Important inquiry about NXE and NTSC/J 360's

[RackGaki]

At some point, my Japanese Xbox 360 has decided that it is an NTSC/U 360. I pointed it out in another thread that I was able to play NTSC/U region Xbox games on my console, and now, I can't play NTSC/J games on my 360. The only thing that I have done in the meantime is switch hard drives between my consoles, so at some point, Microsoft must have inserted something to flash my 360's region coding. Probably during the update at some point.

Has this happened to anyone else? I'm going to mess around with a few things, but it looks like I may have to mod this console or buy another Japanese 360 and keep it's contents far away from any other profile, hard drive, memory card, or U.S. video game.

Excuse me, but What the fuck. If nothing else, hopefully I can serve as a guinea pig and others can take note and save themselves some grief!

*edit*
The 360 itself has definitely been flashed, I switch hard drives and it's still NTSC/U. Not a single Japanese game I owned works. The sad part is that this would have never happened had my other 360 not RROD'd on me and caused me to use my other one as my primary 360. I know Microsoft is probably clamping down on pirates, but I'm just considering if I want to either cancel my Cave preorders or look for another $200 Japanese 360.

[antron]

At some point, my Japanese Xbox 360 has decided that it is an NTSC/U 360. I pointed it out in another thread that I was able to play NTSC/U region Xbox games on my console, and now, I can't play NTSC/J games on my 360. The only thing that I have done in the meantime is switch hard drives between my consoles, so at some point, Microsoft must have inserted something to flash my 360's region coding. Probably during the update at some point.

Has this happened to anyone else? I'm going to mess around with a few things, but it looks like I may have to mod this console or buy another Japanese 360 and keep it's contents far away from any other profile, hard drive, memory card, or U.S. video game.

Excuse me, but What the fuck. If nothing else, hopefully I can serve as a guinea pig and others can take note and save themselves some grief!

holy shit. modding won't help. somebody please put a japanese hd in a western box.

[RackGaki]

Just tried that in my edit.

No worky.



*edit*
My theories so far:

1)Putting an NTSC/U Xbox game in my 360 drive caused the region flash.

2)Switching the hard drives caused the region flash.

I never tried option 1 before the NXE update, but I was able to use option 2 nonstop before the update.

I haven't played an NSTC/J game (Raiden Fighter Aces) for a week, since I unhooked my console, and now, I switched hard drives and it refuses to play Japanese games. The NTSC/U console was connected to the internet, my NTSC/J console was not.

Just brainstorming now, I guess.

[brokenhalo]

holy shit. this is not good at all. i havent had my j-360 hooked up in a month or so and i won't be putting it online until this gets sorted.

the question is can they legally do something like that, and what exactly caused this to happen. if it's the nxe update that did this, what if you were just a traveler who happened to do the update from a us ip? you'd be screwed.

have you tried calling microsoft? might have to talk to a supervisors supervisor or something to get far enough up the chain to get a real answer, but someone should be able to tell you something

edit: also try posting this on xbox-scene just so it gets some input from the modder/hacker crowd. they would probably interested in this too and can probably give you some suggestions on things to try out

[RackGaki]

Thanks brokenhalo, I'll check with those folk.

I haven't called Microsoft yet, because I'm relatively certain I'm not even suppose to have this particular Xbox 360 in this region. You bring up some great arguments on how this may enter a bad legal area, especially since I'm sure there's tons of U.S. servicemen who move consoles around the world. I'm more than willing to gather facts and opinions on this as well.

And like I've stated before, keep your HDD away as well. I wasn't even online, so I'm leaning towards this as the culprit along with the NXE update.

[Battlesmurf]

Thanks brokenhalo, I'll check with those folk.

I haven't called Microsoft yet, because I'm relatively certain I'm not even suppose to have this particular Xbox 360 in this region. You bring up some great arguments on how this may enter a bad legal area, especially since I'm sure there's tons of U.S. servicemen who move consoles around the world. I'm more than willing to gather facts and opinions on this as well.

And like I've stated before, keep your HDD away as well. I wasn't even online, so I'm leaning towards this as the culprit along with the NXE update.

