Console modding... Breathing new life into an XBOX360 with Aurora

Haus

Haus

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Wondering if anybody else has been down this path...

With the changes to Xbox live (and many other media subscriptions) as of recent my wife decided she had finally had it with this idea that companies could decide what should just randomly vanish from the library of things you had "purchased". So she started hording up physical media first (books, DVDs, Blu Rays, etc...) then she shifted into her various gaming collections. We have had a LOT of consoles and handhelds around this house over time. So we were at a Fanexpo recently in the dealer room and she was collecting various Xbox games she could get for "cheap" , around $5 a pop. And we run into this one booth with a dude who, when he heard about what we were doing, had an alternative option.

For a nominal fee he would take our old Xbox 360 and....
  • Replace all the caps on the motherboard
  • Reflux the board
  • Clean and do a top to bottom refurb on it
  • Swap out the HD for a 1TB SSD
  • Install this front end/launcher called Aurora on it
  • Pack the HD with games.
I have had some fun money burning a hole in my pocket, and Mrs. Haus Mrs. Haus kinda lit up at this Idea, so what the hell. This took him a month to do. Along the way he asked me what our favorite genres of games were (For us that's RPGs, Action, retro arcade, and puzzle at the top, and FPS/Sports at the bottom.) So he goes to work.

I picked it up Saturday and I'm just starting to get some time to play with it. He gave me some basic Docs for this front end, but it's very intuitive, so I fire it up and go. I now have a library of around 330 games on the SSD. Essentially all the heavy hitters in the history of Xbox360, plus a smattering of Xbox live titles downloaded. He told me the 1TB SSD is pretty full (only around 50GB left open for save games), but if I plug in an external drive I can add more games, and if I have the disc it has a "rip disc to drive" option, or I can play it off the disc like a traditional Xbox.

Anybody else gone down this dark path? So far it seems absolutely glorious. So for a good bit less than a refurbished current console I have a 300+ game library. He apparently also does the PS version of this, and if I want I can add MAME and Nintendo emulators.
 
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Mr_Bungle

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If you're into hacked consoles and homebrew systems I would check out Modern Vintage Gamer on Youtube.

 
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Hateyou

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Haus said:
Wondering if anybody else has been down this path...

With the changes to Xbox live (and many other media subscriptions) as of recent my wife decided she had finally had it with this idea that companies could decide what should just randomly vanish from the library of things you had "purchased". So she started hording up physical media first (books, DVDs, Blu Rays, etc...) then she shifted into her various gaming collections. We have had a LOT of consoles and handhelds around this house over time. So we were at a Fanexpo recently in the dealer room and she was collecting various Xbox games she could get for "cheap" , around $5 a pop. And we run into this one booth with a dude who, when he heard about what we were doing, had an alternative option.

For a nominal fee he would take our old Xbox 360 and....
  • Replace all the caps on the motherboard
  • Reflux the board
  • Clean and do a top to bottom refurb on it
  • Swap out the HD for a 1TB SSD
  • Install this front end/launcher called Aurora on it
  • Pack the HD with games.
I have had some fun money burning a hole in my pocket, and Mrs. Haus Mrs. Haus kinda lit up at this Idea, so what the hell. This took him a month to do. Along the way he asked me what our favorite genres of games were (For us that's RPGs, Action, retro arcade, and puzzle at the top, and FPS/Sports at the bottom.) So he goes to work.

I picked it up Saturday and I'm just starting to get some time to play with it. He gave me some basic Docs for this front end, but it's very intuitive, so I fire it up and go. I now have a library of around 330 games on the SSD. Essentially all the heavy hitters in the history of Xbox360, plus a smattering of Xbox live titles downloaded. He told me the 1TB SSD is pretty full (only around 50GB left open for save games), but if I plug in an external drive I can add more games, and if I have the disc it has a "rip disc to drive" option, or I can play it off the disc like a traditional Xbox.

Anybody else gone down this dark path? So far it seems absolutely glorious. So for a good bit less than a refurbished current console I have a 300+ game library. He apparently also does the PS version of this, and if I want I can add MAME and Nintendo emulators.
Click to expand...
Went down that path with the original Xbox. Had a friend who would do it for $100. He’d load it with every emulator and game possible. We would get drunk and high and play the fuck out of a bunch of random porn and Japanese arcade games. Some of the Japanese ones were absolute nonsense and it all being in Japanese made it even better. We found several that were really fun competitive games. Super Mario Wars homebrew was on it, that game was an absolute blast and I can’t believe Nintendo still hasn’t released their own version of it. Played many nights of MAME bomberman too Bruuce Bruuce

It also had the ability to load Xbox games to it too, like your 360.That was one of the best systems I ever owned, was a great party console. Still have it but it’s been in a tote for probably 20 years, not sure if it would fire up or not.
 
