.
In my experience, with these devices and older,
smaller size device like a 2GB or a 4GB one
seems to be more compatible than the larger ones.
This one is a 4GB Kingston and works fine for me,
and it's one that I've used for years.
Now, there's two ways to format a USB key to work on the Xbox.
The first is to insert it into the Xbox,
and it should prompt you to format the device if it's supported
The other method is to use a program on a PC called "USB FATX Formatter".
If neither of these methods work, try another USB key.
It really is trial and error until you find the right one.
Now, that you have your USB key formatted and inserted into your PC,
it may ask you if you want to format the device.
Please "Cancel" and then go ahead and run Xplorer360.
With the Xbox-formatted USB key inserted, select "Drive", "Open", then "Harddrive or Memorycard...".
You will see "Partition 0" displayed on the left.
Go ahead and click on it.
Now back in Windows Explorer, select each folder inside the "UDATA" folder individually,
then drag them into Xplorer360, one at a time.
And when you're done, you should see five folders on your USB drive.
Remove the USB drive from your PC and insert it into the Xbox controller port.
In order to do this, you will need an Xbox-to-USB female cord.
They are cheap and easy to pick up on eBay.
Now on the Xbox, onto the dashboard, select "Memory" then select the "Controller Port" that you plug your USB key into.
I've already copied all of the softmod files onto the hard drive previously.
But I'll show you how to do it here.
Since we're running MechAssault exploit,
select MechAssault savegame, then select "Copy".
This will copy the save file onto the Xbox hard disk.
Now, scroll down to the "Xbox Softmodding Tool" file
and copy the contents of this file
over to the Xbox hard drive as well.
After around 30 seconds, this should complete.
Now with that, we're all ready to perform the softmod.
Now with a copy of MechAssault inserted into the Xbox,
now in the Main Menu, select "Campaign", and there should be a profile called "Run Linux".
Select this and, with any luck, it will boot into the softmod.
Now press "A" to allow the softmod to install the exploit
and dashboard to the hard drive.
Now, just follow the on-screen instructions.
The Xbox will reboot automatically and do some additional patching.
And after a few short moments, you will be in the custom dashboard.
Now, one thing I should mention is that this is a Revision 1.6 Xbox
which was the last revision ever developed by Microsoft.
So now that we've softmodded our Xbox with the Rocky5 Softmod method.
The next thing that I would normally do is remove the clock capacitor.
Now to do this, you need to determine what revision motherboard you have.
Now, we've already determined that this version motherboard is the 1.6 Revision Xbox.
Now normally in a 1.0-1.5 Revision Xbox,
it is recommended, strongly recommended that you remove the clock capacitor as soon as possible.
It can cause leaking on the motherboard and reparable damage as the acid can literally eat away at the traces of the motherboard.
The good news is that we have the 1.6 Revision Xbox
which has a different style of clock capacitor.
So we do not need to open up the Xbox motherboard in order to remove the clock capacitor in the 1.6 motherboard.
Now that we have the Rocky5 Softmod installed.
The first thing that I would recommend to do is change the skin to the default UnleashX dashboard skin
that you're probably used to.
Now, we can start getting emulators on the device.
In order to do this, you will need to connect your Xbox to your network
via wide Ethernet and use an FTP program
on your PC to transfer files to it.
I would recommend a WinSCP.
So now, we need to get Xbox emulators and homebrew installed on our original Xbox.
Now normally, what I would do is download the emulators and homebrew from XBMC and FTP 'em over to the Xbox.
But there is a cool new tool
called the "XBMC Emustation"
that's been out for about a year and a half now.
And it's also been developed by Rocky5.
And this is a really cool and easy front-end
to get your favorite emulators and ROMs installed on your Xbox
and make it this pimped out emulation station.
Let's go ahead and take a look and see how it works.
So let's get some emulators installed.
Navigate to github.com/Rocky5 once again,
but this time, select the "XBMC-Emustation" project.