Honestly- what are they going to say? All you have to do is say "My family member was overseas and came to visit and showed me his xbox- now it doesn't work" I'd imagine. I'd love to see MS try to sue someone for supporting their overseas sales.

Overall- I feel for you. I've got an Xbox down on RROD right now- and I've been hunting around for replacement options -namely trying to find a Japanese Jasper- but now it looks like I should hold off a bit more. Fucking MS- the 2 chunks of news I wake up to today is a "US flash" and "RE5 Demo corruption".

[Udderdude]

Good thing my Japanese 360 doesn't have a HD .. and isn't connected to the net .. >_>

[Battlesmurf]

I am really really curious to see what happens now, though. Honestly- I suck at posting high scores- (I'm too busy with everything else/too lazy to remember to do it). One of the primary draws of XBL is that it automatically does all that for me. I had my hopes set on being able to migrate my account and use the Japanese Xbox for just about everything I could.

[neonecko]

Argg..this is bad news. I want to pick up a J360 but I also wanted to be able to just pick up games like GOW2 locally and play them on that 360. I don't wanna have to get two 360s. Damn you microsoft! Please keep us updated if you find any changes or more information.

[Battlesmurf]

You know- after you get finished on the phone with MS- if they can't help I'd go straight to Kotaku with your story- warn the people on the phone that you're willing to spread the story everywhere.

[E. Randy Dupre]

I've swapped the HDD between my NTSC-J and PAL consoles a couple of times since the dash update without it causing this.

Not in the last couple of days, but not that long ago - last time was just after I got bored with Otomedius, so about a week and a half ago.

[RackGaki]

I'm leaning to the assumption that putting in an original Xbox game helped trigger it. Given the crap that happened to me, I wouldn't suggest trying to duplicate the situation, even if it may be different for a PAL console.

[EOJ]

I just updated my JP X360 system online yesterday. I use a US hdd. My system is still JP region today.

Must be the US Xbox games. Good thing I don't have any of those.

[E. Randy Dupre]

It's really weird if that is the case, though - I can't see how or why that'd happen, especially if it worked fine before you downloaded and installed NXE.

I was leaning towards it being something to do with MS fiddling after everybody got themselves Japanese XBL accounts for the Resi 5 demo.

[Battlesmurf]

what specific games did you play before/during the switch? Maybe one of them has some kind of auto-updater

[RackGaki]

I played King of Fighters 2002/2003 & Neowave. Since then, I've tried those two games, then I put in Futurama and followed it up with Psyvariar 2, which didn't work. Then Raiden Fighter Aces, then Raiden IV. Then Dead or Alive 4 (NTSC/U), which shouldn't have worked, but did. I haven't turned it back on since 'cause I'm pissed. It's probably going to be a gift to my nephew if I can't figure something out before Christmas.

I think it updated when I switched the hard drive and inserted the NTSC/U disc. I believe it overwrote the region coding at that point.

I'm hoping to check all this again and make sure it there's nothing I can do.

*edit*

Well shit, the whole fucking thing doesn't work now. Booted it up again to stare at the Red rings. Don't know how the hell it ended up going there, but it doesn't do anything but flash the RROD now.

[BulletMagnet]

In case you needed more confirmation, my J360, which got the NXE update, still works as intended, even when used with my US360's HD. I'd be very surprised if an original XBox game somehow screwed up the system...I mean, I know the 360's BC sucks, but...

[robivy64]

Could this work the other way around? Making a US console into a JP 360?

/me gets a JP Xbox game...

[dai jou bu]

Well shit, the whole fucking thing doesn't work now. Booted it up again to stare at the Red rings. Don't know how the hell it ended up going there, but it doesn't do anything but flash the RROD now.

Xbox 360s exhibit really strange behavior before they show this. One of my units displayed some of the more common errors: screen freezing whenever the GPU was remotely taxed (NXE does this by default), red checkerboard screen before freezing, one of those E70-something codes permenantly interrupting the bootup sequence.

Another 360 of mine probably also has similar hardware issues as it likes to continue even though it ends up displaying random visual artifacts like drawing permenant lines on the screen or rendering all of it with a yellow hue. This goes on until I either get tired of looking at the game that way and turn it off or it gets fed up of processing polygons in realtime and freezes on me.

