Xbox 360:Scene History
This page outlines major points in the Xbox 360's history, including both official historical points and the Xbox 360 hacking scene's milestones. The majority of this history is condensed from archived Xbox-Scene posts. Huge thanks to XanTium and GaryOPA for managing the front page news feed!
If you like this article, see The History of the Xbox Scene on the Original Xbox Mods Wiki
2005
March 24th: Microsoft reveals a games development platform, XNA (which stands for "XNA's Not Acronymed") for the unannounced Xbox successor.
May 12th: The Xbox 360 is unveiled on MTV, confirming leaked data including the name, the logo, the wireless controllers, the system specs, and the console design. Original Xbox games are demonstrated on the system, confirming backwards compatibility. The official Xbox 360 website, Xbox360.com, opens its doors.
May 15th: Bill Gates announces that Halo 3 will launch on the launch day of the PlayStation 3.
May 23rd: The Xbox-Linux team begins the Free60 Project, dedicated to port Linux to the Xbox 360. Andrew "bunnie" Huang joins the Free60 Project.
August 17th: Official launch price of the Xbox 360 is announced to be $299.99 at GC2005.
September 27th: Microsoft declares support for HD-DVD, in opposition to Blu-Ray, technology.
October 6th: The Australian Stevens v Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment case is taken to High Court and it is ruled that Sony's PlayStation was designed to prevent illegal copies of games being played, and was not designed to prevent illegal copying. Because of this, it does not qualify as a "technological protection measure" (TPM) device as they claimed and thus modchips are declared legal in Australia again.
November 6th: The first instance of Red Ring of Death (RROD/E 74) was found in a Walmart kiosk prior to launch.
November 22nd: The Xbox 360 is released in North America.
November 23rd: Many users report issues (E 64, E 74, E 79) with their brand new Xbox 360s.
December 2nd: The Xbox 360 is released in Europe.
December 10th: The Xbox 360 is launched in Japan.
December 21st: The last Xbox game in Japan,NBA Live 07, is released.
December 27th: A kiosk demo disc is found to be bootable from burned discs. User "Tser" discovers that he can edit the script files that compile a shader at runtime in the Peter Jackson's King Kong demo on the kiosk demo disc. This is the first instance of homebrew code running at a level outside of userland, as the GPU processes it.
December 28th: XBLA game Hexic from the burnable kiosk demo disc is found to be an Adobe Flash emulator. User illicitx finds that you can insert a custom .swf flash file renamed to "HexicDeluxe.swf" into the folder structure and play it, marking the first case of homebrew software is possible on the Xbox 360. Users begin to use a modified Hexic that unlocks achievements for the game.
December 3rd: It is discovered that some disc drives will scratch games if the system is moved. Warnings are put on the Xbox 360 packaging.
2006
January 7th: Rymez2K successfully transfers a game save from the original Xbox to Xbox 360 by mounting a FATX storage device in Linux and injecting it.
January 18th: A unique 16 byte key is found when comparing DVD firmware dumps.
January 30th: Dashboard 2255 update is pushed which, among other things, blocked the burnable kiosk disc from running.
February 9th: Anthony Park creates a web browser usable on the Xbox 360 using Windows Media Center.
February 13th: Roofus and AngerWound release Xplorer360, an application to read/write from Xbox 360 hard drives and USB storage devices.
February 15th: Microsoft partners up with Points International to create a rewards points system, which later becomes Microsoft Points.
February 22nd: Datel creates an Xbox 360 transfer kit to plug an Xbox 360 memory card into your PC via USB to access the files.
February 27th: Microsoft announces Project Oragami, a discontinued tablet computer with the ability to connect to the Xbox 360 to be used as a second screen.
March 4th: An adapter, called 360SATA, is created to connect your Xbox 360 hard drive to your PC via USB.
March 18th: TheSpecialist announces that the Xbox 360 DVD drive firmware has been hacked to boot burned copies of unmodified Xbox 360 games.
March 25th: DVD firmware flashing is achieved via USB.
April 7th: Datel announces a SATA to USB device for the Xbox 360 hard drive called XSATA.
May 9th: A Halo 3 trailer is shown at the Microsoft E3 Press Conference. The HD-DVD add-on is also revealed.
May 14th: Commodore4eva (c4eva) releases the first cracked DVD firmware for the Xbox 360's TS-H943 DVD drive.
June 14th: Reportedly, an Xbox Team member brought a modded Xbox loaded with Avalaunch and homebrew apps to a meeting with Bill Gates, in which Gates said"How can we engage this community?", showing a mild support and interest in the hacking scene.
June 4th: The Xbox is discontinued in Japan.
August 9th: Microsoft announces a Halo feature film for release in summer 2008.
August 14th: XNA Game Studio Express is announced, giving anyone a chance to make games for the Xbox 360.