This is a custom app for XBMC that's a front-end
for many Xbox emulators, and it's really awesome.
Setting this up is straightforward,
the instructions on the page are very clear and concise.
What we need to do is download the XBMC Emustation files,
as well as the latest version of XBMC for Xbox.
Both are linked on the page.
Now on your PC, extract the contents of XBMC Emustation
to anywhere on the filesystem.
And then open up the "XBMC4XBOX" archive
and extract the "XBMC" folder
into the folder named "XBMC-Emustation-master".
Now double-click on the "Build XBMC-Emustation" .bat file,
and it will build a new folder called "XBMC-Emustation".
Now, FTP this folder over to your Xbox.
I'm installing this in the "E" partition under "Applications".
So UnleashX will pick it up on reboot.
Once it's FTP'ed over,
you also will need to provide some ROMs and emulators.
For the ROMs, you'll need to FTP them into the ".emustation/roms" folder.
There are folders for many different types of systems,
and it's important that you put the correct ROMs in the correct folders.
XBMC Emustation comes pre-installed with some emulators, but not all.
Now, there's two ways to install your emulators.
Rocky5's page has a link to all the emulators that's supported.
So let's say: "We wanted to install a Commodore 64 emulator ViceX."
We would download it from Rocky5's page,
then extract it into the ".emustation/emulators/c64" folder.
The first time you run XBMC Emustation,
it will do some initial setup for us, but you will notice that it won't scan the ROMs that we installed for us.
What we need to do is press the "White" button,
then select "Other Settings",
then select "Auto Scan Systems".
This will rescan the ROMs for every single system that's supported.
But if you added ROMs to the system later on via FTP and you only wanted to update one system,
what you would do is select the "Update the Selected System" option instead.
Anyway, let's check out some emulators.
For those that may not know, the original Xbox is powered by a single course 733 MHz Intel x86 processor
and really has no business being talked about as a system that can be called an emulation box in 2019.
But it handles most systems like an absolute champ,
all the way up to the Nintendo 64,
PlayStation 1 and even arcade emulation.
XBMC Emustation is a real slick piece of software, too,
and makes things so seamless and easy to use.
It also has support for many great systems from Japan like the Sharp X68000 and NEC PC-9800,
and also many home computers like the Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga.
It makes the setup involved, especially with the Amiga quite trivial.
And almost everything supports and runs at 720p,
and things look and feel great.
Not bad for a $10 thrift store find.
I should also mention it's not just emulation.
There's some fantastic homebrew and ports available for it, too,
that really make the system standout.
And that's one of the reasons why homebrew developers
are still supporting the system even to this day.
I did mention there was the second way to get emulators installed onto the system.
That's via the app itself.
As you can see, there's an easy way to download and add new system to the XBMC Emustation software,
but unfortunately, this method at least on the making of this video did not work
and returned an error message each time I tried it.
Still, it doesn't take away from how awesome this software and emulation is on the original Xbox.
I'm amazed every time I power on the system.
It truly was ahead of its time in so many ways.
And that it's still a relevant and fantastic system 17 years later.
It's a testament to Microsoft and the team behind the Xbox.
So, in 2019, the original Xbox is still an awesome homebrew and emulation device.
It's been 17 years since the launch of the system
and people are still very much active in the scene,
updating emulators, homebrew, softmods, as well as the new XBMC Emustation front-end that's awesome to see.
So, if you are thinking about getting into the original Xbox for the first time,
or maybe revisiting it and you don't have a system,
pick up and use one at a thrift store or a garage sale, if you can find one cheap,
and check out the amazing capabilities that the original Xbox has.
I think you will not be disappointed.
Well guys, I'm going to leave it here for this video. Thank you so much for watching.
If you have any questions about what you saw in the video or anything else,
please leave a comment below.
As always, don't forget to like and subscribe,
and I'll catch you, guys, in the next video.
Bye for now.
[Subtitles by: Sashabox 360 Productions] [Outro song: "California Nights" by Modern Vintage Gamer]