Microsoft Banned Us: 40GB RAM Xbox Series X Developer Kit Tear-Down (XDK)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ค. 2024
- We got a Microsoft Xbox XDK (Devkit) for the Series X console, but because it was banned, our only content option was to do a tear-down. We discovered a huge amount of RAM!
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This video features an Xbox Developer Kit that was custom-built for the Series X. We tried to use it offline first and attempted all forms of testing and gaming on it, even using it in offline mode and avoiding accounts, but unfortunately, Microsoft had already issued a hardware-level ban to this device that completely blocked it from even playing games that can run only off of the disc. If you know how to get around this, let us know!
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Microsoft Banned Our XDK Series X
02:33 - LCD, 10Gb NIC, & Exterior
04:38 - Sneaky, Hidden Screws
05:15 - Tear-Down Begins
06:05 - Xbox Attacks Steve's Tools
08:05 - Excellent Assembly So Far
09:20 - Revealing the Motherboard
11:45 - Thermal Design
16:05 - Steve Gets Excited
16:50 - 40GB of RAM
20:22 - Vapor Chamber
21:14 - Conclusion & Wrap-Up
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Host, Research: Steve Burke
Research: Patrick Lathan
Video: Andrew Coleman
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The Xbox was banned before we got it, so Microsoft clearly knows the S/N. That said, if you know how to bypass it, feel free to post a new top-level comment and let us know. We already tried all the obvious disc-only games, offline modes, using it without an account, using external SSDs, etc., and could not get it to bypass the ban! Post your guesses below and we'll try it!
Grab a GN Anti-Static Modmat for tear-down projects like this one! They protect your table and the parts you work on: store.gamersnexus.net/products/modmat-volt-large
We just published a brand new behind-the-scenes video on Patreon! Check it out and support our ability to buy things like this over here: www.patreon.com/gamersnexus
Watch our Xbox Series X thermal testing from previously: th-cam.com/video/Iqv4meZcVEk/w-d-xo.html
Generally speaking retail games don't work on a developer kit unless you are running it in a retail mode - I haven't personally held one of these xbox devkits, but for my playstation devkits you definitely could not run retail games on them.
If you use the 'developer mode' on a consumer xbox, you have to turn developer mode off before you can play retail games.
I'm not 100% certain why it works this way - perhaps they're afraid developer access will be used to cheat in online games.
Modern Vintage Gamer signal go! He knows all about dev kits reach out to him
You're not going to get around the ban. There's multiple incredibly complex layers of security in the Xbox OS and you've also got to contend with Pluton
You could try installing devmode activation on an external drive, copying it to the XDK and then running that as it's an app rather than a game, but 99.99% you're SOL
Try doing a OS recovery on the series X with a new ssd and then Transfer the ssd to the dev kit. Make sure it’s off the network when you boot the dev kit
Considering the channels size and reputation of upholding above standard morals, I'd just send a ticket to Microsoft asking for a unban on account of testing and possible use cases.
Imagine he did Nintendo, Steve would just disappear.
Banned from existence
Cease and disappear
I just found out my pc does a good job emulating switch games. Been waiting for nintendo to come after me ever since
@@nickgarcia1292 The day you notice two men in black suits are following you, then you know the Nintendo has sent their Cease and Desist ninjas. They will knock you out and take you to dark room where you are forced to play overpriced shovelware games on Switch at 15fps with drifting joycons.
Weird way to spell 2K.
Hey, game dev here. I've not worked with Xbox dev kits before, but the larger memory pools are common among basically all dev kits. It's typically used more for instrumentation (verbose logs, frame data, debuggers) and decompressing builds onto the console moreso than resource overhead for pre-optimized games. In fact, it's important for dev kits to be able to constrain resources to retail specs, especially if there are multiple variants (like XSX/XSS or the power-boosted console refreshes from last gen).
Excellent background info on decompressing builds onto the console. Thanks for that! That'd also be a great reason for a more customized or powerful CPU. Awesome to learn this kind of stuff.
@@GamersNexus I am very surprised bye he fact the Dev Kit looks nothing like the Retail Unit in the way the Retail unit is built cause when MS first showed off the Series X to Some tech Tubers i instantly figured they did it that way so they could in theory upgrade the SOC down the road with more powerful SOC just by replacing the Board that it sits upon instead of the whole system board as it would be in the PS5 and now seems the Dev Kit.
This one is unusual, though, isn't it? It's usually exactly double.
I love how this dev kit has 40gb of ram while the original Xbox one that can still run half of the games being developed on that thing , only have 8 GB lmao . No wonder the games run so bad
@@KelBShobra Because they cost more than 1000$ (depending on how many kits you buy though)But the new series x xdk is for sure more than 1000$ per SKU
Former Game QA here who worked with these. The XDK was most certainly banned based on the S/N after it was connected to the internet from an unwhitelisted IP. Devkits and testkits, both from Sony and Microsoft do this. It will read the retail disk only if you configure it to run in retail mode which limits the console to 16GB of RAM like the rest of the retailkits.
Devkits and Testkis are actually a 2 part system. You need both the Xbox Software Development Kit and a Devkit for you to be able to install packages and run said packages. So if you only have the console, it is a glorified paperweight. I don't know if that is the case with MS, but the PS4 and PS5 devkits and testkits are even worse as they delete the Debug OS there and brick themselves if they do not get a connection to Sony servers every ~2 weeks.
Thanks for letting me know what's inside one of the things I used daily for a few years. I've always wanted to see the guts of one. Also, be thankful you got the XSX devkit as the original XBO devkit is a pain that tries to kill itself by overheating every few hours.
Edit after watching the video: Based on the menu you have shown at the beginning of the video, the OS was definitely erased and restored to the retail version. The original OS had that menu but it was just an option inside the more comprehensive dev menu that will allow you to change setting to test or set up the console in specific ways (changing environment for example)
this is the first comment i have seen pointing out an IP security wall, and it makes a lot of sense
You need to submit static IP to work on these ?
@@DPDPDPDP Yes. You need to be a testing/dev company, be registered with MS and to have an internal network as to have a a few static IPs that require whitelisting. If not, the console is banned and wiped.
