Right through the history of gaming, people have loved to modify both software and hardware for fun and for monetary gain. Right from the game hacks on the ZX Spectrum giving you unlimited lives on Manic Miner way back in the 1980s, to XBox flashing services allowing you to keep backups on the XBox nowadays.
Console developers and games makers have had a tricky relationship with gamers and modders who are oftentimes are all part of the same crowd. In one way, they add value to the systems and games - for instance chips that have been modified give great convenience to games players who can download non-sanctioned games from the net. Similarly, software hacks brings extra value to very challenging games, and nowadays it’s even a convention for games producers to build in cheat codes for games players to discover.
But to counter that, software manufacturers state that this type of modding lessens their revenue, as chipmods can also be utilized to circumvent measures to try and prevent illegal copying, and short-circuiting hardware that fixes discs to play just in certain geographical locations. These are compelling grounds for hardware and software developers to perpetually develop progressive steps to make modding more and more tricky.
But whatever the grounds in opposition to chipmods, chip modification is a burgeoning market that isn’t going to go away.
