ModChat

ModChat 136 - An Xbox 360 Softmod is Coming

Only a single topic being covered for this episode, but this was big enough to warrant a quick ModChat to discuss the excitement around this announcement. Grimdoomer has accomplished the impossible and achieved yet another milestone in the world of game console reverse engineering by showing evidence of a real softmod! No RGH, no JTAG, no Bad Update. Seeing is believing, so see for yourself!

ModChat 135 - PicoLoader for GameCube, PS4 12.02 Jailbreak, Mario Kart 64 Dreamcast Port

Starting off this month with PicoLoader being released for the GameCube, an open-source project which utilizes the power of a Raspberry Pi Pico and intercepts the DVD drive to quickly load a piece of homebrew such as Swiss. We also see some awesome releases for the PS4, allowing for some pretty quick and stable jailbreaks up to firmware 12.02! DIY Game Boy cartridges, custom soundtracks for the original Xbox, and the dramatic improvements to Bad Update on Xbox 360 all get some highlights in this episode. Oh, and we could start saying the Switch can handle optical media, more on that at the end.

ModChat 134 - Userland ROP Chain on Switch 2, Xbox Classics Emulation Rumor, & TONS of Ports

Starting off with some Switch 2 news this month, the same month the Switch 2 released! We discuss a Day 1 Userland ROP Chain demonstrated on the Switch 2, the bans using MiG Flash cartridges, the beginnings of a microSD Express adapter, and get clarification on how far SciresM will support the Switch 2's homebrew scene. In Xbox centric news, rumors regarding an Xbox Classics program are clarified, along with a program similar to Cheat Engine being ported to the Xbox 360, and some awesome patches are shown to run the original Xbox's Dashboard at native 720p! Every model of the PS2 can now officially take on a Memory Card based entrypoint thanks to the release of ProtoPwn. PSP users get some love with BatterySteve to help with some aging and misleading batteries out there.

ModChat 133 - Lapse Kernel Exploit for PS4 12.02 & PS5 10.05, PS3 BadWDSD, OG Xbox v1.6 Reflashed

A ton of awesome releases and advancements in this month's ModChat! First comes the release of the Lapse Kernel Exploit for both PS4 12.02 and PS5 10.05 firmwares. BadHTAB for the PS3 evolves into BadWDSD, a separate but better and more exciting development for PS3 owners allowing further access now on Super Slim variants! The original Xbox revision 1.6 gets a huge development as well, now with the ability to reflash the on-board BIOS for the first time. We touch up on some Switch news for the first time in a while, with a new Atmosphere CFW update for the latest Switch firmware, but not all good news when we discuss the EULA changes. However, some reverse engineering efforts towards the WaveBird receiver, Mario Party 4, Mario Kart 64, and even Dinosaur Planet have all released this month!

ModChat 132 - BadHTAB Hypervisor Exploit for PS3 & Xbox 360 Games Get Recompiled!

A whole lot has happened since the last episode of ModChat, and there's still been a few topics not covered within this episode! For the ones we do go into, the first is covering some major progress on the PlayStation Home revival project Home Laboratory, which is now available by default on the XMB for the latest PS3HEN and Evilnat CFW users on PS3! The PS3 also gets some renewed Hypervisor related interest in the form of BadHTAB, which is based on old HTAB related work from geohot and has been worked on here again in 2025. The Xbox 360 side of house gets more love, with Sonic Unleashed being ported to PC thanks to XenonRecomp, both of which have been released. The OG Xbox gets a fancy new payload in the form of Skeleton Key which serves as a Swiss Army Knife for stock OG Xbox users to run and quickly have several powerful tools available on their screen with minimal effort. Finally, a new FATXplorer tool releases in the form of XDON, allowing for easy Xbox and Xbox 360 drive mounting over a network.