@@DPDPDPDP That's not an onerous requirement for a dev company, and it makes perfect sense. I imagine once these consoles get "the signal" (or a lack of one from the mothership for too long) to turn themselves into paperweights, it's permanent and can't be reversed, unplugging it from the internet is not going to help at that point.
@@Phenix1234HD that's gives me an Insight if maybe someday my team need to work with these machine, Thank you!
Got to give it to Microsoft or their hardware partner, for a Dev Kit, this was put together really well with plenty of attention to cooling.
Pity you can't unlock it in some way and give it a run.
modern dev kits generally require activation
The Xbox Series X looks and cools way better than the Developer Kit
So the ban even prevents offline disc-based game play? Wow. I looked this up after you posted it. $1,500 for banned version, $2,900 for non-banned by the same seller. Ain't cheap, we appreciate the physical tear down vid!
Yeah! Even banned with disc-only games!
@@GamersNexus dang, that's pretty anti-consumer... although that's a dev unit. i wonder if they would do the same to consumer units.
@@Nurse_Xochitl Xbox’s can be hardware banned if you are SUPER egregious at avoiding account bans.
But banning dev kits isn’t “anti consumer”. People that are reselling developer kits are technically breaking the law lol.
Dev kits are loaned to developer studios. You don’t get these thing for free unless you are a first party in house developer. These cost THOUSANDS for studios to get their hands on and they are meant to be sent back to Microsoft if the studio shutters or… you just don’t need it anymore (you stop developing for the platform, a new revision gets made etc etc.)
These aren’t cheap for Microsoft to make and they only have so many produced.
@@WeinerTouchy I imagine it would be more of a contract, rather than a law. Same shit in the end if M$ decides to sue you lol
If anyone reads this and knows the difference between someone lending you something and you owning something (because a studio borrowing a devkit is completely different than a consumer buying and owning a console) and want to peek into why Microsoft goes this hard on banning devkit consoles, read about the "Xbox underground" hacker group that existed years prior to the release of the Xbone. The podcast "Darknet diaries" also made a good recap of the whole story on episodes 45 and 46, it's a really good overview of what happened and they even interview some of the hackers involved
i work with these on a daily basis, larger memory banks serve debug roles rather than playability roles in my line of work, so its common to see that. at the same time, we run the games in a "retail mode" so that memory is not really accesible by the game in question.
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for the insight!
@@GamersNexus no probs. also, those front buttons can only be programmed to run scripts the XDK software accepts, usually functions or instructions the XDK software already accepts.
normal xbox accounts should not work on xdks at all.
It kind of surprises me that console memory allocation is dynamic, If you're the only game running and you know your limits you'd think it'd make allot of sense to use a fixed allocation. (this is a question not a statement of fact)
@@RobertFletcherOBE that's a good question to a dev, unfortunately i am not one
@@RobertFletcherOBE Today's consoles are fully featured with a proper kernel and multitasking (background processes), meaning consoles of today are literally x86_64 or ARM 64 bit computers running a custom operational system, but they are totally capable of running Linux and Windows.
So glad to finally see one of these taken apart. Been wanting to break mine open for so long during dev!
You will likely have no shot at unbanning the console even with assistance from someone at Microsoft. Console manufacturers usually have systems in place to permanently ban a console at the lowest level of hardware possible by physically blowing e-fuses on the SOC itself. The Xbox 360 used e-fuses for firmware downgrade prevention, and so does the Nintendo switch, so it's likely that Microsoft has included the same technology in the Xbox Series line, and especially the dev kits. I've dabbled in the console hacking scene for years, and this e-fuse technology is what has really slowed and sometimes even prevented development of custom firmware, as often an exploit is found on a specific firmware version and targeted only for that firmware version. As soon as Microsoft is made aware of a potential vulnerability in the firmware of a console, they can release a mandatory update to patch the vulnerability that blows an e-fuse. Firmware updates will almost always have a check in place to make sure the "Expected" number of e-fuses are intact before the update can be applied to prevent consoles from installing older firmware. Of course, firmware upgrades can be modified to ignore the e-fuse check, but doing so would require Microsoft's private-key that is used for signing the firmware upgrades, and these keys can be so long that it would take even the fastest supercomputer billions of years to crack. The only way to ignore the signature check would be to have an already modified console. This ban likely happened as soon as the dev kit was connected to a network that did not have it's public IP address whitelisted in a developer account somewhere as a failsafe to prevent it from falling into the hands of a modder or hacker, and all of the e-fuses on the console were blown as an indicator to the system that it's console banned.
Your only potential hope is that Microsoft did not blow any sort of e-fuse on the development unit, and that you can both get your hands on an original copy of the dev-kit firmware and somehow spoof the dev kit's serial number (And likely the MAC address of any network adapters the system has, as this is also a really common tamper-check) to attempt a full system wipe. I can honestly say that it's almost certainly impossible for you to unban this console.
But can it run Crysis?
Actually, the 360 never used E-Fuses to ban, E-Fuses were used to prevent Kernel Downgrading, the banning (when it was done in NAND, then later un-done) that corrupted game saves etc.. was key-corruption that broke signing and corrupted any profile attached to the console(this was removed after outcry and threat of lawsuits) These days banning is done by CPU-Key server-side, it doesn't care what the console has to say which is why efuses dont come into it. Some earlier Xenon consoles had a flaw that allowed you to spoof Legit CPU-keys from other consoles, this had to be done with a JTAG which if was built correctly would be modded to prevent efuses blowing/kernel patching, but essentially efuses have nothing to do with bans
Damn, I've never heard of any of that. Really interesting!
@@BabyMachine yes they could sell xboxes and when its time for a new generation blows all fuses on old xboxes -I guess windows also could use this tech
wow, this is super interesting.
"Hello, Microsoft? Yeah, We got our hand on one XDK's and we were wondering... would you be so kind as to unban it from the xbox network? pretty please?"
we can hope
I mean if you do it with the express promise of returning it, could be a fun favour to trade?
GamersNexus is not a customer but has a own company and the XDK is not the latest model
Snowflake will make the call CEO to CEO
"Do you want to get your teeth kicked in?"
