Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Microsoft unleashed the banhammer. And a few weeks later, the “homebrew” community has unleashed the… iXtreme firmware?

Yeah, I don’t know where they got the name, but bad naming aside, this firmware is supposed to be able to circumvent all current and some future means of modded Xbox 360 detection. Yeah, whatever. The console hacking community has been foolhardy in the past, no reason to think that wouldn’t be the case, now. But that isn’t really the issue.

The fact is that while software piracy has surely been occurring on the 360, Microsoft has been putting up one hell of a fight. By being very cagey and quietly releasing a bugfix, They were able to stop the wide-spread use of a bug that allowed running unsecured code on the 360, while simultaneously destroying the ability of consoles to “downgrade” from a new kernel build to the older, vulnerable build.

And most recently, they put the smackdown on hacked DVD drive firmwares and banning them after the release of the Halo 3 beta. I’ve read a lot of forum posts at xbox-scene.com and maxconsole.net proclaiming everlasting hatred for Microsoft when really MS is just trying to do 2 things: First, make money. Second, uphold the sanctity of Xbox Live by removing vectors that could be used for cheating.

I do NOT want to be faced with the prospect of cheating as it has existed in Halo 2. (It’s much better now, BTW.) So, if Microsoft can find ways to keep cheaters and modders off Xbox Live, then more power to them.