September 21st: Microsoft acknowledges the Red Ring of Death (RROD) issues and offers refunds for RROD repairs and a free warranty extension.
October 11th: Xbox Live Pipeline, a web browser based interface for the Xbox Live Marketplace, is released.
November 16th: An anonymous source, later found to be Felix Domke AKA tmbinc, created a private proof of concept to exploit a hypervisor bug, enabling the running of unsigned code in the 4532 kernel.
December 27th: Xbox 360 exclusive Crackdown announced to contain free Halo 3 beta invitation.
December 30th: The hypervisor bug is demonstrated at the 23rd Chaos Communication Congress, teasing the ability to load Linux by booting up the game Peter Jackson's: King Kong and then displaying the Xbox 360 logo, a Mac logo, and Tux (the Linux Penguin) with the words "Coming soon…". This is the first demonstration of the "KK Exploit". A guide for how to reproduce this yourself can be found here.
2007
January 9th: The KK Exploit is patched after being self-reported by the demonstrator.
January 13th: Robinsod discovers a way to modify kernel patches in order to downgrade to the base kernel version (1888). This is soon patched in kernel 4552. Muslix64 obtains the HD-DVD decryption keys.
January 19th: Microsoft expands XBLA maximum file size to 150MB, enabling larger games to be sold on the marketplace. Due to Microsoft's policy change to force users to ship their broken Xbox 360s in using their own shipping material, The Big Box Project is started, aiming to rent a 40 foot shipping container on a truck to drop off at Microsoft's facility containing a single broken Xbox 360.
January 25th: TheSpecialist releases HDDHacker, a program that copies sector 16 of an Xbox 360 hard drive into a new hard drive, making any Western Digital BEVS series hard drive work in a retail Xbox. Muslix64 releases BackupHDDVD, a program to rip HD-DVDs.
January 27th: Lone Coder creates the first emulator to run on the Xbox 360, "XNA SharpNES", which runs on any retail machine with an XNA enabled account.
February 12th: The Xbox Rewards Program is released.
February 13th: Users on the Doom9 forums obtain the HD DVD and Blu-Ray disc volume and processing keys, allowing any disc to be decrypted or encrypted.
February 21st: Microsoft releases a wireless receiver for wireless Xbox 360 controllers to be used on Windows.
February 28th: A technical write up is released on Security Focus' BugTraq system by "Anonymous Hacker", detailing the KK Exploit.
March 1st: Games for Windows Live beta registration is announced.
March 2nd: Crawler360 releases the first public code to run use the KK Exploit, running a simple homebrew script to output "Hello World".
March 11th: The Xbox is discontinued in Europe.
March 20th: tmbinc creates Xenon Linux Loader (XeLL) which allows any retail console to run Linux using the KK Exploit. The first game with native 1080p support, Virtua Tennis 3, is released.
March 22nd: The InFeCtuS modchip is released, which has functions for the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, and Wii. For the Xbox 360, it can only flash DVD drives.
March 25th: Ubuntu is ported to Xbox 360.
March 28th: The Xbox 360 Elite is announced.
April 2nd: Free60 releases a Gentoo Linux port.
April 26th: Microsoft announces the existence of transfer cables, which were to be given free to owners of the Xbox 360 Elite to transfer data to their new larger hard drive.
April 27th: Zephyr, the second model of the Xbox 360 motherboard, which includes an HDMI port, is first spotted.
April 29th: The Xbox 360 Elite is released.
May 17th: Microsoft begins banning Xbox 360s with flashed DVD drives.
May 28th: A program, called "Flash Dump" is released, allowing anyone to dump and decrypt the NAND chip of the Xbox 360, dump the kernel, and obtain their keyvault.
June 15th: 360GameSaves announces a game save resigner, allowing modification of game saves.
June 24th: It is discovered that you can downgrade any kernel to a lower version if you obtain the CPU key. At the time, the CPU key was only obtainable if you had used the KK Exploit and saved the information, but this method of downgrading is unpatchable.
June 26th: Microsoft reports receiving 2,500 broken Xbox 360s each day in the UK alone.
June 29th: The last Xbox game in Europe,Xiaolin Showdown, is released.
July 7th: Microsoft extends the Xbox 360 warranty to 3 years from the date of purchase.
August 7th: The Xbox 360 Input Machine (XIM) is created. It enables the Wiimote, keyboards, and mice to work on the Xbox 360. A retail product is later made from this, adding support for many more devices.
August 23rd: Robinsod successfully downgrades his kernel without a CPU key by using a timing-based brute force to find a small hashed value. Details of this attack can be found here.
September 1st: Microsoft creates a media content license explicitly for machinima films to protect video creators from copyright issues.
September 10th: Robinsod open sources his timing attack kernel downgrade, and releases the schematics to make a device to perform the downgrade here.