As a dev (who manages builds), I cannot begin to explain how much the 10Gbe port on the dev kit is a saver when in the office. A build for something like Division 2 is ~30-40GB and it _kills_ productivity when QC has to take more than 30m to download a console artifact (common now that they're all WFH).
It's too bad the devkits phone home, I still have an old Xbox (original!) devkit that I can still use and technically make games for lol, it's fun to hook up and poke around at sometimes.
@@MaxIronsThird lol i'm good, I make the stuff that makes the games, I have no interest in making the game itself
In small fairness to Microsoft, people knowing they can just steal and use devkits for your current supported console isn't good.
On the other hand, fuck always-online DRM.
Yep. Waiting hours to learn you made a simple mistake and having wait another few hours is painful.
@@MaxIronsThird A company won’t just sell those to anyone. You’d have to have a request granted, along with whatever legal agreements you have to sign for. It means that most who have one would have gone to a fair amount of effort and won’t want to risk being sued to oblivion.
I wonder if you could do delta updates, or something like rsync the files, to save on downloading
For those wondering why Microsoft would ban these... there's a few things you need to know about console development:
1. Development hardware is loaned, not purchased; the hardware Steve is tearing down is literally stolen.
2. In the past, stolen devkits (and the associated software that controls them) have been used to steal and leak betas of games.
What the console manufacturers do to combat #2 is to literally brick their own hardware. They can legally do this because of #1.
If you're wondering how old games got stolen through devkits; there's a few ways. Sometimes at trade shows, people with the devkit software would start plugging into the developer's consoles and download whatever games were on there.
But the most egregious problem was Xbox Partnernet. On the Xbox 360, literally all developers shared the same test version of Xbox Live; and if they wanted to test DLC or game downloads, they had to upload it to this system. This meant that any Xbox 360 developer had access to basically the entire slate of upcoming Xbox Live Arcade titles and all game DLC. A *lot* of stuff got leaked through Partnernet and Microsoft had to do multiple ban waves of intentionally bricking all unaccounted-for devkits to get it to stop.
Old devkits are cool collector things, but modern devkits are basically useless piles of e-waste the moment licensed & authorized developers are no longer using them.
Gee, I wonder whether it would be possible to create a system that doesn't incentivize secretive development and production of e-waste, but which actually rewards people for their work, and not slyness!
@@r0galik The companies that develop for these systems specifically believe that "rewards people for their work" and "doesn't incentivize e-waste" are mutually exclusive
Ok but the impression of the PartnerNet thing (from your description) is, uh... just badly done lol.
I mean, yes, we need a database for devs to upload and test their stuff, but why is *everything* exposed like that where some guy with the devkit can just snag whatever's uploaded out there with little to no impedance?
@@r0galik they are not e-waste. And I will explain why. These consoles are so overbuilt that they will last for the entire service life of the retail version. And they do not have an easy life. The average power in time of one is 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 7 years or more. Despite this, they still have better end-of-life performance than the retail kits. For example, we had a PS4 from 2013 that was still in active use and it still had similar performance as newer versions.
They are built to last. And at the end of their service life, they are recycled by MS or SIE.
@@Phenix1234HD some people seem to think that the ban burnt a e-fuse but in reality its probably just a 1 or 0 stored in the nand somewhere
18:49 The small SSD slot under the CPU is a dev kit key 🔑 The key that was in there is void that is the part you need to change in order to be able to go online again! That’s why that system was on a auction site because the key is now Void. You can’t even play games in that system because you would have to make it a home dev system in the settings.
Actually it's already in retail mode because the previous owner erased/converted the OS. That's one more reason for it to be S/N banned. With or without the key.
So the kid on Xbox Live wasn't lying... his dad really did work for Microsoft... and he really can ban you.
We're all doomed
Lmao
lol
Unlike Valve, who are interested in selling games on multiple platforms, Microsoft gains Money by upholding their proprietary APIs like directx and win32 and windows as a standard no matter what, which hurts innovation, freedom and fair prices. They are buying big game developer studios, to produce game exclusives to further uphold the dependency to Microsoft standards.
Once Sony also put on exclusives, but recognized the possibilities of ports to sell more games, which is their main goal similar to valve.
Similar to Google and Apple, Microsoft is heavily investing into their windows store, where they can dictate whatever they want on Apps and fees like a gate keeper. If game publishers and developers want to be prepared against bad situations for their business, they really should overthink the base, on which they develop their games now and in future. Especially epic don't seem to realize the threat. It really wouldn't surprise me, if Microsoft blocked competing companies, free groups and individuals due to their locked in policies. What we gamers and developers need is an independent gaming platform.
Damn it would’ve been really interesting if you could’ve run tests on it.
Really wish we could. Maybe someone has an idea? It still works!
@@GamersNexus Maybe MVG can help😅
I'm sure there's some cheeky smart lad out there who's found a way to do so, would be cool if so
@@biggianthead5339 YES!!!
@@biggianthead5339 No he can't. These devkits are blocked on Microsoft servers by their serial number. Studios are required to report any missing devkits (that was probably taken home by some employee) and the manufacturer bans them, otherwise the studio might be risking to be unable to obtain new devkits.
That's why buying devkits older than like X360 devkits doesn't make much sense, because they require internet connection to be used and once you connect them, you'll only find out that it's banned.
Also your dev debuggers and such have to be loaded somewhere, that's also where extra ram can help.
It brings joy to see those long torx screws still being used, they have been in the xbox in one form or another all the way back in the og xbox.
Not that anyone asked or seems interested, but those security bits are frequently found in access control products. I find them most often in Assa Abloy magnetic locks, the older ones in particular as the new ones use security Torx bits.
@@steeledgator Essentially, it prevents easily tampering with things without forethought and planning. Putting a regular screw in something means any idiot with a screwdriver can mess with it, putting a security bit in something means someone has to be able to go get a specific bit then come back. This really just prevents small crimes of opportunity, like a drunk frat boy taking apart a bathroom stall for fun.
@@steeledgator Unfortunately you're wrong. it does prevent tampering. You know the saying: "Opportunity makes the thief." It applies here as well. Additionally these screws should tell people that they might be trying to access something that they actually shouldn't access without better understanding. For example in this case on the video, the paste is most likely damaged after opening and you would have to be aware of that before unscrewing that.
