PS3/XBox 360 Query

[Darth Marsden]

As the title says, a quick query.

So, I'm thinking about getting either a PS3 or a 360. Thing is, I'm not exactly flush with cash, so if I did, I'd probably really only play rented games on them.

My question is, if I used either console online with a rented game (it would mostly be for the achievements/trophies, but there may be some multiplayer), could I get in trouble or confused for someone who has a mod chip in their console?

[Masamune]

No. You'd be cool if you have no mods.

[Cloral]

I think it's pretty absurd that the publishers have managed to get this notion out there that rented/used games = piracy. Rented games are 100% legit.

[ctrl-alt-delete]

Why be legit? Get a PS3 and a Playstation jailbreak and backup all those rented games or download the ISOs. :-p

[AtmaWeapon]

Unless your game rental place stocks up on counterfeit or pirated games, you're good.

My guess is there's two things that get pirates caught:

Playing games before the release date
Some kind of digital fingerprinting in the disc image

The first one is obvious and it stuns me that people are upset when they download the ISO for a game that won't be released for a few months, play it online with their buddies, then find themselves banned from online play conveniently close to when the next blockbuster game comes out. If the game's not released yet, it's obvious you can't be playing it through legitimate means. If there's a beta, that's a bit sneakier, but usually a company knows whether someone is authorized to play the beta.

Round 2 is also plausible. There's probably some data in each disc (particularly pre-release discs) that uniquely identifies each one. Seeing the same disc id pop up on 2 or 3 consoles over a period of a few months is a reasonable pattern considering used sales and rentals. Seeing the same id pop up on 300 different consoles, 200 of them simultaneously, is probably a bit less likely to be a coincidence. Especially if the company downloads the ISOs to check which discs are pirated.

I do agree with Cloral though; it's not ridiculous that you had this question. It's ridiculous that the console gaming environment has created an environment where you felt the need to ask it.

[Darth Marsden]

Thanks for the responses. I suspected that I'd be fine, but I just wanted to be sure before I really started looking into it.

Here's another question, this time a bit more interesting. If I got a chipped 360, but only used it for playing import games, would I get in trouble for playing games online/downloading DLC/grabbing achievements for games from my region that I rent/buy preowned?

Also, ctrl-alt-del - the latest firmware update breaks the Jailbreak. So nya! :p

[Masamune]

If you connect to XBL with a detectable mod that's a chip, custom firmware, or otherwise, your console will be banned from XBL. Your XBL account will be fine, but your console will be banned. Currently, the 360 mod community assumes that mods are detected whether you're connected to XBL or not, and that your system flags itself, and then sends the flag whenever you do connect.

Also, many games are just region free, so check that out.

[Cloral]

If you really want to play import/modded games and play online, you'd want to have two consoles.

[Darth Marsden]

Ok, thanks for the responses! Clears up a fair bit for me.

And finally, which do you think I should go for first? The PS3 or the XBox360?

(I've pretty much decided already, but I'm interested to hear what you guys think)

[Cloral]

Depends on what you want from the console. If you plan on playing online a lot, the 360 is probably your best bet. Even though the Live service costs money, the overall setup is far superior to PSN. The 360 is probably also bedder for modding, as the ps3 mod scene is very, very new.
Otherwise, I'd go with the PS3. The free online service makes playing games online sporadically more justifiable. Plus you get a blu-ray player, more reliable hardware, more enticing exclusives, and a hard drive you can swap out with any standard hard drive.

[MottZilla]

To be clear, you can't "modchip" a 360 the way you could a PS2 or Xbox 1. You can modify the DVD-ROM to play burned games. However this does NOT allow playing region locked imports. There is no way other than a JTAG modded 360 to play imports that are region locked on the wrong region console. I'm pretty sure on a JTAG modded 360 you could change the region or get some sort of modified dash that would run it anyway.

PS3 has no region locking on PS3 games. Import as you please.

