Digiex

Tony Hawk's Pro Strcpy is a game save / network remote code exploit released by Grimdoomer on Github that can be used to hack several different game consoles including the Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and GameCube.

Its certainly fascinating the same game can be used to hack four different games consoles, in addition to exploiting the PS2 and Xbox versions of the game over the network. Essentially allowing you to softmod these consoles by playing a system link game with an emulator running on a PC, removing the need of having some way to get an exploitable save game on to these consoles to exploit them.

Another rather interesting thing is this is the is the first exploit ever that will allow you to run unsigned code on the Xbox 360 without even having to open the console... if you are on a update 4548 anyway. Granted currently not really useful to most people, however if a hypervisor exploit is ever discovered on a modern 360 update then theirs a software entry point ready to go, potentially making Xbox 360 homebrew more accessible to all one day in the future.

Watch the video below to see Tony Hawk's Pro Strcpy demonstrated on each console:



Download: TonyHawksProStrcpy: Code execution exploit for Tony Hawk's video game series

As posted in the Xbox One Research Wiki Kernel level code execution is possible on Xbox Consoles via the Game Script UWP App.

At the moment things are in their infancy, however given the Xbox One is over a decade old it this point its exciting to have a kernel exploit for the modern Xbox family of consoles that could lead to some good things in the near future.

This exploit is compatible with the Xbox One, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X, all Xbox consoles after the Xbox 360 share the same OS.

This will likely be patched in the next system update for Xbox consoles, so if you are interested in messing about with the Xbox you should prepare your console ASAP.

As posted by Xbox One Research to prepare, do the following:

1. Ensure your Xbox Live account Login-Type is configured as “No barriers” aka. auto-login with no password prompt
2. Set your console as “Home Console” for this account
3. Download the App Game Script
4. Start the app (to ensure license is downloaded/cached)
5. Optional: Download Notepad T' as you can copy + paste txt files from a USB drive with this app, meaning you don't need to type a lot of code manually in the future.
6. Take your console offline! To make extra sure it cannot reach the internet, set a manual primary DNS address of 127.0.0.1

Proof of concept exploit carrot_c4k3 has released on Github.

The Xbox OS version you should be on is 10.0.25398.4478, if you are currently higher than this your console could be enrolled in...

Content archival and preservation is ever so important in the digital world we live in today.

Digiex member @Harcroft realised this a long time ago, back before it was really a topic many gave much thought to.

Thanks to Harcroft, AmyGrrl, 500amps and others who have contributed DLC for the original Xbox, Harcroft has been able to create and maintain a vast library of Offline Xbox Live Downloadable Content Installers, in addition to Offline Xbox Live Arcade Game Installers for the original Xbox. This project has been hosted on Digiex since 2008, however has been active far longer than that to give you some idea how long Harcroft and Co have been working on archiving content for.

These DLC installer have now come in to their own with the release of Insignia, a replacement community run Xbox Live for the original Xbox.

Although a large chunk of original Xbox DLC has been preserved and released for all to enjoy, their is still content out there which has not been archived.

This is where the Original Xbox Content Archival Tool (XCAT) comes in.

XCAT is a utility that runs directly on an Xbox console to assist in finding unarchived DLC and other lost content.
When run, the application will scan the Xbox hard drive for any content that has yet to be archived and upload it directly to the servers of the XCAT Team for later analysis, sorting, and archival.

With that in mind if you have an original Xbox be sure to run...

It's always great to have something new relating to Pokemon events to post about.

Digiex member @piplupness has spent a lot of time creating custom event distributions for all Pokemon Generation 4 events which were released yesterday.

These custom event distributions will allow past events to be distributed over WiFi from another Nintendo DS to their respective games, meaning you can distribute any past events to Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold and SoulSilver, without having to dump your save game and use PKHeX. Very convenient for people who do not wish to save edit or use the custom DNS services.

View the release thread: Distribution ROMs for every Generation IV Event to learn more.