@@steeledgator The idea is that its more of a deterrent than a "fool-proof measure". Of course if someone is determined and time is not of the essence, they will get in. Think of fancy wheels on a car, generally if there are locking lug-nuts, it will be left alone for the most part. If there is no form of security like locking/spinning lug-nuts, they will be gone the first time you park at a Walmart and go inside. Time is money. That and taking longer means you have a significantly higher chance of getting caught...
There's got to be a way to get that thing running again
I hope so!
@@GamersNexus I looked into it, and it seems Microsoft bans consoles on the motherboard. And attempting to flash a janky bios causes the Xbox to intentionally brick itself. That leaves soldering a new Bios Chip entirely.
@TRICKITBRAN Louis Rossman at your service!
@@PwadigytheOddity sounds like something linus would try or brick it trying lol
After dropping it atleast twice of course
@@ShadowFox10587O that is so linus
I remember reading an article with someone from Microsoft talking about how they were still working on development during all of the lock downs. One of the things they mentioned was actually leveraging xCloud. That way rather than everyone having to download the latest build it would just be uploaded to their private dev version of xCloud and be off to the races.
They were late as fuck with their dev kit, and still had software problems in mid 2021.
Yeah xCloud has some real nice development tools.
Source: Microsoft own published videos on developing for xCloud
@@sundhaug92 very interested in development tools. could you provide link of the source? ("Microsoft own published videos on developing for xCloud")
@@zoneme101 Sure
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Amazing video! Dev kits are my favorite topic in the console space
I always find videos about Dev Kits fascinating. Its unfortunate they cant be used for much after they end up out in the wild. Great content as always !
Knowing how solid the security is on those things you probably won't get it working.
Maybe someone that works at Microsoft could pull a string or two?
all steve needs to do is call phil's people and say tech jesus needs a favor ;}
to bad he can't jtag it.
After the PartnerNet debacle where people resurrected e-wasted Xbox 360 devkits by frankensteining them together, Microsoft learned well from that mistake. People were able to download prerelease, beta and anything on PartnerNet and of course they leaked everything. Modern Vintage Gamer explains: th-cam.com/video/F1aVBEyqnxA/w-d-xo.html
hes breaking it hes breaking it
I suspect someone else might have already mentioned it, but a 34 pin flex cable for an LCD is actually quite common. The thing you'd want to search for is "34 pin MIPI".
@Jim McIntosh yes, bout not sure if that is also 34 pin, there is a few different sizes for different types, but they all kinda come from the same "family"
Dont just look at the pin number, look at the pin out. The number could be the same, but the pin out configuration can be different
Thanks for doing this video, I didn’t even realize these were a thing!
There was some murmur-ing about an Xbox update for XSX having mention of 10gbe and people were wondering if XSX had it - I think this kinda answers why it might be referenced.
10gbe ethernet controller wouldn't be that useful for a exclusively consumer product though.
Not ethernet related but the Series X has 10 memory controllers and was supposed to have 20GB of RAM, 40GB on the XDK kind of confirms that.
It seems the 2024 revision will actually reach that 20GB.
@@MaxIronsThird Very unlikely. The only way a device like this have 20gbe is for the cost to make sense, as in putting a 20gbe controller have at least similar cost to 1gbe, otherwise... why? to satisfy Xbox fans ego? You need to remember that the device itself is just using it to connect to the internet and maybe some use it for local remote play. All of those don't really benefit from more than 1gb. You can make a case for remote play can benefit from more than 1gb but it is a topic for another time. As far as internet goes, I don't think higher than 1gb internet will be common enough in 2024. At best, they will use 2.5gbe just because it probably will not add to the cost.
edit: the comment that I replied to changed the context from commenting directly on the top most comment, which is talking about ethernet, to talking about RAM.
No use to have 10gbe maybe in next console in 6 years. 10gbe contrôler are still expensive
dude all you guys are wrong...it's 4ogbe on the Tera flip-flop side, compounded by a multi wafer wafu on the zippity mag drive
@@nitroxide17 people here are talking about ethernet connection. There's a difference between Gb and GB, after all.
Qa tester here, worked with these for a while, the ban is to prevent you from accessing the sketchy ass dev store these come installed with, also to keep you away from the dev software, I don't believe there is a way around it nor should there be one. That said, I love your content keep it up
Oh yeah I remember seeing videos about older Xbox on the developer net, it was wild. You had access to any game any developer uploaded to it to play, all free. And all sorts of shenanigans with the credit card info you could deliberately spoof to test DLC stuff on the store.
Yeah Pluton is gonna keep you out
@@davep5698 having done all of that myself at some point, I confirm it really is that easy.
What about hacking the hardware and changing the s/n I know it's an option for laptops and other devices
@@duffinley8848 Wouldn't help, due to the security-system of the Xbox
My only issue is the clickbaity title: Microsoft didn't ban _you_, it had already banned the console. That said, cool to see this, even if it's not very surprising. Thanks guys!
@UC1ZP6geC47jYG32qJLgqX1A Wrong channel, a**h***.
It's interesting that those long-ass screws look almost identical (other than color) to the ones used in the original XBox.
Fun fact: I did take apart a handful of original XBOX consoles in the past to clean them, re-paste them, to de-solder that pesky clock capacitor and/or mod them and one time I found one of those same golden long torx screws randomly placed into one of the feet inside an intact system with the warranty seals on it and everything and the rest of the screws were the usual metallic color ones and I never saw another one placed randomly like that again after that, a pretty unusual yet weird situation going on there, the only theory I could come up with is that probably during the production of the units the manufacturer used some left over screws from an earlier batch made for another product that used the same type and size of screws of the XBOX.
Buy yourself a painter's "5" scraper as a pry tool
Linus uses gravity to open things. Very efficient. Too bad it is mostly accidental.
It makes sense that Microsoft banned it immediately, its probably can be jailbreak central for xbox if that thing is left in hands of the community for any extended period of time.
yes but the homebrew and open-source communities are good 😔
@@chainswordcs what sux is , we have rules and laws because the assholes in the community, we wear seat belts because some don't druve safely, not all of us, but because of some!