September 25th: Halo 3 is released, reaching $170 million of sales within the first 24 hours. This broke the previous record, set by Halo 2 at $125 million, for the highest gross of an entertainment product within 24 hours of release.
Late September: The Falcon motherboard is released.
September 30th: 3D acceleration added to Linux.
October 6th: The Halo movie is officially canceled.
October 12th: Microsoft begins temporary suspensions for using inappropriate language in gamer mottos and bios.
October 23rd: Microsoft announces the Xbox 360 Arcade.
November 13th: Xbox Originals are announced; bringing full original Xbox games to the Xbox Live Marketplace to be purchased.
November 22nd: Zouzzz discovers that swapping a keyvault on a banned console with an unbanned console's keyvault will remove the ban.
2008
January 11th: InFeCtuS releases "Time Attack PCB" for downgrading consoles.
January 22nd: Bunnie analyses a RROD console, and uses the "Dye and Pry" method, and theorizes that the solder balls under the GPU had tiny cracks due to heat stress.
February 23rd: The Xbox 360 HD DVD Player add-on is officially discontinued.
Mid March: Rhea GPUs with high TG underfill first started appearing on Falcon consoles, fixing reliability issues.
April 23rd: Grand Theft Auto IV leaks online.
April 28th: Grand Theft Auto IV is released, reaching over 3.6 million copies for over $310 million in sales on the first day. Within the week, $500 million was earned. This broke the records for first day and first week gross income for an entertainment product, previously set by Halo 3 andPirates of the Caribbean respectively.
May 1st: Klewan releases Uxrip360, a Linux-based game ripper application for the Xbox 360, is released.
May 14th: Microsoft announces that over 10 million Xbox 360s have been sold.
Mid May: Microsoft stopped production of unreliable GPUs that had low tg underfill. The Rhea GPUs on Falcons and referbished Zephyr_B/C's going forward only used these revised GPUs.
May 20th: Microsoft announces increase in the XBLA game size to 350MB.
June 2nd: Opus motherboards start shipping out in refurbished Xenon Xbox 360s.
June 29th: Roofus and Angerwound release ConSign, an Xbox 360 user content file (.CON) editor.
July 9th: Schizoid, the first commercial XBLA game built with XNA Game Studio, is released.
July 14th: The NXE dashboard is revealed with screenshots during Microsoft's E3 conference adding avatars, the ability to install games to the hard drive, and an upgraded Xbox Marketplace interface. Microsoft declares partnership with Netflix.
July 22nd: Games for Windows Live becomes free.
July 28th: The NXE dashboard leaks and is usable on modded consoles.
August 12th: The last Xbox game in North America,Madden NFL 09, is released.
October 23rd:Portal: Still Alive releases on the marketplace as the largest XBLA game at 629MB, breaking the 350MB size cap.
October 24th: NXE Preview program is announced.
October 30th: NXE dashboard is released to users in the NXE Preview program.
November 13th: The first dual NAND modchip, Cygnos360, is announced. This allows anyone to run two separate kernels on the same Xbox 360.
November 19th: The NXE dashboard and the Indie Games platform are officially released.
November 27th: The penultimate fat Xbox 360 motherboard, the Jasper motherboard, is first spotted.
December 23rd: Team Jungle releases JungleFlasher, a program to flash DVD drives.
2009
February 13th: Halo Wars demo is released, setting a record of more than 2 million downloads within the first five days.
March 2nd: The Xbox is discontinued in North America and out-of-warranty support is dropped completely. Halo 3 reaches one billion matches played.
March 7th: ABGX, a tool to verify and add stealth capability to Xbox 360 ISOs, is released by Seacrest.
March 20th: E 74 errors, an error similar in nature to the RROD that indicates a failure of the communication between the GPU and eDRAM dies, is reportedly widespread.
April 8th: Amazon opens their own official Xbox Live Marketplace.
April 14th: Microsoft extends warranties for E 74 errors to November 1st, 2009.
April 21st: AntiPiracy 2.5 (AP25) is enabled on new Xbox 360 games, preventing flashed DVD drives from running new games.
May 22nd: FrostyTheSnowman releases the 360 Modification USB Drive, which replaces installation discs for drive flashing.
May 13th: Datel cracks the Xbox 360 memory card protection, creating memory cards of sizes up to 16GB.
June 1st: Microsoft announces and demonstrates a motion tracking controller, "Project Natal" (later renamed to Kinect), and Last.fm for Xbox.
July 21st: Microsoft brings video and audio advertisement to the dashboard.
August 6th: PayPal becomes a payment option to buy Microsoft Points.
August 11th: Felix Domke and Michael Steil announce that the dashboard update released on this day modifies the bootloader, successfully blocking the KK exploit. They also announce that they have a solution to enable homebrew and Linux right from the system power on. This hack would later be known as the "JTAG/SMC hack".
