Modded

Four years after purchase, I finally got my Xbox modded this week. I'm pretty sure I was the last guy in Taiwan to have a factory spec machine. I put it off for so long because I sort of had misgivings about doing it- In spite of my tricorn hat and tendency to swashbuckle, I'm not a huge fan of software piracy. And I can sort of understand Microsoft wanting to control their channels and pricing with the regional encoding thing.

The disappointment with the Xbox started early. Within a week of buying it, I figured out that not only did none of the local stores carry Madden 2003, it was not going to be released in Taiwan. Bummer, but from Microsoft's point of view, there is not a large enough local market to warrant a release. Next was Grand Theft Auto. Nowhere to be found. Yeah, ok. Very violent game that would surely cause permanent damage to our Confucian Harmony. As I kept looking for new games in the following years, I could only conclude that the X-box must have been some kind of Sega Saturn class business mistake. Any store I went to would carry 20-30 Xbox games at the most. I was sure that there were not more than 100 games ever made for the system.

Then I went to the U.S., and walked into a game store. Guess what? There were 947 goddam games released for the Xbox. How many of those were for sale in Taiwan? 10%? 15%? So Microsoft took my money for the console, and then screwed me by selling only a handful of titles.

So if I ever upgrade to a 360, I'm buying it pre-modded here. Current price is NT$12000, but that will go down.

If blogging here seems real light for the next couple of weeks, remember that I just got Madden 2003.