Same here, a dev kit in the wild would become a house of all sort of problems, not just jailbreak, but also hacking and exploits.
@@The28studio ummm. What??
You dont wear seat belt because of some dont drive safely. You wear seat belt because of your own safety.
This ignorant part clearly shows that you have delusion about not making any mistakes ever.
You are not immune from making mistakes . Sea belt is there only and only for your own safety.
Not to mention some will be able to revert engineer a fake xbox
@@waifuhunter9709 yea but its required by law because someone else was stupid not wearing one. if i dont wear a seatbelt and never get into an accident that isnt the motivation for passing a law.
Used to work at MS. The dolphin sample goes way back before my time but I adapted it to the front panel display. I also took a little "snake game" prototype that a platform dev had made and turned that into a sample too.
Curious if retail banned units act the same way, fully disabling a product even for offline games seems excessive.
Great video.
I don't think they disable them, you can play offline games but, that console that was banned would never work on line again. Normally this happened on the 360 when people flashed the disc drive to play copies. Microsoft figured this out and banned the consoles from ever going on line...
In time you would have an issue, as older games would play fine but, newer games would not due to you not being able to update the console....
@@TheCoolDave he said they can't play games on it. It's bricked.
If an XBOX is banned, they don't want to make it easy to unban it or reuse it, so it is good incentive to not breach the ToS and make sure your console does not get banned.
There is probably a software patch via usb or something that Microsoft can use to unblock these if it was returned to Microsoft.
Devkits are Microsofts property so they are within their right to reclaim or lock the user out of them. With retail units I would imagine it wouldn't be the same case as it belongs to the consumer.
I know on Xbox 360s you could still run games and user profiles but if you selected connect to Xbox live it would throw a console ban error.
Dev kits aren't toys. They aren't owned by the developer. They are property of Microsoft and they have every right to ban them when not used properly
The retail Xbox Series consoles use a tiered memory schema where 10 GB of the RAM is set up with a 320 bit bus, and the remainder on a 192 bit bus (for the X, the S has different bus widths), I wonder if that's the same on the dev kit. If it is, I wonder if the rear memory is the lower bandwidth memory, hence why the cooling is so lacking on that side
Also good luck unbanning that. Pretty sure that you can't even replace a bios without it instantly knowing that something's up since the console cryptographically signs everything, and the keys are held inside the CPU itself
Here's a GDC talk about the Xbox One's security model th-cam.com/video/U7VwtOrwceo/w-d-xo.html
There's no "lower bandwidth memory" on the retail consoles. Each memory chip has the same bandwidth across identical 32bit buses - the difference comes from the fact that four of the ten memory chips are 8Gbit (1GB), while the remaining six are 16Gbit (2GB). So for the first ten gigs of memory, you can interleave writes across the full 320bit 32x10) bus, but the upper 6GB can only be interleaved across 192bits (6x32) of bus.
@@arhra Is this conceptually similar to running an unbalanced RAM config on a PC, say, [8 + 16] + [8 + 16]?
@@arhra that still leaves those last 6GB running at a lower bandwidth (336 GB/s) compared to the 10GB running at 560 GB/s
@@Jaaxfo think of it like how some ssd models are slower at 512 capacity than 1tb capacity you dont say the 512 is lower tier it just has a lower theoretical speed due to less chips
Interesting that they have the M.2 slot empty that would fit a production drive. It would be interesting to me to see what would happen if you installed the ssd from your series x into it.
There is an M.2 adapter for the Series S|X from China as its essentially an CFexpress adapter. But I haven't heard much report whether or not it works as the Xbox is very picky which drive to work with.
@@Poorgeniu5 There is only one drive that works with that. However that's not what we are talking about. The development kit has a slot for retail version drives, so trying a drive that has the series x OS on it to see if that will work.
I don't think it was empty... We didn't see Steve messing with it but on 20:12 you can see the big drive and then another smaller drive
Probably the small one is for retail mode and the big one is for dev mode
@Defective Degenerate I'm waiting for the inevitable Xbox Sword or Shield 👍😎
Was just thinking the same thing.
2:35 one thing that surprises me is how old that OS-version is. Build-date May 17th, 2018, 18:34 local time. 1706 (so I think that's Redstone 3, but it could be Redstone 2), so for desktop that's somewhere between the Creator's Update and the Fall Creator's Update (but leaning towards FCU).
Don’t be surprised to see devkits or workstations with 2x the retail RAM expectation.
You need it all for debugging, monitoring, logging and such.
For example, if a windows install starts paging then everything could appear to have frozen and you’d have no debug info as to why.
Rip dev account. Oh well, at least now we know what's inside. That's cool.
Most people don't know about the years of the Xbox Underground (360 era), where a group of teens had the keys to Microsoft's the Xbox Kingdom. It was all because of the XDK's. I can only imagine the protocol Microsoft has in place the second one goes missing today.
you are glorifying kids who got lucky, also they were just a mere fraction of the scene.
Gamedev here, so far only got hands on original xbone devkit to really have that game optimised proper, but enjoyed watching you tear down that one here, and indeed seconding comment for more RAM used for all kinds of debugging tools and so on ( usb C, and LAN also very handy for pushing regular builds, multiplayer games testing needs and so on :) )
Hope we get to see fan airflow here soon and Ofcourse comparisons of fans!! I know I’m being impatient I’m just super excited for that
Assuming they didn't blow an eFuse (which they probably did), I wonder if you could do a factory reset on it and then never connect it to the internet.
We'd need to figure out how to do the reset. It's also possible there's a firmware ban or something...
yeah im sure a reset would 100% work... have you heard of apple and its anti repair tactics? you really think Microsoft the actual only device on earth xbox one or newer that's never been hacked in anyway, firstly everything DRM is ACCOUNT LOCKED any disk DOWNLOADS a DIGITAL KEY authorizing USE, not to mention online is hardcoded to not work so you can't even LOG-IN to get a offline key, oh and did I mention the 32 characters in said key basically making encryption bypassing impossible, my guys thinking a fuse would be an issue.... comical
@@DadlyShadow Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning...
@@DadlyShadow No need to be so condescending. I was just going off prior knowledge of game console security. Also, an eFuse is embedded in the chipset, so it would be an easy way to permabrick a console at a hardware level.