Both now consistently RROD on me after I made them update to the NXE and forced them to run the first in-engine cutscene of Gears of War 2 until it freezes.

I really hate to say this now (as I really can't confirm anything about what I'm going to say until later today, hopefully) but if you still have that system under warranty, you should call Microsoft to claim it and tell them that it's a Japanese model as well as to let them know your region issue with that unit. They'll end up getting someone specifically for your case (usually a manager) to make sure that they don't accidentally replace your system with an NTSC model as apparently nobody at the repair center over there knows how to flash a 360 to make it work for NTSC-J territories.

[joeboto]

Could this work the other way around? Making a US console into a JP 360?

/me gets a JP Xbox game...

i would like to hear the results.

[dmauro]

I think this is probably just the disc drive going bad. It's probably impossible to change the drive firmware with a disc, and the non-Japanese games you tried were probably region free, but the Japanese games just couldn't be read because the drive is on its way out.

[Doctor Fugue]

As you said elsewhere, this was a Nov/05 manufactured unit, correct? Unfortunately I might have to agree about the console exhibiting strange behaviour before dying completely. If this problem existed there would be much more information about it.

It is definitely strange that DoA4 (NTSC/U) worked, since it shouldn't. It isn't listed as a region-free version.

Also, I believe the 3-year warranty will be out as well!

[antron]

I thought it was 3 years from date of purchase

[Doctor Fugue]

Oh, sorry, I thought he got it from an auction, in which case it would matter when the original purchaser bought it?

[Battlesmurf]

Oh, sorry, I thought he got it from an auction, in which case it would matter when the original purchaser bought it?

I'm fairly certain it's 3 years from the date of manufacture (the sticker on the box). Memory is also telling me it costs 100-150 to fix an out of warranty box.

But- take what I say here with a grain (or two) of salt.

[dai jou bu]

I'm fairly certain it's 3 years from the date of manufacture (the sticker on the box). Memory is also telling me it costs 100-150 to fix an out of warranty box.

No, it's 3 years from the date of purchase, regardless of when it was manufactured. If you register the 360, then they'll base the warranty on the full one-year non-RROD one from date of manufacture from the system's serial number.

However, you can constest it if you can provide proof (like an invoice of some sort) that it was purchased sometime after the console was manufactured.

If you got it off an auction, I'm not too sure how that works, but I'd go with the person who originally purchased it, unless it was a brand-new and unopened 360 the person was selling.

Also, I just got my NTSC-J 360 back from the repair center and it's working like it should so far. At first I thought they gave me a refurbished system that was magically flashed, but then I noticed that they just replaced the system's sticker that had the serial number and the date of manufacture since I accidentally scratched that awhile back.

[neonecko]

Oh, sorry, I thought he got it from an auction, in which case it would matter when the original purchaser bought it?

I'm fairly certain it's 3 years from the date of manufacture (the sticker on the box). Memory is also telling me it costs 100-150 to fix an out of warranty box.

But- take what I say here with a grain (or two) of salt.

That doesn't make sense. What if the box sits there for a year on the shelves? The 3 year warranty is now only 2 a year later? I think its 3 years from date of purchase.

[neonecko]

Also, I just got my NTSC-J 360 back from the repair center and it's working like it should so far. At first I thought they gave me a refurbished system that was magically flashed, but then I noticed that they just replaced the system's sticker that had the serial number and the date of manufacture since I accidentally scratched that awhile back.

Did you tell them that it was a jp unit when you called for repair and did they hassle you?

[dai jou bu]

Yes, I told them it was an NTSC-J one, and then they told me that someone SPECIAL is going to be assigned to my case and to wait for their call the following day. The only "hassle" I got was when that rep called my house and I didn't know it was her because the caller ID said it was a random toll-free number and the answering machine ran out of space when right when she was giving out her phone number and extension, so I ended up going back through the chain of command to reach her.

In short, it was mostly my stupidity for delaying them to send the shipping box over to my house.

[RackGaki]

I would figure that I'm SOL, with a box that's both A)Three years out of warranty B)Bought though a third party and C) Not in the country it's suppose to be in. All in all, it cost me what two NTSC/J games did, so I should be happy it worked when it did.