If you are serious about online gaming, 360 is the way to go. If you will only casually maybe play online, PS3 might be fine. If you are into exploits, buy a PS3 now and do not update to firmware 3.42, you want 3.41 which can be exploited to run unauthorized software. You'll be unable to go online though. With 360 you can modify your DVD-ROM to play burns and it does work online. However you need to be sure to use the latest hacked firmware, and you need to verify all burns you make to avoid banning. Even still in the future it may be possible to detect you and get banned.

In the end you will choose whichever system you think you'll get more use out of, whichever has more features or games you will play.

[Darth Marsden]

PS3 has no region locking on PS3 games. Import as you please. ...that's what sealed the deal. I'll probably get both, but the PS3 will be first.

TBH, it really came down to the games more than anything else, and the PS3 has more that I want to play. Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, Resistance, Yakuza... plus the updated re-releases of God of War and Sly Cooper (with hopefully more on the way - Prince of Persia FTW!). The 360 has some good ones too, but the PS3 has more that I want. So yeah.

EDIT: Also, Blu-Ray. Not that we have any films at the moment, but it'd be nice to rent one every once in a while. Also, my sister could play Buzz! Well, maybe. If I'm in a good mood and feel like letting her. She's buying the controllers though.

I'm not into online gaming, though that could change if I really get into a game. The online aspect is more for Achievements/Trophies, so I can swing my internet-cock around and brag about how big it is. Yeah, I'm petty. Sue me. It's also for DLC that doesn't make it to PC games (PoP '08 and Tomb Raider Underworld, I'm looking at both of you). Though again, there's not too many of those. I find most DLC to be rubbish, but there's a few that pique my interest.

Thanks for clearing up the modchip thing MottZilla, and thanks to everyone else for your time and thoughts. You guys are awesome at explaining stuff!

[Nicholas Steel]

If you connect to XBL with a detectable mod that's a chip, custom firmware, or otherwise, your console will be banned from XBL. Your XBL account will be fine, but your console will be banned. Currently, the 360 mod community assumes that mods are detected whether you're connected to XBL or not, and that your system flags itself, and then sends the flag whenever you do connect.

Also, many games are just region free, so check that out.
I heard the hackers have worked out how to change what the console reports to XBL thus allowing it back online as your account is not banned.

[MottZilla]

I heard the hackers have worked out how to change what the console reports to XBL thus allowing it back online as your account is not banned.

Then you heard wrong. You can change the key vault on an xbox if you jtag it but if you jtag it you're just going to get banned again. Thus you can't get back online with a banned console unless you have Microsoft's own equipment to modify the key vault to change the values. Really in practice, if your console is banned, that's it, you aren't using it online again.

[Darth Marsden]

Hey ho, another question.

What, exactly, is the point to Achievements/Trophies besides bragging rights? I'm a little confused, and a quick Google search doesn't turn up much other than sites with lists of Achievements/Trophies. The Wikipedia pages are also a little confusing, and I'm not finding much info on PS3 Trophies either. If someone could just give me a quick into to the systems, that'd be very much appreciated.

Also: am I wrong in thinking that XBox Achievements give you small amounts of points that, if you get enough of, you can spend in the store? Or are they, again, just for bragging rights?

[MottZilla]

It's all bragging rights. I think rumors flew about being able to get something for them, but the truth is all they are is a record of what you may have done in a game. One of the issues is it's easy to obtain them through glitches or loading hacked save game files. So basically they are just there for you to do whatever you want with, including ignore them.

[Cloral]

The only thing to add to that is nowadays, certain achievements can unlock free gamerpics or avatar clothing. Though this is very rare. Most of the time they are just to show your friends what you've accomplished. For instance, if you click that box in my signature, you can go to my 360 profile page where you can see my achievements. In that way you can see what I've played and how deeply I've gone in those games.

[Darth Marsden]

I see. Thanks again, guys.