August 12th: A video demonstration of the JTAG hack is released.
August 15th: Free60 releases an open source image builder in preparation for releasing the JTAG hack.
August 17th: tmbinc releases a video of the popular SNES emulator SNES9x running on the Xbox 360 using native code. This marks the first instance of a native non-XNA emulator running on the Xbox 360.
August 23rd: The updated bootloader is found in newly manufactured units.
August 25th: A Xenon kernel image is released for the JTAG hack, allowing Xenons to be booted straight into XeLL.
September 20th: Cpasjuste releases Xmenu, an ELF loader for use with the Xbox 360.
September 26th: Microsoft announces that the XBLA game size limit will be increased to 2GB.
October 5th: Free60 releases a JTAG hack NAND image for Falcon and Opus motherboards.
October 6th: Free60 releases a JTAG hack NAND image for Zephyr motherboards.
October 12th: Cygnos360 v2 is updated to support the JTAG hack for a dual NAND setup.
October 17th: Microsoft announces blocking of unauthorized Xbox 360 memory units to be included in the next dashboard update.
October 18th: Ikari360 releases FreeBOOT, a rebooter which allows you to reboot your JTAG hacked Xbox 360 into newer kernels.
October 27th: SkyTV launches on Xbox 360.
November 8th: Free60 releases a NAND image for Jasper motherboards.
November 10th:Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is released, setting a record for the most people on Xbox Live simultaneously at over 2 million players. C4eva announces the first release of iXtreme Lite Touch (LT).
November 16th: After discovering that console bans will disable homebrew hard drive features, GodzIvan releases NAND Write Protect (NWP) chip to prevent writes to the NAND.
November 19th: Redline99 releases XVal, an application to check the ban flag of a console. A trivia-based Xbox Live game show, called 1 vs 100 (based off of the show of the same name), begins it's first of two seasons. The game consisted of a 2-hour long live game session twice a week for 13 weeks. A single person called "The One" was selected in each session to face 100 other people, with the rest of the present players on the game being "the mob". Prizes including Microsoft Points and games were given out, with the grand prize being 10,000 Microsoft Points ($125) if the One wins.
November 23rd: Datel sues Microsoft over blocking third party memory units.
November 25th: A method is shared to restore homebrew hard drive features after receiving a ban.
November 30th: Ikari360 releases a version of freeBOOT that allows execution of unsigned Xenon Executables (XEX), opening the system up to the possibility of a homebrew XDK.
December 3rd: Surazal discovers a way to convert an arcade demo to the full version of the game, enabling those with banned consoles to use their bought arcade games play as the full version without connecting to Live.
December 3rd: The final fat Xbox 360 motherboard, the Tonasket motherboard (nicknamed by the same as Jasper Kronos or Jasper V2), is first spotted.
December 5th: DJ Shepard releases an open source app and library for file management, profile editing, signing, resigning, and extracting game files. FreeXeX releases XeXLoader, a tool that can launch XEX files from any storage device and rip any inserted game disc.
December 16th: Rab creates the NandCompare to repair bad NAND images from three bad ones.
December 19th: Yelrac releases USB Loader, an application that will launch an XEX located in the root of a USB device directly.
December 21st: FreeXeX releases QuickBoot, a tool that allows you to launch applications from the NXE dashboard.
December 23rd: Viper360, an alternative game launcher and file manager, is released.
December 30th: FanSpeedFlasher is released, allowing the fan speed to be changed to a desired speed.
2010
January 10th: DJ Shepherd releases Le Fluffie, a FATX browser and achievement editor.
January 12th: Team XeDev releases NXE2GOD, an application to convert disc games installed by the NXE dashboard to the disc-less Games on Demand format.
January 13th: Free60 releases a Debian Linux LiveCD for the Xbox 360.
January 15th: Redline99 releases Flash360, a tool to overwrite your NAND directly from a homebrew enabled Xbox 360, including his own version of XeLL named "XeLLous".
January 16th: Team XeDev and node21 release an update to XM360 which includes an XBLA title collection manager, showing which XBLA games you currently have and which you are missing.
January 17th: Team XeDev releases XeXMenu, a homebrew dashboard which has FTP support.
January 25th: Team XeDev releases Xbox1-Compatibility-Partition Fixer, a tool which restores the original Xbox emulator, Partition2, on your hard drive.
January 25th: Ski-lleR releases IngeniouX, a homebrew dashboard.
January 27th: Axc97 releases Freestyle Dash, a homebrew dashboard that is similar in style to the NXE dashboard.
January 30th: KrK of Team 360h releases ISO2GOD, an application to convert disc games to the disc-less Games on Demand format.
February 3rd: Team XeLove releases XeDebug, a network based debug assistance program for XDK programmers.