@@XeonProductions Shhh, let Steve, Steve continue
sounds like you need to get invited to a game studio and get as much info as you can, maybe see if you could drill into the casing to get thermal info, then hold on tothe footage until the studio closes (possibly until the persons on the NDA pass away, worst case scenario)) and then drop the footage for us.
Love the channel. Listen. It looks like Nexar dash cams stole your logo. lol.
Great video!
The Xbox developer kits are always so interesting. This one has many similarities to the Xbox one x. A lot of similar cooling and construction techniques. I’d love to see this in the hands of an actual team of developers so I can how they use it
These bits you used for the heatsink are widely used in Security hardware, namely Card readers used to unlock doors.
Wow! Really nice and interesting video!!
super interesting to see the tear down of something i didnt even know existed!
It impresses me Gamers Nexus has such deep insight into the actual development process. When Steve was talking about the versioning bottleneck it really hit home for me.
I love this stuff, thank you for covering this!
The teardown gave me flashbacks to when I did an internal SSD and thermal paste/pads upgrade for my One X. It's interesting that this XDX is built seemingly just like the One X.
The XDK reminds me a lot of the Xbox One X. Very similar design for everything, especially the internals.
that is built almost like the xbox one X where there was a metal case containing the console, inside the plastic clamshell and it was almost impossible to put back together because of the cables
I love that there is a timestamp dedicated to Steve getting excited about his security bit
5:42 That's some good highly crunchy audio right there.
I have to imagine the biggest use of that much RAM is just for the logs mostly.
Log writing is very costly if the CPU has to waste time to make sure it makes it to storage so it probably either works as a write cache or just sits there for it to be taken off device.
16 gigs run the game. The rest to run the dev software and work on the game as its running.
Hi, I'm interested in a mod-mate. I'm a software engineer/graphic designer and frequently use my design desk for build/fixes. Is the mod-mate acrylic based to where it can stand some X-acto slices? If not I suppose I can just switch mats but if so that would be super cool.
Hi Donovan. Thanks for the question -- feel free to send it over to support@gamersnexus.net for a more detailed answer. In the meantime: It is not meant for x-acto slices or knives, so would not hold up to scoring.
you could just have some tempered glass on top of anything and use that
It's cool to see the insides of this. I am getting an XDK for my game development soon. Can't Wait!
What are the requirements to be sent one of these things? I'm curious lol
@@JudeTheTH-camPoopersubscribe you also get 2 XDK’s upon game approval, free of charge
this is definitely a collection piece, i need to find one.
I'm surprised you're -only- banned and Microsoft hasn't located you and demanded their hardware back.
if a game dev goes out of business and liquidates microsoft cant be like hey send us back that thing we sent you
I think the one in trouble will be the Dev that sell dev kit online but not GN who buy it legitimately. Given that is not storen goods. MS can't just demand GN to give it back, it's the same case as intel engineering samples on eBay.
@@veda9151 MS could just 'buy' it back.
@@jimecherry I mean, yeah they can. I'm pretty sure usually the game devs don't own these, it's "rented" from Microsoft. It would be the same as if you rented a car and then go bankrupt, It's technically not your property so you aren't supposed to liquidate someone else's property. So it's stolen property at this point and the owner has the right to claim stolen property no matter how many times it changes hands.
While it *is* stolen property, I imagine it isn't worth the legal costs for Microsoft to track them down and send C&D letters when they can instead completely reliably brick them remotely
Does Steve not recognize that this is a One X chassis?
Crazy that they have the new SoC working on the exact same case as the old Xbox One X.
It's been a long time since I took one of those apart! Some changes, but otherwise, you're right on the plastic shell design and some of the interior!
@@GamersNexus I'm pretty sure the XDK is the Xbox One dev kit. They switched to the GDK for the Series X.
the case is just an enclosure. Why would a chip be influenced by the plastic enclosure it is in? I might be confused, and if so, school me.
@@Chris-nt1ns The GDK is a software SDK used for developing Xbox games, the hardware is still called the XDK
It's much different from One X enclosure.
Really interesting stuff. Thanks
Is the LCD monochrome ? Cool feature.
You almost said it Steve. You are impressed with the SDK. Me too bud, me too.
My guess as to how they banned it. There's a unique security key or certificate that is used to decrypt part of the operating system during boot. When it's banned, that security key is deleted. And when it can't find the security key, the OS will show that message when it's unable to decrypt part of the operating system that is stored encrypted. This way even if you try to modify the operating system after, it won't do any good since the part that is needed is encrypted. You'd need to brute force the needed security key that no longer exists.
The more viable option would be to get someone at Microsoft to officially get GN a DevKit for Testing, that way no one risks their job trying to unban this one....
Yeah, except MS has a strict policy of not giving DevKits to the press... EVER! So that option has zero viabiilty and would 100% get someone fired if they gave them one.
Your recording area looks appropriate for someone of your reputation. It's a good aesthetic, looks good.
Merci mille fois. Actualités relaxante et enrichissantes. Merci du partage.
"typically you'll see 12/0.2A"
*Casually glances at the 12V/2.4A "Extra hearing loss" Vega fan*
28.8w for a fan? Didn't the Vega had 3 of them? Now i can understand the HUGE current spikes they had
@@lorenzocampolucci4464 No, Vega's reference design was a single fan blower. You'd be thinking of the Radeon VII... Which is technically called Vega too, I suppose, but no, probably doesn't use the same fan.
I'm curious to see if you could back door a linux os because honestly that's some powerful bricked hardware
The lock is probably in the firmware. You'd have to write and flash a whole new BIOS to get around that.
First thing I started thinking of when he mentioned it got banned.
@@g00gleminus96 somewhere in china there are gimped ps5 socs being sold so there is probably firmware out there but its probably jank and will require a decent amount of modding.
@@g00gleminus96 impossible. firmware is signed.
@@CocoaEm Firmware is probably signed but it honestly doesn't matter so long as there is some basic driver support for a new OS to run on the system.
I'm sure Xbox is running some type of hardware ban but they commonly use Mac address, MB or Network cards to identify and perform those bans.
So its not outside the realm of possibly to bypass them.
