That is true today, but back in 2005 when the Xbox 360 launched we didn't have every government buying up security vulnerabilities by the truckload. The market for zero-days didn't really get established until the early 2010s when the 360 was on its way out. Every contemporary competitor to the Xbox 360 got hacked within its commercial lifespan, due to having comically awful security practices. Microsoft certainly was, at the time, 'better' than Sony or Nintendo; but the task they were doing was just plain impossible.

A game console is, effectively, a Point of Presence[0] for a DRM vendor. It's job is to tie the owner's hands so that they don't copy games, and that they don't buy games from competing companies. This is an incredibly difficult, if not impossible task. In contrast, while the iPhone's security also does DRM and developer lockout; their main concern is keeping you from getting hacked by nation states. Those are certainly more sophisticated and well-financed attackers; but they (usually) don't have physical access to or ownership over what you're trying to protect.

[0] In telecom, a PoP is the dividing line between your systems and someone else's. If that sounds really arbitrary, it's because that's how they untangled the Bell monopoly.

The red ring is caused by underfill that is too soft that let's the solder bumps break. It's a BGA packaging problem and there's no fix.

Not every model of the 360 will inevitably red ring. Those were typically only the "fat" models and there are some fixes to prevent it from happening. It usually just involves changing to some better quality thermal paste & reflowing the board.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Xbox+360+Red+Ring+of+Death+Fix+...

I can't help but think that XBox 360 emulation is the only long term path that exists for the 360, which is concerning because only Xenia to my knowledge exists and it's still experimental.

The rrod was pretty well know for a long time. Video games are sold to kids so it had the requirement to not use lead solder in them even though lead solder is perfectly safe and no way a child would be exposed to it, unless they eat the xbox.

Lead solder is much softer so with the countless hot cold cycles, when hot the solder expands and when cold it contracts, it will handle these cycles much much better. Without the lead the solder joints are not as soft and the hot and cold cycles eventually results in the solder joints cracking and no longer making a solid connection = rrod.

Some models were more prone to rrod but the biggest trick is to make sure you do regular cleaning and dusting to keep air flow working. Don't put the xbox in a cabinet with no air flow where it will heat up. Put a fan on the xbox if you can. It has been a long time since I followed the xbox scene but there are tons of posts online about the entire problem and best practices to avoid it.

I've not modded my 360E, and it was probably one of the very last 360s built, but I've never had any problems with it, still play on it, and my understanding is there are fewer and less dire problems with it than the prior 360 and S.

The slim doesn't red ring.

Xbox security has certainly come a long way since the OG Xbox, which featured a pin header that may as well have had "insert modchip here" printed next to it.

That was not their point.

Bounties are free work contests for any potential beneficiary

And the benefactor is designed by a committee who cant even agree on the value, winding up tossing pennies at the problem hoping someone in Malaysia salivates

The Xbox 360/PS3 era of video game consoles is probably the hardest era to emulate. Subsequent generations of consoles are essentially the same hardware as regular computers, just with a custom OS (and known hardware profile, certainly a benefit over regular consumer PCs). But that era of video game consoles is the last gasp of the custom hardware design of earlier consoles, which is substantially harder to emulate because the hardware just doesn't look like what modern hardware looks like.

Furthermore, said era is also right after Denard scaling came to an end, which means that current hardware doesn't have that much better specs, at least in easy-to-use form, than the hardware of the time. If any game tried to take the hardware to its limits, it would be a real struggle to emulate it with regular computers.

Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. They're slow, glitchy, and/or hard to set up. Related to what the other commenter said, anyone who says these are good must have a lot of time to deal with it, whereas I just want the equivalent of sticking the disc into the console.

GameCube is the newest thing I've had a decent experience emulating, and even that isn't 100% unless it's Melee with the Slippi optimizations (n.b. did not try DS or Switch).

Xbox 360 emulation is still really bad for most games, despite what some YouTubers would have you believe. But let's say in a few years it does become substantially better. There's still:

• Nostalgia

• Authenticity

• Compatibility

• Preservation

• Cost of entry

Even if 360 emulation does become practical, a 360 will still be cheaper than any gaming PC capable of playing those games.

It’s also the worst era to play natively. Bad textures and horrible frames per second.