[Nicholas Steel]

The points earned via achievements are just for bragging rights. The achievements themselves however, I find gives a sense of accomplishment for doing tasks in a game.

[Darth Marsden]

Hey, me again. Got some more questions. Woo.

First up - if I delete a save game for a PS3 game, does that delete the trophies for that game as well? Or do I keep the trophies no matter what?

Secondly - I know there's a PS3 controller that looks like a 360 one, but I don't like the XBox controller. So my question is - is there an XBox 360 controller that looks/feels like a PlayStation one, or a way to use a Playstation controller on a 360?

[Cloral]

Trophies are stored in your profile, not in the game. So they stick around unless you delete your entire profile. On the development PS3s, you can select a specific game's trophies, press triangle, and select delete to get rid of that game's trophies. But I think that's just a development function to allow us developers to test changes to the game's trophies.

[Darth Marsden]

Yeah, there's no 'Delete' option on my PS3Slim, so I guess that is a developer's only option. Thanks for clearing that up.

Now, about that controller... Anyone know of anything?

[Nicholas Steel]

All I know of with regards to swapping the cases of controllers is that one guy that manages to turn many consoles into portable devices. He doesn't do it for a living (so I hear) so you very likely won't be able to pay him to make one for you.

[Darth Marsden]

Nevermind, I've found one (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PS2-Xbox-360-Controller-Converter-Cable-Xbox-360-/400131206326?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item5d29adacb6).

[Human_Wormbaby]

I dunno how much microsoft would like you playing with a ps3 controller on a 360. I've heard of people getting banned for using modified/unauthorized controllers, but in those cases the people had modded in turbo fire to get an upper hand in online games. The 360 is a great console, though. There is the whole red ring problem, which recently claimed our 360 after 3 years (as soon as the warranty ran out, and as soon as microsoft released a new version of the 360. hmm....). But if you get one that is a couple of years old it can be modded without chips. It'll be banned from the internet, but if you've got the money you can keep a "legit" console for live play.

From what I've heard the ps3 has some nice exclusives, but I wouldn't know personally. We just use ours for movies since we can't afford to buy games for all the latest consoles, and we weren't expecting to have a ps3 anyway. My brother brought it with him when he moved in. I don't know what the modding scene is like for ps3, but I imagine it is more complicated since it took them a long time to crack it and professional modders charge more to do a ps3 than a 360.

The more recent 360s can't be modded without a chip, which is also expensive, but they are supposed to be much less prone to hardware failure.

[Darth Marsden]

Okay, wow.

From what I can tell through a quick Google search, the controller converter I linked to in my last post seems to work. Not 100% sure if it'll do so with a PS3Slim, but it's a fiver. I'll live if it doesn't. And for the record, I just wanted to use a Playstation controller, which is what I've grown up and am therefore extremely confortable with, on an XBox 360, which I intend to get at some point in the near future.

In case you hadn't noticed, I did get a PS3. It's a great console (expecially as I can watch copied DVDs straight off the bat, but you didn't hear that from me), and I've already gotten two Platinum trophies, with plenty more on the way (Darksiders on Extreme difficulty is hard). Check my sig for more details. Bear in mind I don't tent to buy games - I just rent them from an online rental service, which is why I've got some rather weird titles there! Since I'm an achievement/trophy whore, every time I rent a game, I try to get them all. Only time I gavce up was with 3D Dot Game Heroes, which I really just didn't like at all. I'll probably rent it again at some point just to get that sodding platinum trophy, but I won't enjoy it. Damn my gaming OCD.

The modding scene for the PS3 isn't something I'm particularly familiar with, but I gather that it's pretty much limited to the PS3 Jailbreak. Since I've updated my console to the latest version, I couldn't use it even if I wanted to (which I don't). As for the 360... I think that was rather neatly explained earlier in the thread.

[Cloral]

(Darksiders on Extreme difficulty is hard).

Glad to see you're playing it that way. It makes the game a whole lot more fun when the enemies are actually threatening and you have to actually make use of your reperotoire of moves to survive. And finishing it is very satisfying.