Digiex member @PurpleOrange also spent over 8 months creating custom event distributions for all Pokemon Generation 5 events which he released late last year, these include every language and variation of the event! These custom event distributions will also allow past events to be distributed over WiFi from another Nintendo DS to Pokemon Black, White, Black 2 and White 2.

(Also my apologies I planned to feature this on the front page last December also!)

View the release thread: Distribution ROMs for every Generation V Event to learn more.

Early last year Goppier & @UndeadxReality recreated and released all past Gen 3 Pokemon GBA event distributions. All of these distributions are based off of the Aura Mew distribution rom, so you can use another GBA and link cable to distribute these Pokemon to Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Leaf Green and Fire Red.

We previously featured these on...

As you may know, Nintendo has announced that online services for the Nintendo 3DS, 2DS and Wii U family of systems are shutting down on April 8th, 2024, at 4pm PDT

This means that SpotPass data distribution will be halted. Games that make use of SpotPass features to enable content such as Mario Kart 7 and some Pokémon games will no longer be able to do so.

The SpotPass Archival Project allows owners of 3DS / 2DS and Wii U consoles to contribute their SpotPass data for archival purposes to assist network revival services such as the Pretendo Network in preserving SpotPass content.

3DS/2DS and Wii U systems store a local database of titles for which you have recently received SpotPass data. This database can be used to check for the URLs it uses to download the SpotPass content. With that in mind it is It important that this database is contributed before April 8th, 2024, at 4pm PDT

Note: These database dumps are anonymized when collected.

If you would like to help this project out and contribute your SportsPass data you have around 48 hours to do so, visit the SpotPass Archival Project which has easy to follow instructions for both the 3DS and Wii U.

I have contributed the data from both my 3DS and Wii U, which took around 5 minutes to do for each console.

Nintendo have announced that in early April 2024, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. This also includes online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution.

Nintendo state that a specific end date and time will be announced at a later date, however also note that if an event occurs which would make it difficult to continue online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U they may have to discontinue services earlier than planned.

Nintendo do however state that it will still be possible to use Pokemon Bank but that online services for that may also end at some point in the future.

So really to sum up the writing is on the wall for 20+ years of backwards compatibility for Pokemon Games.

I'm sure many people have migrated their collections, however I certainly plan to migrate one of each Gen 3 event Pokemon we have managed to obtain over the years. Many past Pokemon Event Distributions are available in our Pokemon Content Download Forum for anyone wishing to distribute some of their own past events today in 2023.

Source: Announcement of Discontinuation of Online Services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software

Its the end of an era, Microsoft have announced that the Xbox 360 Marketplace will close on July 29th, 2024. This means that it will no longer be possible to purchase games or DLC on the Xbox 360.

It is estimated that around 220 digital only games will disappear when the Xbox 360 Marketplace closes, presuming any games that are backwards compatible on the Xbox One / Series are still available to purchase on newer consoles.

Digiex has hosted a lot of Xbox 360 demos and arcade games for well over 15 years now, including some popular early releases before wide availability on Xbox Live, including the Resident Evil 5 Demo, Left 4 Dead Demo, and the Duke Nukem Forever Demo.

Of course we have have a vast collection of Xbox 360 Content built up over the years by like minded people who found Digiex and helped to contribute.

Efforts have been underway for several years now to preserve all the content on the Xbox 360 Marketplace, not just the demos and arcade games. Between myself and a few other like minded people we estimate that vast majority of content has already been preserved, both by pooling our existing collections and a little trickery to download some already delisted content that still exists on the servers. So fear not, once the Marketplace closes for good this major part of gaming history will not be list for good, some way will be found to make this archive accessible to all.

Microsoft do state it will be possible to play and re-download previously purchased content and that Xbox Live support will continue for now on the Xbox 360, so its nice that one of my favourite consoles will still live on for now.

It's only March, however it might as well be Christmas again for fans of Pokemon Gen 3 events as Goppier & @UndeadxReality have recreated and released all Gen 3 Pokemon GBA event distributions!