February 18th: LoveMHz of XeLove releases OpenJazz360, a port of the homebrew game OpenJazz. This marks the first full homebrew game on the Xbox 360. LibSDL360x, a library to allow developers to port SDL-based emulators, games, and apps to the Xbox 360, is released.
March 1st: Team XeDev releases Dash Launch, a utility that boots a JTAG exploited Xbox 360 straight into a homebrew dashboard or application.
March 13th: Farmboynick finds that Avalaunch can be used in a JTAG exploited Xbox 360's original Xbox emulator if the title ID is spoofed. From there, a file manager can be used and XBMC installed.
March 16th: A leaked original Xbox emulator build (5829) is released with hack checking, region locks, and game whitelisting disabled.
March 19th: Team Xecuter announces NAND-X, a NAND programmer.
April 6th: Microsoft enables USB storage device support for up to 16GB of media storage.
April 7th: Modifying a video game console is declared punishable by up to 10 years in jail in Canada.
April 8th: BadBloke releases Autohacker, a program that automates the process of the JTAG hack.
April 14th: HellDoc releases XeXtractor, an application to extract XEX file contents.
April 15th: Xbox Live on the original Xbox is shut down. Players that stayed on Halo 2 post-shutdown were allowed to continue playing until they disconnected or turned off their console.
April 26th: After it was discovered that privately owned devkits and JTAGs could access PartnerNet, Microsoft begins blowing eFuses on consoles that weren't accounted for, thus causing a permanent red ring of death on the consoles.
May 11th: The final person on Halo 2, N4SIR, was kicked from the servers.
May 12th: The JS-Team releases XeXDash, a homebrew dashboard.
May 16th: JJMPSP releases Xbox 360 Game Identifier, a program used to download boxart and other meta information for games.
June 9th: v3v3 releases 360 Screenshot Tool.
June 14th: Microsoft announces the Xbox 360 S, which includes the Trinity motherboard, and the Kinect (previously "Project Natal").
June 18th: The Xbox 360 S is launched in North America.
July 16th: The Xbox 360 S is launched in Europe.
June 20th: Team Trinity releases a game ripper for original Xbox games on Xbox 360.
June 21st: Xerax releases Freehood360, an Xbox 360 Neighborhood program for JTAG hacked consoles.
June 28th: Team FBDev releases System Ping Check Removal, a tool used to circumvent the 30ms ping check for System Link, making it easier to play System Link games over the Internet.
July 21st: Sasuke2911 releases an English version of Emerald, a homebrew dashboard.
August 2nd: Datel releases Wildfire2, the first unlicensed wireless and dongle-less Xbox 360 contrroller.
August 15th: c4eva, Team Jungle, and Team Xecuter successfully hacked the Xbox 360 S DVD drive.
August 20th: A copy of Halo: Reach is leaked due to an individual "tricking the Microsoft servers" into downloading the full game that is hosted for select media.
August 23rd: Amazon discontinues their Xbox store.
September 10th: A beta version of the Kinect dashboard leaks online.
September 14th: Halo: Reach is released, generating a record $200 million within the first 24 hours. The disc includes a brand new disc format called XGD3.
September 22nd: Team FSD releases DevLink, an application to allow XDKs to connect to retail consoles via System Link.
October 3rd: Team XeLove open sources all of their past works, including a handful of emulators.
October 8th: XBSlink is released, allowing system-link enabled multiplayer over the Internet.
October 15th: Geremia releases Tarablinda, a collection of DVD firmware research and unreleased hacks for the Xbox 360 S.
October 30th: c4eva finds AntiPiracy 2.5 (AP25) checks on the new dashboard update.
November 2nd: SoulHeaven announces x360SED, a chip that allows bypassing of the AP25 protections by ejecting the current disc without notifying the console and swapping discs.
November 4th: The Kinect motion and voice capture add-on begins sales in North America.
November 14th: USB storage device explorer Party Buffalo is released by CLK Rebellion.
November 10th: Marcan releases the first open source drivers for Kinect.
November 18th: Nuigroup releases a driver, SDK, and API for the Kinect hardware on Windows called LibFreenect.
November 23rd: Team Xecuter announces X360 USB Pro, a DVD to USB adapter that is compatible with all Xbox 360 DVD drives.
December 1st: Maximus announces the 360 Lizard, a DVD drive flashing device.
December 21st: PrimeSense, whose chips were used in the first version of the Kinect, releases official open source drivers for the Kinect.
December 26th: GAFBlizzard releases Xbox 360 chatpad drivers.
2011
February 6th: TheFallen93 releases HvxBootOS for XDKs to boot into XeLL and load Linux.
April 3rd: mpeg1, ffplay, ffmpeg, and libxvidcore are ported to the Xbox 360.
April 4th: Dynup releases XboxBurner, an application to burn Xbox and Xbox 360 games.