[Darth Marsden]

Glad to see you're playing it that way. It makes the game a whole lot more fun when the enemies are actually threatening and you have to actually make use of your reperotoire of moves to survive. And finishing it is very satisfying.Bollocks. It just means I die all the time and constantly get pissed off. But at least finishing it on Apocalypic difficulty (small correction there) means I don't have to play the game more than once. Don't get me wrong, when it's not constantly kicking my arse it's an entertaining little game, but it's not really one that warrants repeat playings*.

*That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

[MottZilla]

I dunno how much microsoft would like you playing with a ps3 controller on a 360. I've heard of people getting banned for using modified/unauthorized controllers, but in those cases the people had modded in turbo fire to get an upper hand in online games. The 360 is a great console, though. There is the whole red ring problem, which recently claimed our 360 after 3 years (as soon as the warranty ran out, and as soon as microsoft released a new version of the 360. hmm....). But if you get one that is a couple of years old it can be modded without chips. It'll be banned from the internet, but if you've got the money you can keep a "legit" console for live play.

From what I've heard the ps3 has some nice exclusives, but I wouldn't know personally. We just use ours for movies since we can't afford to buy games for all the latest consoles, and we weren't expecting to have a ps3 anyway. My brother brought it with him when he moved in. I don't know what the modding scene is like for ps3, but I imagine it is more complicated since it took them a long time to crack it and professional modders charge more to do a ps3 than a 360.

The more recent 360s can't be modded without a chip, which is also expensive, but they are supposed to be much less prone to hardware failure.

I've never seen anyone banned for a Turbo controller. I had one that I used for a time.

I have an adapter to use a PS2 controller I bought for the 360 so I could play Mega Man 9, 10, Street Fighter, etc.

You can modify Xbox 360's to play burned games without any "chips". However it depends on the model of the DVD-ROM what all you need to do. The latest drives require certain PCB traces cut and they'll sell you this board you can then solder onto it which has a switch on it. However you could do all this without their board. The older drives sometimes require nothing more than your PC with the right SATA chipset. Some older ones require other tools and all benefit from the connectivity kit for powering the drive. The reason being that if you powered the drive with the 360 on, the 360 in theory might be able to note for Microsoft that it booted up with no response from the DVDROM.

PS3 modding is not complicated. You buy a programmable USB device and put something on it. You plug the USB device into the PS3 and turn it on pressing the eject button after pressing power. That is all. No opening of the PS3 is needed. All that is needed is Firmware version 3.41 or lower. Just because assholes charge more money to mod it doesn't mean its harder. It's much lower risk, basically none, no opening of the system needed.

And about the "most recent" 360s, the Slim ones. They can not be modded 'yet'. But it's known to be coming. However I advise against modding the 360 unless you enjoy keeping up with the hacking scene to avoid getting banned when things change. It always seems to happen. The PS3 is much more friendly since few people care about online play and would rather download games to their HDD and have homebrew like emulators.

[Cloral]

Bollocks. It just means I die all the time and constantly get pissed off. But at least finishing it on Apocalypic difficulty (small correction there) means I don't have to play the game more than once. Don't get me wrong, when it's not constantly kicking my arse it's an entertaining little game, but it's not really one that warrants repeat playings*.

*That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

I'll agree that I don't think the game would be worth playing more than once. It's fun for what it is, but there really isn't anything too interesting or unique about it. The reason I mention the difficulty is that seemed to be the number one complaint reviewers had about the game. More than one commented that all the moves and items you unlock are pointless in combat, as you can wail away with the sword with relative impunity. But, as you've clearly seen first-hand, that is not the case on Apocolyptic! I remember the first point that really gave me troubles - it was the area with the broken overpass. That asshole that traps you on that one broken section probably took me a good six tries to get past, since he could kill me in about three hits. But it was that kind of danger that kept the game from being the boring, tedious slogfest so many reviewers hated.

