Game Console Hacking: Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Game Boy, Atari, & Sega [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Joe Grand (Author), Albert Yarusso (Author), Ralph H. Baer (Author), Marcus R. Brown (Author), Frank Thornton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1931836310 | ISBN-13: 978-1931836319 | Publication Date: January 14, 2005 | Edition: 1

The worldwide video game console market surpassed $10 billion in 2003. Current sales of new consoles is consolidated around 3 major companies and their proprietary platforms: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. In addition, there is an enormous installed "retro gaming" base of Ataria and Sega console enthusiasts. This book, written by a team led by Joe Grand, author of "Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty", provides hard-core gamers with they keys to the kingdom: specific instructions on how to crack into their console and make it do things it was never designed to do.

By definition, video console game players like to have fun. Most of them are addicted to the adrenaline rush associated with "winning", and even more so when the "winning" involves beating the system by discovering the multitude of "cheats" built into most video games. Now, they can have the ultimate adrenaline rush---actually messing around with the soul of the machine and configuring it to behave exactly as the command. This book builds on the motto of "Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty" and will appeal to the community of hardware geeks who associate unscrewing the back of their video console with para-jumping into the perfect storm.

* Providing a reliable, field-tested guide to hacking all of the most popular video gaming consoles.

* Written by some of the most knowledgeable and recognizable names in the hardware hacking community.

* Game Console Hacking is the first book on the market to show game enthusiasts (self described hardware geeks) how to disassemble, reconfigure, customize and re-purpose their Atari, Sega, Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox systems.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joe Grand is the President and CEO of Grand Idea Studio, Inc., a product design and development firm that brings unique inventions to market. An electrical engineer, many of Joe's creations, including consumer devices, medical products, video games and toys, are sold worldwide. A recognized name in computer security and former member of the legendary hacker think-tank, The L0pht, Joe's pioneering research on product design and analysis, mobile devices, and digital forensics is published in various industry journals. He is a co-author of Hack Proofing Your Network, Second Edition (Syngress Publishing, ISBN 1-928994-70-9) and Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box (Syngress Publishing 1-931836-87-6).

Frank Thornton runs his own consulting firm, Blackthorn Systems and as a detective and forensics expert has investigated over 100 homicides and thousands of other crime scenes.


Jon Harbour has been programming video games since the 1980s. His first video game system was an Atari 2600 which he played with disassembled on the floor of his room as a kid. He has written on languages and subjects that include: C++, C#, Basic, Java, DirectX, Allegro, Lua, DarkBasic, XNA Game Studio, Pocket PC, Nintendo GBA, and game console hacking. He is the author of Visual Basic Game Programming for Teens, 3rd Edition; Visual C# Game Programming for Teens; Beginning Game Programming, 3rd Edition; Multi-Threaded Game Engine Design and XNA Game Studio 4.0 for Xbox 360 Developers. Visit his blog and forum at jharbour.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Syngress; 1 edition (January 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931836310
• ISBN-13: 978-1931836319
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #514,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Major Hacks for Game Console Machines, December 28, 2004

By 

Dale F. Farris "leado" (Groves, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Game Console Hacking: Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Game Boy, Atari, & Sega (Paperback)

This is a fascinating, over-sized book that is filled with major hacks for various of today's video game consoles, including the Xbox, PlayStation 2, Nintendo NES, along with the Atari and Gamepark 32. The material assumes some degree of comfort with electronics and electrical engineering, although you do not of course have to be an electrical engineer to perform the hacks. You will need to be comfortable with working with integrated circuits, electrical assembly, soldering wires, and dis-assembling electronic devices. Of course, you will also need to be comfortable with possibly ruining beyond repair the discussed device, if you fail to successfully complete the described hacks.

This is a highly specialized book that specifically targets a unique audience, namely those confident in their skills and abilities to follow the excellent hacking instructions and step-by-step "how to hack" photographs that are replete throughout this important book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More hardware hacking books pleaseeeee!, December 3, 2004

By 

Joseph Duart "JD" (Milpitas, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Game Console Hacking: Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Game Boy, Atari, & Sega (Paperback)

I just received this book days ago and I have read it cover to cover, of course I haven't been able to do all the hacks since it means cracking open many of my systems, but I was especially excited about the Atari 2600 stuff, since I am more into old programming and hacking. This book is one of a kind and I am glad people are starting to write books and develop products that show people how the hardware works as well as the software. I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to experiment with hacking their consoles, also the book is fascinating as a general read. And if you liked this definitely check out "Hackers" by levy, "supercade" by burnham, "once upon Atari" DVD and definitely check out the XGAMESTATION retro game system at www.xgamestation.com if you want to build some oldschool game hardware.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Breathe new life into your old classics..., November 21, 2004

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Game Console Hacking: Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Game Boy, Atari, & Sega (Paperback)

Have you got an old Atari 2600 sitting around that you don't know what to do with? Game Console Hacking will give you some interesting ideas on how to recycle those old gaming consoles.

Chapter list: Tools of the Warranty-Voiding Trade; Case Modifications: Building an Atari 2600PC; The Xbox; PlayStation 2; Nintendo Game Boy Advance; Gamepark 32 (GP32); Nintendo NES; Atari 2600; Atari 5200; Atari 7800; Electrical Engineering Basics; Coding 101; Operating Systems; Index

Although I'm not into gaming so much any more, my kids have had most of the more recent consoles at one time or another. And growing up, I had one of the Atari 2600. But after the latest and greatest comes out, the older gaming systems end up gathering dust. Game Console Hacking is an interesting book on things you can do to breathe new life into the old classics. This book is heavy on altering hardware components, so you need to be comfortable with a screwdriver and a soldiering iron. But even if you're not as experienced in that area as you'd like, the book has an abundance of photos to show exactly what you should be doing at any given point in the process. At the end of each chapter, there's also a section on homebrew game development as well as additional resources on the Web for that particular console. So even if you're not wanting to hack your hardware, you will be able to find information to push your gaming fun even further.

For me, my favorite hack was using an Atari 2600 console to contain a full-blown PC. I thought that was just too cool. I could imagine showing up at a user group meeting to do some software demo with an Atari 2600 under my arm, and blowing people away when I boot it up as a regular PC. I don't know that I'll get around to doing it, but it's an intriguing idea.