April 24th: Compl3x releases DashGrab, an open source dashboard downloader.
April 25th: x360key, an optical drive emulator (ODE) which would later be known as XK3Y, is announced. This device emulates the DVD drive and allows the playing of backups off of a USB storage device.
May 23rd: Lantus releases a work-in-progress video of MAME 0.72 on the Xbox 360.
June 7th: Cloud storage and game beacons are announced for the upcoming dashboard.
June 17th: Xamphear releases JTAG Content Manager, an application to browse Xbox 360 files and games from the PC and update the games or stealth patches.
June 18th: Tuxuser releases XeLL Updater, an application to update XeLL straight from the Xbox 360.
July 13th: Team FSD releases the FreeStyle Dash source code.
July 27th: Australian Game Mods releases AGM Temperature Logging Plugin, a plugin that displays your Xbox 360 temperatures at any point.
August 2nd: The Wasabi X360 and Boxzii ODEs are announced.
August 8th: AntiPiracy 2.6 (AP26) features are found.
August 12th: The "Kamikaze hack" method is released by Geremia, which requires drilling into a chip in order to flash Winbond DVD drives.
August 21st: EatonZ releases XePatch, an open-source patch editor and compiler.
August 28th: GliGli and Tiros (with help from cOz) release the Reset Glitch Hack (RGH), an unpatchable hardware exploit to run unsigned code. It works by sending a reset pulse to the processor while it is slowed down, which causes memory compares, including hash checks on the bootloader, to always return true.
August 29th: BestPig releases ECC Glitch Generator, a tool to make RGH setup faster. Cancerous and JQE release the FFplay, a homebrew media player.
August 31st: Team Xecuter updates Nand-X to support RGH.
September 6th: More "glitchchips" (modchips for RGH) and NAND flashers (also known as programmers) are announced including EDGE360, X360 Glitchip/SF, and 360Clip.
September 8th: Matrix Glitcher 360 and SQUIRT360 are announced.
September 16th: Team FSD announces the "RxE" update for Freestyle Dash, overhauling the dashboard and adding Kinect gesture and voice control, a coverflow system, significantly increased file transfer speeds, and more.
September 23rd: GliGli releases RGH 1.1, adding support for Falcon motherboards and various bug fixes.
October 1st: LT+ v2 is released.
October 20th: The Corona motherboard is first spotted, coincidentally preventing RGH. It was also later discoverd that 4 GB consoles with this motherboard integraded the memory unit on the motherboard itself, unlike the Trinity motherboards.
October 21st: ggBuild, a tool used to run unsigned native code, is released anonymously.
October 29th: The Xecuter CoolRunner glitchchip begins shipping.
October 31st: Rogero releases 360 Multi Builder, an application to build images for both JTAG and RGH setups.
November 17th: Microsoft begins pushing silent updates to DVD firmware challenges.
December 6th: The Metro Dashboard is released.
December 9th: The anonymous developers of image builders ggBuild (RGH) and fbbuild (JTAG) combine the programs into a single program called xeBuild.
December 24th: C4eva releases LT+ v3.0.
2012
January 18th: Team RGLoader releases Reset Glitch Loader - Dev (RGLoader-Dev), a tool to create a developer kit NAND for JTAG/RGH exploited retail consoles. x360Glitchip v2 becomes the first glitchchip to work with Corona motherboards.
January 26th: The Rebug Team announces an all-in-one NAND flasher and RGH Xbox 360 chip called XAIO360. The project was cancelled but the source was later released on January 3rd, 2020.
January 26th: Bunnie and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) write an open letter to Maria Pallante, the U.S. Register of Copyrights to renew the jailbreak exemption clause in DMCA legislation, and to expand it to cover all electronic gadgets, including video game consoles.
February 15th: Team Xecuter announces RGH2.
February 25th: J-Runner, a JTAG/RGH app, is released by Team Jungle and Team Xecuter. Team Xecuter also announces the Xecuter DemoN, a dual NAND RGH/JTAG device built for use with J-Runner. Team Infinity announces the Matrix Trident, a tri-boot NAND chip.
March 7th: Team Xecuter releases RGH1 for the Xenon, a known buggy hack, but intended to allow people to extract their DVD key or keyvault.
March 11th: Natelx releases a DashLaunch plugin to enable developer kit features on a JTAG/RGH exploited console. Lantus releases MilkyTracker, a music making application, for XDKs.
March 25th - June 21st: Xbox-Scene has a news blackout due to XanTium leaving. GaryOPA takes over news feed.
April 15th: Team Xecuter releases RGH2.
June 21st: RetroArch is ported to Xbox 360.
June 28th: Team Xecuter releases a hacked developer kit kernel for JTAG/RGH exploited consoles called Xecuter Fusion.