Oh, and I've got one piece of advice for you: practice blocking. There is an enemy later in the game that you absolutely have to block in order to be able to beat. If you are out of practice, he will kick your ass over and over again.

[Darth Marsden]

Ugh. If there wasn't an achievement for finishing on Apocalyptic, I would have played it on Normal. Constantly dying because enemies can kill you in three hits (and not just bosses, I mean the enemies you encounter during the level transitions) is not fun. And I am most definately not looking forward to the enemy you mention. *shudder*

[Cloral]

If you're getting annoyed at a game in order to get an achievement, then you're doing achievements wrong. It would be better to play the game on normal and enjoy it, then to play on hard and get the achievement. Achievements should give you fun extra goals to strive for. When they stop being fun is when you should stop trying for them.

edit:
Incidentally, looking at your trophies, I see you beat Silitha. That means you don't have much further to go. There's only one more dungeon to go at this point - though it is a doozy. Beyond that, there's a quest that sends you running all over the overworld and another boss fight. As for the enemy I mentioned, it is in the one remaining dungeon. It actually isn't that bad if you remember to block. But by that point I was so used to just dodging attacks that it took me a while to even think to try it. Basically, the enemy only gives you a good attack window when you stun block it, otherwise it easily dodges most of your attacks and then stabs you in the back for lots of damage.

[Darth Marsden]

If you're getting annoyed at a game in order to get an achievement, then you're doing achievements wrong. It would be better to play the game on normal and enjoy it, then to play on hard and get the achievement. Achievements should give you fun extra goals to strive for. When they stop being fun is when you should stop trying for them.As I've said, the game's actually quite fun in the actual 'dungeons' and such. I just suck at the combat. Also, I have gaming OCD, so if there's an achievement, I'm going to sodding get it. If I stopped playing just because a game wasn't much fun, I'd never have gotten the Platinum Trophy for Toy Story 3.

[Darth Marsden]

Double post, I know, but two things.

One: Finished Darksiders. Once you get the Abysmal Armour, the game becomes much more tolerable! Even the end boss(es) were fine. Wish I'd known that earlier...

Second: I linked to an adapter that lets you use a PS2 controller on a 360. At a guess, would anyone say I could use that on the new 360 model, and with the latest firmware update? I gather none of you may not know for sure, but if you could hazard a guess, then that'd be great. I don't mind losing £5 to an adapter that doesn't work, but I'd rather avoid buying a £30 wired controller that I don't need if I can avoid it.

[MottZilla]

Double post, I know, but two things.

One: Finished Darksiders. Once you get the Abysmal Armour, the game becomes much more tolerable! Even the end boss(es) were fine. Wish I'd known that earlier...

Second: I linked to an adapter that lets you use a PS2 controller on a 360. At a guess, would anyone say I could use that on the new 360 model, and with the latest firmware update? I gather none of you may not know for sure, but if you could hazard a guess, then that'd be great. I don't mind losing £5 to an adapter that doesn't work, but I'd rather avoid buying a £30 wired controller that I don't need if I can avoid it.

I have such an adapter and have not tried it on the latest FW but there is no reason it shouldn't work. Basically all it is doing is patching the data stream from the wired controller to include the PS2's data as an overlay. In theory MS can't detect it and also I see no reason why they would bother since it doesn't promote any bad behaviors as you cannot cheat or pirate games because of it. I'd say it's safe to get. Also wired controllers are great to have around when you run out of batteries! It happens!

[Darth Marsden]

Okay, thanks. One £20 wired remote should be on the way (and white. White! Totally doesn't match the console! Augh!)

Man, you guys really are awesome when it comes to these sort of questions. I wonder why...

[Darth Marsden]

Another double post! I'm terrible. Slap my wrists and all that.

This may apply to other games, but I'm playing Bioshock 2 and I don't want to buy the DLC (not a big multiplayer fan, as established). Can I still get the platinum trophy if I get all the achievements for the original game, or do I have to get the achievements for the DLCs as well?

