A little more recent than most other posts here, but an odd find nonetheless. I've crossposted this find at Hidden Palace and also am waiting on a response back from Bioware. Later today, I'm going to attempt to take a hex editor to it and get some more concrete details. At a local used game retailer, I purchased a copy of Mass Effect for the 360 about a year ago, and when I took it home, the disc refused to play. I compared it to my roommate's Mass Effect disc and noticed some key differences. I included a picture of the disc for reference and would like to draw your attention to the following points of interest. 1. Different disc art 2. The ring of "Xbox 360" printed around the disc. 3. The ESRB rating listed as RP 4. The disc's region is listed as NTSC U/C so region lockout would not be an issue 5. The XOU number of 623. I don't know what this is in reference to, and would also like to point out that this graphic is a holograph that appears deeper than the rest of the disc art. 6. There is also in the small print under the disc written "Confidential unpublished work" 7. The case that I purchased the game in is a stock Mass Effect normal release case, identical to the one on the original retail release. All the details lead me to believe that this would be a pre-release build meant to be run on an Xbox 360 devkit, but I'm really interested to know exactly what I have my hands on here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I apologize for the blurriness, but the best camera I have right now is on an old phone. The biggest mystery(save the disc contents/hopeful differences from the final) I'm looking to solve is the significance of that XOU holograph.
Are you sure that the disc is real and not a back up? How does the cover feel was it pressed or printed? Hawk
My first thought was that it could be a backup as well, but then, the cover feels like a press to me. Specifically, the art is raised from the disc on any part of the cover that isn't reflective(the Bioware/Microsoft logos, ESRB rating, and aforementioned XOU holograph), so if you run your finger across the disc, you can feel it sinking a fraction of an inch on those portions. It's also perhaps worth noting that when I put the disc in my, or any Xbox 360, I get the green swirl logo followed by the "To play this disc, please put it in an Xbox 360 console" white screen DRE style error message. On the dashboard, it refers to the disc as "Play DVD" only.
Everything you've posted seems to suggest this is a beta disc of some sort. My guess would be some sort of press review version. No point making the cover pretty if it's just used for an internal test I guess the only way to be 100% sure is to use a hex editor. Damn that's a lucky find
If it doesnt boot on a devkit nor on a retail its a backup. Also a simple way to tell its a backup is to put into your pc dvd drive and try to dump the disc with a program called xboxbackupcreator. If it was able to dump the entire ISO, then its a backup. I don't know if I should share this, but I have different versions of backups, even some canadian ones that look very legit. I don't condone piracy, but working in the video game selling business in a third world country, you are bound to see it alot. I dont sell/distribute backups, I merely help stores repair their consoles.
Well, that was a good suggestion, but no, XboxBackupCreator(assuming I'm using it right, I just downloaded it) failed pretty early into reading the disc contents in the file system data area, apparently in a folder designed for junk data: \FillerFiles\zrcdx0zo.jnk I'm going to try and rip it as a DVD next(it has the stock Video_TS and Audio_TS folders as the only two visible by default), and then if I get nothing through that, it's to the hex editor for me.
You can't just dump a 360 DVD with a standard DVD drive, not that easy. You either need a 360 DVD-ROM flashed with 0800 firmware or what is known as a "kreon" drive. I have one in this box and regularly use it to rip various XBox discs. If you'd like I can dump this for you keeping 100% confidentiality. Obtaining your own drive is pretty damn easy but for all but the most experienced flashing the drive can be nerve wracking but really pretty easy if you double check everything.
It's not a promo DVD, any time you put it in a DVD player it spits out the same green swirl, white screen "Please put in XBOX 360 console" error message. Which is still as of this point the only thing I can access on the disc. However, I have to admit that after finally getting some back reading done on this site (which I love and has consumed probably 13 hours of my life already), I'm getting a little spooked about the legality of divulging anything I might find on this disc. I will say this, though, I see what you mean about not being able to just dump with a regular drive APE, I went through a handful of games in my library(DDR Universe, Ridge Racer 6, Fable 2, VF5, Left 4 Dead, retail Mass Effect, Orange Box, Bayonetta) and when trying to rip the video ISO from the disc, I get an error message stating "Can't read alt pfi." But then, what's interesting is I don't have that problem with this weird Mass Effect disc. I finally got a good read on the hex of one partition of this disc, and very close to the beginning, it gives a sequence of numbers which to me could be construed as a date and time: "2006030621090700" Or, 2006.03.06 21:09:07. I thought that would be in reference to the splash video that plays to let you know that Xbox 360 games go in the Xbox 360, but I tested that idea with the Limited Edition bonus content DVD of Perfect Dark Zero(which I rationalized there probably wouldn't be any post-2005 printings of) and the same video is present, even though I can't look at any of the hex. If that is a date for something relevant on this disc, it's gotta be something REALLY early in the development, because that date would fall a solid 1-1.5 years before the retail release of the title. Which led me to my next revelation. When I was closely eyeing the disc and noticed the "Confidential Unpublished Work" text, I couldn't make out whether the copyright date on the disc was 2006 or 2008. Well, since Mass Effect came out in 2007, I guess that answers my question, and lends some credence to the date I've found in the code. Man, this is really fun if not totally life-consuming research.
The data you're able to grab with a standard DVD drive is 100% worthless, unless you really enjoy watching "Play this disc on an XBox 360" movies.