ModChat 131 - The Xbox 360 Hypervisor Exploit is Here! Bad Update Overview & Demonstration

At last the long awaited Xbox 360 Hypervisor exploit shown by Grimdoomer has arrived in the form of Bad Update! This means that unsigned code can be run on any Xbox 360 up to Kernel/Dashboard 17559 using only a USB drive and the NTSC version of Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. This does not require any other modifications to be done to the hardware and can be performed on an unopened and unmodified console, making this the first software-only exploit available for the latest system software version! As this episode will only be focused on Bad Update, we walk through where this started from Tony Hawk's Pro Strcpy, read through a couple of blog posts Grimdoomer made leading up to the release, and of course we set up and try Bad Update for ourselves before giving some final thoughts.

ModChat 130 - PSP Gets Online Again, PS5 JAR Loader for 7.61, Game Bub Open Source FPGA Handheld

Some great new functionality being added to consoles old, new, and even a whole new FOSS based handheld to check out! The wpa2psp plugin for PSP was released and took off, allowing most PSP consoles to get back onto modern WiFi networks again. The PS Vita gets some more love with a couple more ports, one for Carmageddon and another being the Ultimate Spiderman game on Android. We even go to the library on this episode thanks to the Video Game History Foundation's launch of a digital library! PS5's JAR Loader gets updated as we now see read and write access on firmwares up to 7.61! A newer minimalist type setup for a PlayStation ODE is shown thanks to PicoStation's recent updates allowing for better compatibility across the PS1's library. After the pleasant surprise of Grand Theft Auto 3 being ported to the Dreamcast, we're in for another surprise seeing the beginnings of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City being ported over! A whole new system you can build from scratch, the Game Bub, is a project we check out being a handheld FPGA console compatible with the Game Boy family of games. Finally, we take a look at... McDonald's India API security? Yeah, I won't explain that one, just give it a listen and a laugh.

ModChat 129 - Dreamcast Port Galore (GTA3, DOOM 64) and DOOM in a PDF

A Dreamcastic (or maybe Dreamtastic?) episode of ModChat starting off 2025 with some awesome ports for Sega's last console! We talk about the recent Grand Theft Auto III port being released in an open-alpha test, the DOOM 64 port, and even the beginning of a port of Xash3D for Half-Life! PC players also got an AWESOME port of Star Fox 64 in the form of Starship. Evilnat has been working hard on his custom firmware for PS3 which has results in the final release for 4.91.2, officially being out of beta! If you needed more DOOM, you can now have more DOOM, this time around in a PDF! Finally, we talk about how a recent Nintendo service announcement might have been the greatest advertisement Pretendo could have ever asked for.

ModChat 128 - RXDK for OG Xbox, RPCS3 on Raspberry Pi 5, Overscanning Dreamcast Secrets

Last episode of the year for ModChat! This time around we've got some awesome developments for original Xbox developers, a whole Lightshow for the Xbox 360 just in time for the holidays, the power of the PS3 being shown on a Raspberry Pi 5, and finally some Dreamcast secrets many could have dreamed of.

ModChat 127 - Xbox 360 Slim Printable Shell, Xbox-Scene Modfest, DoomBIOS for OG Xbox

An Xbox centric episode of ModChat with a side of preservation to wrap up the month of November! We cover what seems to be the first Xbox 360 Slim 3D printable shell for use with a DVD-driveless console out there. Xbox-Scene gets a bit of a shout with the announcement of their upcoming Modfest, covering both hardware and software categories across all Xbox consoles. Doom also now runs on the original Xbox at the BIOS level with the aptly named DoomBIOS release! An ambitious homebrew project being a Breath of the Wild demake for the Nintendo DS leaks out onto AliExpress of all places, and finally we cover a bit of preservation! GOG's efforts have evolved into the GOG Preservation Program for PC, and if you've ever wanted to purchase Unreal or Unreal Tournament digitally but can't... Why not just download them? Don't worry, Epic Games has given a few links their specific blessing.