[MottZilla]

I'm not sure. I'm not that into achievements to know I guess. But as far as double posting goes, pretty much doesn't apply when there is this little activity, you're an established member, and there was a point to it.

[Darth Marsden]

I know, hence slapped wrists, ie: not much of a punishment.

Wonder if Cloral knows? Think it's worth a PM, or should I just wait and see if he'll reply to the thread?

[Cloral]

I'm not sure. I felt kinda silly jumping in to make a post saying, "I don't know, ask someone else." But now I have.

Okay, I can probably do better than that. Let me check the SDK docs...

Aha, I found it! Expansion pack trophies cannot be linked to the platinum trophy. So the platinum trophy really says, "I got all the trophies in the base game", not "I got all the trophies in the entire game."

Incidentally, some other info you might find interesting:

Trophies are given a value based on their type. Bronze trophies are worth 15 points, silver 30, and gold 90. Platinum trophies are not worth any points. A game sold at retail must have between 950 and 1050 total points in trophies. Since titles on the 360 have 1000 total gamerscore, you can roughly translate how much gamerscore you would have with the following formula:
Gamerscore = 15B + 30S + 90G

So as of the time of this post, you would have 4800 gamerscore.

[Darth Marsden]

Ok, seriously: You guys are awesome. Massive thanks to all concerned.

[Darth Marsden]

Oh look, it's me again, asking you questions. Surprise.

So, I don't like the default 360 dashboard, and I was thinking about installing the Freestyle Dashboard. There's a fairly simple guide to doing so, and I like the look of one of the themes that I can install, so I'm debating it. My question is: would installing the Freestyle Dashboard cause my console to be banned?

I wouldn't have any homebrew or emulators or anything, just the new dashboard/theme, so... would it?

[Nicholas Steel]

If it's not supported by MS in any way what so ever and it is software, consider it as something very likely to get you banned.

[Darth Marsden]

*sigh* Fair enough. Thanks for getting back to me.

[Masamune]

An alternative dash would require you to have a jtagged 360, and the jtag mod is detectable, and will get you banned. I'd recommend keeping around a legit 360 for playing online, and a 160 gig ps3 slim to dick around on. The ps3 hack scene is really starting to come into its own these days.

[Darth Marsden]

You want me to spend more money? I think I'll just stand back and watch the homebrew scene from the sidelines. I'm pretty much done with that sort of thing anyway, now I've done it with my Wii. Not really my sort of thing, to be honest. I was just curious about different themes, but I'll stick with the Psychonauts one I've found and just leave it at that.

And for anyone interested, remember that PS2 to 360 controller thing I mentioned? Finally arrived today, and after a bit of trial and error to get it working, it runs brilliantly. Playing all my games is so much more comfortable now.

EDIT: Another query! Is there any way I can transfer videos or MP3s to my 360? A quick Google reveals a bunch of 'No's from 2007. I have a 16Gig USB drive I can use, but I can also grab a USB cable and hook it up to my PC, if that's any easier.

[Masamune]

Yes. Even easier though, you can do it over your network. Just share movies or whatever from Windows share folder, or another program if it's any easier (I think Zune, WMP can do it) and TVersity makes it really easy as well. So you can just browse from your PC.

[Cloral]

I use a 2gig usb flash drive to watch episodes of MST3K on my 360 all the time. You just have to make sure the video is in a format the 360 can handle. Then you just stick the flash drive in the front of the 360 and browse to 'my videos' - the flash drive will be listed there.

As for the search results: back when the 360 was first launched, MS wanted everyone to use their proprietary memory cards and wouldn't read flash drives. I think it was in either '08 or '09 that they enabled usb flash drives via a dashboard update.

[Masamune]

On another note, apparently the older xenon models have pins for 2 more USB ports on their boards. Whether or not the dash renders them unusable if they were to be hooked up is another question.