July 11th: Team Xecuter announces an Android and iOS app to remotely control the Xecuter DemoN over Bluetooth or WiFi.
July 24th: Swizzy releases anx360 NAND Dump Checker, a tool used to check if a NAND dump is valid.
August 14th: SKFU releases XBLM Browser, an application that allows you to see the information of every game or app on the Xbox Live Marketplace and PartnerNet. He later updates it to allow downloading of the content, and viewing of Microsoft employee-only data including pre-release and beta dashboards.
August 21st: Team Xecuter announces CR3 Lite, a replacement for their CoolRunner Rev C.
August 23rd: Themaister and Squarepusher/Twin Aphex release an official build of RetroArch for Xbox and Xbox 360.
September 7th: Team Xecuter releases Sonus 360, a chip used to change the sound played when you power on your Xbox 360 to any other special edition Xbox 360 sound.
September 14th: The device flasher ProgSkeet is announced to support Xbox 360 and dual NAND.
October 29th: Microsoft adds a whitelist on PartnerNet, making it inaccessible to anyone not on the whitelist.
November 4th: The Waitsburg motherboard (nicknamed by the scene as Corona V3/V4) is first spotted, which removed the traces for POST output on the PCB to prevent RGH. This was easily bypassed by the scene due to the POST output being right at the edge of the CPU anyway, so it could be accessed by either soldering directly to the BGA ball or generic "POST Fix" adapters that clamped onto the sides of the CPU and attached to POST with a pogo pin.
November 5th: Team FSD announce LiNK, a System Link tunneling program that does not use a PC.
November 12th: Xbox Live Stealth (XBLS), later to be rebranded NiNJA, begins service.
2013
January 10th: Ben Vanik begins work on the Xbox 360 emulator, Xenia.
April 30th: Team Xecuter announces R-JTAG, a faster exploit than RGH2.
May 21st: Microsoft announces the Xbox One.
June 10th: The Xbox 360 E is launched in North America. This system contains the Stingray (nicknamed by the scene as Corona V5/V6) motherboard.
June 20th: The Xbox 360 E is launched in Europe.
June 22nd: Microsoft responds to the backlash of the Xbox community and backtracks on DRM lockdowns, allowing used game discs to be used, removing the always-online requirement, and removing region locks.
June 27th: Major Nelson announces that they are no longer charging developers for pushing updates to their games.
July 10th: Xbox Live Stealth Emulated (XBLSE), a stealth server, is released.
October: CronusMAX, a USB controller adapter, is released.
2014
January 23rd: Modchips are made legal in the European Union under Case C‑355/12 (Nintendo Co. Ltd v PC Box Srl).
February 11th:Nutjitsu and Worms Battlegrounds become the first two games confirmed to be released through ID@Xbox developer platform.
March 11th: Team Xecuter announces XODE (wiki page), a complete DVD drive replacement ODE. This project would later be cancelled.
March 29th: Ben Vanik releases a video demonstrating XBLA title Frogger 2 running on his Xenia emulator.
July 4th: Phoenix releases Aurora, a custom dashboard centered around a coverflow backup launching system.
September 20th: 15432 and DrShottky release a solution to RGH Stingray consoles with 4 GB NANDs.
September 26th: The first Winchester motherboard is spotted in a FIFA 15 bundle, marking the first console has not been exploited to this day.
2015
April 16th: RGH 1.2, a modification on RGH1 to achieve faster boot times on split CBs, is released by 15432.
April 23rd: DrSchottky releases the R-JTOP exploit, an open-source implementation of R-JTAG, to be used in consoles that refuse to boot on RGH 2.
2016
April 20th: Microsoft announces the end of production for Xbox 360s.
May 27th: TehCactus creates /r/360hacks.
September 9th: Xbox Live turns off the ability to publish games to Indie Games platform for Xbox 360.
October 11th: The Xbox-Scene website shuts down.
2017
October 7th: The Xbox Live Indie Games store is shut down.
2018
April: Microsoft releases an unexpected backwards compatibility patch to fix a crashing issue with the PAL version of Panzer Dragoon Orta. This is likely due to the game being made available on the Xbox One.
November 18th: GameStop offers refurbished Xbox 360 Slims for $69.99 with a $69.99 rebate, effectively giving them away for free for two days (limit 2 per customer).
2019
November 1st: Mathieulh releases hacked 2018 Xbox compatibility files and adds a feature to enable the Xbox 360 guide and gamechat during play.
2020
January 3rd: The Rebug Team open sources their unreleased all-in-one NAND flasher and RGH Xbox 360 chip called Xaio360.
February 25th: Xx jAmes t xX and Chr0m3 x MoDz releases HvP.xex, a tool to run debug builds to run on JTAG/RGH without RGL or a devkit.
April 5th: Proto stealth server is released.