Awesome video, once again! Please what screwdriver are you using? I'd love to have that.
those bits are also useful for small screw in valves found on airsoft magazines
i’m curious if you used the OSU tool on the devkit 1. if it would work at all and 2. if that would help mitigate the console ban. did see some suggestions to solder on a new bios chip and if that’s the case you might be able to source one from a series x
hwid bans are on soc, bridge, bios, idk if memory also. you cant change the bios chip and get unbanned
You should learn how Xbox security is built and you're going to understand why its not possible
As someone who fixes consoles on daily basis, I can tell you right away that it won't do anything. They have literal fuses blown in the APU to create the unique hardware ID links between components. Even the disc drive is tied in. Your only hope would be to replace everything linked from another console, I don't know if the consumer version components would be compatible with this, never had my hands on any dev kit version.
@@ChrisAzure Why no one has CURRENTLY figured it out, not that it isn't possible.
@@FrozenHaxor There should be a final fuse that can be blown to permanently lock it into retail mode from the start. This would make it more usable than a doorstop.
Microsoft RnD are shouting and screaming "How? Where was this sold?"
I really like this teardown. That CPU or GPU is a thing of beauty, I love they symmetry and the layout of the PCB its super nice. And the discipline line of VRMs to the side. It is indeed a very neat piece of technology to unpack. I'd not seen the giant blogs of heatpaste trick prior. Hopefully through the magic of the 'net it will unlock itself oneday. It kinda hints at a vuln this.... as in.... if they are so concerned perhaps there is a reason... as in.... perhaps it has source code to a backend service with creds or keys it shouldn't ah well. Maybe image the drive before or if wiping it plus bios reset somehow.
I love how there's an actual timestamp specifically for "Steve gets excited" lol
So.... It's safe to say you're are not getting a Christmas card from Microsoft this year....? LOL
Don't feel too bad about wrecking the GameStop by returning those, they can absorb the $5 store credit loss.
Maybe...
I love gamestop! Last of the dinosaurs but millions aging gamers don't use the online ecosystem and will be lost in the wind
@@dr.magneto5341 my 7 year old loves to go and look at games for his switch. He also doesn't have to spend as much of his money buying and trading for games. I think he should learn the pain early of trade in value.
@@dr.magneto5341 yup all us youngins are buying everything just straight from the Microsoft store. I don't think I've actually walked into a game store and bought a game since gta 5 came out on the xbox one. Atleast that's the latest physical copy of a game that I still have in my possession. But I bought a series S so it's useless lol.
Those special bits are called spanner (or snake-eye) bits. The fasteners/bits are also semi-common in firearms, specifically older ones.
This is really cool. Would like to see more Dev kits teardowns, but I guess this wont be a regual thing, with the price tag those things can have. ^^
I can verify transfering builds to consoles was about 80% of my office time.
dontcha love how because it has 40 gb of ram it's gotta be disabled if it so much as see's the internet for even a second?
Prepare for a call from MS. They usually don't take these things lightly especially on currently supported consoles.
Why because he bought one secondhand off someone? I would have thought that Microsoft would be more interested in who sold it to him.
Gamers nexus has no contract with Microsoft, therefore they have done nothing wrong
@@w19ely85 GN hasn't done anything wrong from common sense view point but you have to realize that these development kits are more like licensed than sold. You have to return it if you don't use it. It's still MS property (just like your passport, car driving license etc. but your country is the real owner)
Love the look of the PS5 Devkit also, would be cool to see it more detail with its weird formant
I was just at VCF East and presented tons of devkits.
maybe if you try a series x ssd on the xdk ?
Hey steve. You could try saving this devkit by swapping ssd's. Use the tool you use to provision hdd swaps for xbox one, and flash that guy with bog standard retail software on usb disk. Retail should go into xdk mode after detecting its running on xdk
We'll give it a shot!
@@GamersNexus The way they ban is likely a fuse. There has, to date, been no way to bypass these hardware bans on XBO let alone SX.
@@ajjr1228 but Xbox360 since it was heavily hacked there was ways to unban it, but it still was kinda pointless...
The only thing that worked was shitty paid services of XbLive emulators that would give you an unbanned key for "X" paid time and that was only a disaster since people who would pay 4 such thing could only be to cheat online👎
@@guily6669 It wasn't "heavily hacked", the software has never been broken. All of the hacks revolve around glitching the poor CPU.
@@ajjr1228 I was thinking the same thing. AMD uses fused circuits to optionally marry CPUs to vendors. Such a circuit could be used to indiciate a hardware ban.
we use security spanner type boltheads here at the hospital i work at, especially in psychiatric areas where the bolts couldnt be hidden away. just more tamper resistant than say a flathead. i carry a couple of spanner bits in my bag, the width between the holes is what changes.
9:30 you know you’ve been working on consoles for a while when you smell your hands for burning and or funky smells after touching internals
I believe you could get away by swaping the southbridge, the eeprom and the SSD from a working/retail series X, you might also want to swap or remove the 10Gbe Ethernet (not really sure on that one).
I don't think the CPU on these are tied to the board/other component by their id, I might be wrong, for sure memory isn't tied to anything. Also, if you need to swap the CPU, the memory settings/capcity & co is very likely set by strap resistor on the board, that way you can use this amount of memory with any CPU.
That said, you should ask some guys that are able to do BGA/reball work (GPU repairman), it's gonna be a PITA to do it without stencil but it's doable :)
You've almost got it, the APU also needs to be swapped. It has hardware IDs burned in by blowing internal fuses :) You also need the disc drive from the donor Series X and you're in business.
@@FrozenHaxor I'm not that sure about the APU to be honest, the hardware id as you said is identical to all chip using same die configuration. For instance with GPU, every 2080 desktop share the same hardware id, but maybe the retail OS isn't compatible with the dev APU hardware id.
That's probably true for the drive bay, I'm not really into console and thought drive bay weren't use anymore.
@@TheQuentincc No, hardware ID that would corelate with the chip part number is not the issue, there are "hard coded" unique keys embedded in the silicon that are linked to almost every other part of the console, they also take part in the communication encryption. The disc drive is also encrypted and married to the APU.