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Haus

Haus

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Hateyou said:
Went down that path with the original Xbox. Had a friend who would do it for $100. He’d load it with every emulator and game possible. We would get drunk and high and play the fuck out of a bunch of random porn and Japanese arcade games. Some of the Japanese ones were absolute nonsense and it all being in Japanese made it even better. We found several that were really fun competitive games. Super Mario Wars homebrew was on it, that game was an absolute blast and I can’t believe Nintendo still hasn’t released their own version of it. Played many nights of MAME bomberman too Bruuce Bruuce

It also had the ability to load Xbox games to it too, like your 360.That was one of the best systems I ever owned, was a great party console. Still have it but it’s been in a tote for probably 20 years, not sure if it would fire up or not.
Click to expand...
My all time MAME top is Bubble Bobble.... I have been fall over drunk and still somehow slaying at that game...
 
TJT

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One of my coworkers bought this thing:

www.analogue.co

3D - Analogue

The Future is here.
www.analogue.co www.analogue.co

Kind of cool I guess. The professional tech nerd community has gotten deep into this trend of physically owning their media and games. So they actually want the cartridges now. It applies to Bluray and whatever else too.
 
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Juvarisx

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TJT said:
One of my coworkers bought this thing:

www.analogue.co

3D - Analogue

The Future is here.
www.analogue.co www.analogue.co

Kind of cool I guess. The professional tech nerd community has gotten deep into this trend of physically owning their media and games. So they actually want the cartridges now. It applies to Bluray and whatever else too.
Click to expand...

I have the SNES model from them and its excellent, there is no better way to play your old SNES carts on a modern TV. Its unfortunate that they are plagued by scalpers though, but if they ever release a console you are interested in, snag it they do quality work.

Haus said:
Wondering if anybody else has been down this path...

With the changes to Xbox live (and many other media subscriptions) as of recent my wife decided she had finally had it with this idea that companies could decide what should just randomly vanish from the library of things you had "purchased". So she started hording up physical media first (books, DVDs, Blu Rays, etc...) then she shifted into her various gaming collections. We have had a LOT of consoles and handhelds around this house over time. So we were at a Fanexpo recently in the dealer room and she was collecting various Xbox games she could get for "cheap" , around $5 a pop. And we run into this one booth with a dude who, when he heard about what we were doing, had an alternative option.

For a nominal fee he would take our old Xbox 360 and....
  • Replace all the caps on the motherboard
  • Reflux the board
  • Clean and do a top to bottom refurb on it
  • Swap out the HD for a 1TB SSD
  • Install this front end/launcher called Aurora on it
  • Pack the HD with games.
I have had some fun money burning a hole in my pocket, and Mrs. Haus Mrs. Haus kinda lit up at this Idea, so what the hell. This took him a month to do. Along the way he asked me what our favorite genres of games were (For us that's RPGs, Action, retro arcade, and puzzle at the top, and FPS/Sports at the bottom.) So he goes to work.

I picked it up Saturday and I'm just starting to get some time to play with it. He gave me some basic Docs for this front end, but it's very intuitive, so I fire it up and go. I now have a library of around 330 games on the SSD. Essentially all the heavy hitters in the history of Xbox360, plus a smattering of Xbox live titles downloaded. He told me the 1TB SSD is pretty full (only around 50GB left open for save games), but if I plug in an external drive I can add more games, and if I have the disc it has a "rip disc to drive" option, or I can play it off the disc like a traditional Xbox.

Anybody else gone down this dark path? So far it seems absolutely glorious. So for a good bit less than a refurbished current console I have a 300+ game library. He apparently also does the PS version of this, and if I want I can add MAME and Nintendo emulators.
Click to expand...

I did this to an Xbox Series S and its pretty stellar, this guide doesn't provide the BIOS' for PSX / PS2 but they are not hard to find and google "roms megathread" for games

retrogamecorps.com

Guide: Xbox Series S/X and Xbox One Emulation

Last updated: 03AUG2024 (see Changelog for details) In my quest to find great emulation at a budget price, the idea of running games on the Xbox series devices recently came on my radar. Considerin…
retrogamecorps.com retrogamecorps.com

 
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