June 15th: The ads on the Xbox 360's dashboard are removed.
October 1st: Octal450 takes over development and begins releasing new versions of J-Runner.
October 2nd: The FBI announces that Max Louarn (MAXiMiLiEN) and Gary Bowser (GaryOPA from MaxConsole) of Team Xecuter were arrested and extradited to the United States to be charged with 11 felonies including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices, trafficking in circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. It is apparent that Nintendo may have instigated this case as the article makes many mentions to Nintendo devices, especially SX OS on the Nintendo Switch.
November 21st: Octal450 releases SMC+, making RGH cycles 50-70% faster.
2021
January: Octal450 releases Corona PRO timings to boot all Coronas quickly and reliably.
March: Octal450 releases new Zephyr timings to boot Zephyrs twice as fast as before.
June: Octal450 release RGH 1.2 fixes - named RGH1.2 V2 - to boot stubborn Jaspers.
July 21st: Element18592 of TheModShop.co releases xFlasher 360, a brand new programmer that supports NAND reading/writing and glitch chip programming via J-Runner with Extras.
August 17th: Octal450 successfully performs RGH1.2 V2 on a Trinity after being the first to locate a suitable PLL point under the solder mask.
August 18th: Octal450 successfully performs RGH1.2 V2 on a Corona after being the first to locate a suitable PLL point under the solder mask.
September 12th: 15432 successfully glitches an Xbox 360 without a glitch chip by using the SMC to act as a glitch chip, naming it RGH3. This had previously been attempted by blackaddr much earlier, but deemed unreliable in implementation.
October 18th: Octal450 demonstrates the first stable RGH for Xenon using the EXT_CLK method.
October 20th: Octal450 releases RGH1.2 V2 final for Trinity and Corona consoles.
November 28th: 15432 releases RGH3, a RGH method for all motherboards except Xenon, Zephyr, and Winchester that does not need a glitch chip. He also releases a video demonstrating RGH3 on multiple models.
December 12th: Octal450 open sources J-Runner with Extras.
December 13th: Microsoft releases the "Power On" documentary confirming that the RROD causes was internal break down of the flip chip, rather than BGA solder or overheating.
2022
January 1st: ConsoleMods.org launches! The /r/360hacks wiki is migrated to the site.
January 13th: The matchmaking and online services on Xbox 360 for Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4, and Halo Reach are taken offline permanently at approximately 10am PST.
February 4th: Element18592 releases the Slim PLL QSB, allowing for easier soldering to the PLL and POST points on Trinity and Corona for novices.
March 24th: Eaton releases the public beta of XL USB patches to allow larger than 2TB USB devices to work.
May 4th: Halo 3 Sunrise server is released.
July 5th: Microsoft announces that Games with Gold will no longer include Xbox 360 games.
December 25th: Halo 3 Pimps at Sea build is released.
2023
February 2nd: It's believed that the Xbox 360 Marketplace will be closing after an article appeared on the Xbox support site mentioning that it would close in May. Microsoft responds stating that the article was posted in error.
August 17th: Microsoft announces the Xbox 360 Store and Marketplace is closing in 2024.
2024
January 3rd: Eaton releases a set of XL patches allowing up to 48TB of storage.
January 26th: Halo Reach Sunrise server is released.
May 14th: Microsoft announces final sales for various games in the Xbox 360 Marketplace.
July 17th: Derf releases Xefu Spoofer, a tool to select the active Xenon Fusion emulator for running original Xbox games.
July 20th: JustAnyone finds that backwards compatible original Xbox games on Xbox One/Series platforms are emulating an Xbox 360 devkit which in turn emulates the original Xbox via the same Xbox 360:Xenon Fusion Emulator as Xbox 360. In this case, it used a unique xefu file created in 2019 found in SSX 3.
July 22nd: A second unique xefu file — created in 2021 — is found in Crimson Skies for Xbox One. It's confirmed that they both run on modified Xbox 360 consoles, but will not run on retail consoles due to being dev signed. It is later found that they increase compatibility with some games.
July 29th: The Xbox 360 Marketplace is shut down, preventing any new purchases and removing marketplace.xbox.com and many online components of the Xbox 360 dashboard via hotfix. Previous purchases remain downloadable via purchase history.
July 29th: Derf releases the Xbox 360 Homebrew Store.
August 7th: Grimdoomer releases Tony Hawk's Pro StrCpy, a multi-console softmod that can patch out signature checks and run unsigned executables on the 4548 dashboard.
October 19th: Grimdoomer announces a proof of concept hypervisor exploit compatible with the latest Xbox 360 dashboard.
October 25th: Eaton announces a new upcoming FATXplorer feature that allows SSDs with Phison S11 controllers to be flashed for retail Xbox 360 compatiblity.
Dates Needed
X360ACE, and Japanese Xbox 360 E release dates