Just let that sink in for a second... ALL Gen 3 Pokemon GBA event distributions, including the PCNY distributions, which is a lot of Pokemon as i'm sure you all know!

UndeadxReality said:

All of these distributions are based off of the Aura Mew distribution rom... so yes these are rom hacks! However these ROMs are modified to distribute the Pokémon as close to the original as possible (There are some exceptions to this, some of these events weren't preserved in large enough quantities, some weren't preserved in gen 3 format, and some weren't preserved at all so we had to take our best guesses to emulate the event). As with our holiday release, the distribution falls in to 2 categories; (ENG), and (JPN).

(ENG) This format of the distribution rom which contains 5 regions within the multiboot files (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish). Most of these distributions appeared only in the USA, however we modified the multiboot software to set the language flag to English, that way you can still receive a legal event Pokémon regardless if your game is English or not!

(JPN) This format of the distribution rom was modified to only support the Japanese versions of the game. The multiboot software was also edited with Japanese text to simulate what the unpreserved event distribution ROMs would look like!

Download: View the Every Gen 3 Distribution Recreated release page to learn more about this project and watch a very detailed video showcasing how all the Pokemon Gen 3 event distributions we're accurately re-created based on the...

It might only be December 18th, however Christmas wishes have come true early this year!

After Christmas 2021 was absent of any new Pokemon Distributions, Goppier & UndeadxReality have released some fantastic user created distributions for the Gen 3 GBA Pokemon games, just in time for Christmas 2022.

These have been created by reverse engineering the official Gen 3 Pokemon GBA Distributions we preserved and released over a number of years here at Digiex.

The custom user made distributions released today cover the following events:

10 ANIV Celebi (NON-JP)
The 10 ANIV Celebi was distributed as part of the Journey Across America event in 2006, celebrating 10 years of Pokemon.

WISHMKR Jirachi (NON-JP)
The Wishmaker Jirachi was distributed on the American Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc, however you can now also distribute it from a GBA. If you are lucky you might also get a shiny Jirachi!

Misturin Celebi (JP Only):
The Misturin Celebi was distributed at locations for the Pokémon Jungle Tour. It was also distributed at the Pokémon Summer Tour Sapporo at the Sunpiazza from August 3 to 9, 2006 and at the Pokémon Summer Tour Fukuoka at the West Japan General Exhibition Center.

Tanbata 2006 Jirachi (JP Only)
The Tanbata 2006 Jirachi was distributed in celebration of the Japanese star festival Tanabata.

Needless to say this is an amazing effort by Goppier & UndeadxReality to faithfully re-create these distributions, people playing the Gen 3 GBA Pokemon games almost two decades later can now enjoy these events from the past and distribute their own unique event Pokemon.

Download: View the Gen 3 Mythical Holiday release page to download these distributions and learn more about them.

I'd like to personally thank Goppier & UndeadxReality all their hard work put in to faithfully re-creating these event...

Sadly Epic have announced they are turning off online services and servers for some older games, this includes UT 99, UT 2003 and UT 2004. For the Unreal Tournament (UT) games this is essentially the master server that lists all the available servers you can join from within the games menu.

As PC gaming was pretty open back then you can still join local network games or internet games via a direct IP connection, regardless of if Epic's servers are online or not.

Digiex has kept the Digiex UT 2004 Server online for pretty much the last 15 years now (how time flies!) which you can join via a direct IP connection.

However, if you wish to easily find other servers to play in then all is not lost, their is a community run Master Server for Unreal Tournament 2004 by OpenSpy that you can easily switch over to using, this will allow the in game server browser to display any server which has also moved over to using OpenSpy.

To switch over to OpenSpy all you have to do is edit the master server address in the UT2004.ini file, I've posted a mini tutorial showing how to do this: Unreal Tournament 2004 Internet Play Fix - How To Update The Master Server.

So anyone who wants to can keep enjoying UT online play for years to come. The internet might disagree, however I still think Unreal Tournament is better than Fortnite!