It’s hard to believe that the Xbox 360 (shortened to 360 for this article) is nearly 21 years old. After the success of the original Xbox, Microsoft teamed up with IBM to produce the Xenon processor and ATI to create the graphics architecture. Wireless controllers were standard, and Xbox Live expanded to let users play online and buy games through Xbox Live Arcade. By the end of its life cycle, 84 million units had sold, and it became the tenth highest-selling video game console of all time.
The 360 is one of my favourite consoles, probably in my top five. I have 150 physical titles in my library and have purchased several games on XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade). It does have copy protection, which over the years has been bypassed by doing a hardware modification. I didn’t bother doing mine, and I stuck by my physical collection.
Being a shmup fan, there are several exclusive Japanese region titles that I couldn’t play unless I purchased a Japanese 360. However, just recently, a softmod has been released called Peer Pressure that is an absolute game changer. This softmod introduces a persistent, software-based modification that can automatically activate during startup. Using a program called Xbox Image Browser, you can convert your ISO files and then copy them to the 360's hard drive. The same applies to XBLA games, and you can also play different region games. It’s a new way to discover the 360’s enormous catalogue.
The softmod itself is quite easy to do, and after 30 minutes or so, my 360 was up and running. It now boots directly to the Aurora dashboard, where it displays all the games on the hard drive. There are various settings that you can change, and you can copy and paste files from a USB flash drive to the 360’s hard drive. Cover art is also supported. If you would like more information and instructions on how to apply Peer Pressure to your 360, have a look at this very helpful video by MrMario2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8ceM_xXlO8&t=1560s.
