I.C.E 360 Modchip Timeline

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I.C.E 360 Modchip Timeline

Posted by:

Luke

Date added:

01.14.06

Categories:

[ Xbox 360 Hacks ]

News:

An interesting and informative timeline showing events to date surrounding the I.C.E Xbox 360 modchip has been put together at GamesFirst.com. There has been much speculation as to the validity of claims that a 360 modchip will be out in the coming weeks. Find it all a little too much? Read the step-by-step goings-on here:

January 2nd, 2006: Infinitymods.com posts a comment to their website stating, "XboX 360 Chip Recieved, and in testing, expect sales within 2 weeks!" Other members of the Xbox modding community - including established modding teams - have heard nothing about this chip. InfinityMods.com is the only reseller to have reported receiving test units.

January 5th, 2006: Infinitymods.com post a follow-up comment stating, "Due to massive emails regarding the xbox 360 chip, we will provide you some more details. Price is retail $70, Wires are 20-30, Install time is approx 25 minutes, able to direct boot backups, dumped isos, or full rips. Name is I.C.E. Chip website is I.C.E. ModChip."

The link included, icemodchip.com, takes readers to a graphic with a statement that the LiThIuM I.C.E. chip would be coming soon.

Things to note at this point:

There is another modchip that carries the name of ICE. The Xenium ICE chip for the Xbox, created by Team OzXodus. Icemodchip.com is registered to Team ICE.

A Whois search of the two domains involved with the chip, InfinityMods.com and IceModChip.com, show that the two are most likely owned by the same people:

According to a quick Whois search, the contact e-mail for both domain names are sales[AT]infinitymods.com and orders[AT]infinitymods.com. Additionally, the contact phone number for icemodchip.com is the 1-800 number given on InfinityMods.com as their order number. Evan OKeefe (we assume O'Keefe) is listed as the admin, billing, and technical contact for icemodchip.com. According to the Contact Us information on InfinityMods.com, evan[AT]infinitymods.com will also put you in contact with the InfinityMods sales department. The first assumption is that evan@infinitymods is Evan O'Keefe, but that could be wrong. Team I.C.E. has repeatedly denied that InfinityMods.com and Team I.C.E. are the same, saying that InfinityMods is an affiliate.

This casts doubt on the chip, since InfinityMods.com is not an established developer, and a relative newcomer to the modding community (InfinityMods.com was launched only half a year ago.)

According to XboXStation.com, an Xbox 360 load disk circulating on the Internet with the name of LiThIuM, spelled in the same style as the LiThIuM I.C.E. modchip, was found to be a fake. Whether there is a connection between the two is unknown.

Later, references to the LiThIum part of the chip were removed from the icemodchip.com site.

An interesting observation: On December 21st, 2005 - 12 days before the I.C.E. modchip appeared - three men were arrested for modifying and selling modded Xboxes in California in a federal sting operation. The government agency responsible for this arrest was Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly referred to as I.C.E. Team I.C.E. has stated that their name stands for, "Internally Controlled Equipment".

January 6th, 2006: InfinityMods.com posts a comment on their site, "We were contacted today, from Team I.C.E. There wensite will fully launch tomorrow evening approx. With information, f.a.q. and more ! stay tuned! http://www.icemodchip.com"

January 7th, 2006: GamesFirst.com sends Team I.C.E. an e-mail offering to send a writer to help verify that the chip was able to do what Team I.C.E. claimed. Team I.C.E. replied that they, "Hey we would love to but we are currently covering press with divineo at the moment over in france :) Stay tuned to the website, we will be posting os pictures soon!"

January 7th, 2006: icemodchip.com launches, stating that the "When" date for the chip is January 31st, 2006. Subsequent e-mails to Team I.C.E. result in claims that the chip will actually ship, not just preorder, in early February of 2006. The January 31st, 2006 date is later changed on the website to TBA. Click here for more information about what was published on the icemodchip.com site.

January 7th, 2006: icemodchip.com launches with a number of photos which are labeled as prototype units. Later, the pictures disappear, replaced by a statement that the pictures were fake, not the chip, and that they were posted as a result of a falling out between the webmaster and Team I.C.E.

January 8th, 2006: GamesFirst contacts Divineo.com to verify that Team I.C.E. is working with them. Divineo.com replies that, "They were supposed to meet with us and they cancelled at the last second with totally unclear reason. We are 99% sure it is fake." Divineo.com subsequently sends e-mails to Xbox-scene.com and other prominent modding sites stating the same. Based on this e-mail, Xbox-scene.com basically concludes that the I.C.E. chip is a fake.

January 9th, 2006: When presented with the Divineo's comments, Team I.C.E. replied by accusing Divineo.com of attempting to buy them out, and then slandering the I.C.E. name instead. Divineo.com, a longstanding site of solid reputation, denies they ever had interest in buying Team I.C.E. out in any way, saying, "...we were looking to be their best customer."

January 9th, 2006: The Team I.C.E. website posts a video that appears to show a girl placing a back-up copy of Call of Duty 2 into an Xbox 360 and playing it. The video does not show close up images, and does little to satisfy the gaming community. Many accuse the video of being faked, siting a scene splice in the video. The video is subsequently removed from icemodchip.com.

January 10th, 2006: Team I.C.E. continues to be defiant, saying that they will be vindicated when the chip launches. Subsequent requests to allow a writer to verify the chip are ignored, or not addressed in replied e-mails.

So did you get all of that? Things aren't really much clearer, but now we can have a nice look at how things have unfolded.

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