I bought a Team Xecuter mod chip for my original Xbox years ago, and I got a lot of my early computer experience by participating in the modding scene of xbox g

I bought a Team Xecuter mod chip for my original Xbox years ago, and I got a lot of my early computer experience by participating in the modding scene of xbox games like Halo. I spent some time helping reverse parts of the file format used by the game. I loved finding and creating ways to remix the game's existing levels and gameplay. (I didn't have any interest in using mods to cheat online, and cheating was looked down on in the modding community. Besides being assholeish, there was nothing clever necessary in making or using a cheat mod online in Halo.) In order to mod an xbox game, you needed to mod an xbox (through either installing a physical modchip or installing a software hack, which each had their pros and cons) so you could edit the game's files. Modding an xbox let you run unsigned software, including launchers which let you start homebrew software, homebrew games, and ripped retail games directly from the hard drive instead of the game disk. Many people would rip retail games they owned off of the game disk onto their hard drive so they could conveniently launch the game without putting the disk into the console or so they could make the game's files editable on the hard drive, but it is true that some people would borrow game disks to rip or just pirate games from the internet to their console's hard drive. It's true that the features for running homebrew software or ripping or modding your own games were useful to pirates, but to my knowledge, none of the software associated with the Xecuter chip I had or the popular launchers had any features that exclusively catered to pirates any more than Android's sideloading functionality caters to pirates. If it's true that they continued to create tools for running homebrew software, adding convenience features, and modifying your own purchased software, then I find this news distressing. But if they did directly cater to and profit from being directly involved in piracy (like if they sold consoles preloaded with pirated games, or provided software preloaded with easy-install links to pirated games), then I'm a lot less sympathetic. I don't find it clear which case it is from the article. The article alleges it's the second case, but I'm suspicious they may be spinning the first category as the second.