Genuinely an impressive video …… I’d love to see a PS5 dev kit just for comparison on which gives developers more tools or headroom to play with
For some reason these XDKs have always fascinated me, so much so that I made my own Scorpio XDK skin for my OneX. This really is an awesome video, but is disappointing that they're just glorified paperweights for regs. Awesome video, thanks 👍
I love the bit where you finally find a use for that one tool we all have, that we feel too guilty to throw away, but can never find a use for it.
You're one of the lucky ones who did.
I actually figured out what whats that bit for because of an ancient computer a neighbor was about to throw away some years ago and I asked him to give it to me instead because I like old and obsolete computers and I wanted to tinker with it to see what it was capable of and then while I was tearing it down to dust it off and inspect the internals to see the goodies I found that the CPU cooler had those same weird shaped screws and after several failed attempts of trying to screw them off with a flat head screw driver and a hammer (not that I would harm it, that thing was built like a soviet tank) I took a look to my random generic brand screw driver kit and gave it a try with the weird pointy head that I never used before and it worked swiftly, as far as I taken apart all kinds of old and new hardware through mt life I think that that was the only time I've used it, I literally threw the entire kit to the trash some time after that due to many of the most used bits were wearing off pretty bad and no longer being useful to unscrew but that specific head still had even the protective layer of lacquer on it xD
You don't technically own them, they are suppose to go back to Microsoft when done with them. Be careful.
you technically don't own anything.
Technically, Microsoft would have to prove that they own them. GN has possession of an item, and it is considered as their ownership unless someone proves otherwise.
I wonder if the dev consoles are automatically banned. Logically developers would be under some contract in order to receive these units from Microsoft. Due to the low volume and strict control Microsoft knows the serial numbers/details of all the consoles that are distributed as part of the contract. So the moment the contract is terminated, such as due to insolvency or restructuring, all dev consoles that were distributed as part of that contract are banned since their operating licence is removed. It is entirely possible that the consoles default to being "banned" should they be unable to phone home to verify and that they could unban themselves if they can phone home and verification is permitted. After all it is not unreasonable to expect any modern developer to have 24/7 internet connectivity.
The question one has to ask is how these units were obtained. The main sources that would make sense are either they are from a foreclosed game developer and are being incorrectly liquidated as assets, or that they were physically stolen from an active game developer by theft due to insufficient physical security. In the former case the status of the consoles would all likely be set to be banned when connected online due to termination of contract. In the latter case the theft might not be detected, ignored or not reported so the unit might be kept unbanned, for as long as the developer continues their contract. It is also entirely possible that the "not banned" ones for sale are functionally banned and it is a big scam to part people with even more of their money, in which case all dev units defaulting to being banned if they cannot phone home and authenticate periodically would make sense.
I think the best one could do for a follow up would be to contact Microsoft. Maybe there could be an interview piece with a higher up person giving some insight into the SDK, how it is used, its differences from an actual console, some safe footage/hands-on of the SDK being used, how they are licenced, how they end up banned and how some might end up in the wild. If anything it could serve as a potential warning to people that these SDK units probably are not worth as much as some people might try to make out.
This makes a lot of sense. Assuming you are a legit developer, you probably have some contact at Microsoft that can easily "un"-ban (or rather, unlock) the consoles for you.
Perhaps you even have some provisioning device on your network (i.e, like Unifi does for it's networking gear), that the consoles see/are authorized by. Would make a lot of sense, such a device could do a lot of useful features, e.g. manage builds, collect debug info / memory dumps, performance metrics, ...
That is exactly right. even when under an active and valid contract, the kits request server validation when connected. if they cant validate, they are basically a paper weight. The IP range where they are expected to be connected from is also communicated to MS upon the arrival of the kits. Any change that is not whitelisted triggers a failure in authentication.
As most have mentioned, its to allow testing and debugging builds. Think of it like having almost 2 Series X in one package. You get a build (sneakernet/network) which is then deployed like a VM with certain resource restrictions to match the target hardware. There would be a supervisory system that is measuring and recording nearly every metric while the build of a game is running. This lets artists and developers to ensure they meet certain criteria for performance and quality with concrete quantitative measurements to back their decisions.
*Microsoft also has their cloud services to work with in conjunction with their dev kits so you can imagine the toolset available to a studio if they were to leverage the entire ecosystem.
The OLED is not custom, its a common size and most are either SPI or I2C driven interfaces.
Great tear down
The automatic banning procedure almost certainly involves setting some e-fuses inside of the CPU/SoC.
This way it is 100% permanent and impossible to undo. The chip is likely set up to only boot signed OS images.
I assume that once the XDK somehow notices that it's not being used the way it is intended to be used, it automatically sets some e-fuses inside of the CPU and destroys its OS, thus wiping the key for unlocking it.
Usually these keys are generated on a hardware level (for example based on the CPUs serial number) in the factory or during the first boot. Once the key is set, there is no way to boot it without the key, since the key is "hard-coded" into the SoC.
If the key/the OS image that got signed with the key gets wiped from the boot drive, then the device is pretty much e-waste from that point on.
So you couldn't even run e.g. Linux on this thing. It won't boot any OS at all, despite technically being 100% functional.
It's quite sad IMO, since that's a lot of wasted silicone right there, but at least there's not that many of these things out there (=not tens of thousands or even millions of units that means), so it's not a colossal amount of e-waste, but still...
@@NeoHCgbz I didn't say it was unnecessary. I said it was sad. These are 2 different things.
I understand why they do it, yet it sucks.
In theory with enough smd soldering skill you might be able to migrate every chip in a retail model onto this PCB but otherwise I'm pretty sure the internal hardware signing would prevent circumventing the ban.
Love the Video and my eyes where glued to the screen the whole time!! It is clear to me that it looks like a One X and a very well made one even the power supply looks like a One X just double stacked, Maybe the more then double amount of ram could also be used for a Enhanced console that may come out in the future like a Series X Elite cause thats a crazy amount of Extra Ram for poor optimization maybe this Dev kit can be over clocked to simulate an Enhanced Console?....we will see but its design is Clearly influence by project Scorpio.
14:26 well the axial delta fans are great for cooling your system, they also can go to 1A like that but headers can handle them just fine.