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Unlike PCs, the majority of video game consoles are designed only to run hardware and games that meet the console manufacturers approval. Microsoft, with its Xbox 360, for example, wants to avoid users running pirated software or games from firms that have not paid a licensing fee. However, from the early 1980s, hackers and other game enthusiasts have been hard at work trying to make the consoles do more. They have created chips designed to circumvent the machines security, allowing them to play pirated games as well as access the Web. Copyright laws are on the books that ban hardware and software tampering, but this has not prevented a robust and profitable underground industry from selling chips for defeating security systems. With the previous Xbox version, hackers were able to tinker with the console to allow for copying games and storing them on its hard drive. This way users could rent games instead of buying them. In an effort to prevent such hacking, Microsoft has customized the latest version of the Xbox 360 hardware as opposed to utilizing off-the-shelf parts, and has added significant amounts of security. This, of course, presents a challenge to hackers, but so far it seems that no one has been able to fully crack the newest Xbox, although hackers in Denmark contend they have been able to manipulate the machine to allowing for playing some copied games.
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