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The x360Key is an Xbox 360 USB loader device and was the first in the world to be announced, it is being produced by the same team that brought us the WiiKey range of chips for the Wii. With all the trouble that drive flashing is having today we here at modsupplier.com firmly believe that USB loader devices such as the x360key will be the future for people wanting to safely store their valuable original games on an external hard drive for safe keeping and more convenient loading. The x360key installs inside your console fat or slim and once installed you have a neat little external OLED remote that you connect your external USB storage devices to and can then navigate the titles on your external USB media to then select and load. There are now also another two ways to control the X360Key and we talk more about that below.
Not only can you use the external remote to navigate your USB HDD, but since a firmware update that was released late 2011 you now also have the option of using an on-screen menu interface similar to what Wasabi had done. On top of that there has been an add-on product released which you can buy separately called the X360Key Wi-Fi dongle and what this allows for is control of the X360Key using your iPhone, iPad or any Android device. So in short there are three different ways you can control the unit, using the OLED remote, an on-screen menu interface or if you buy the Wi-Fi dongle you can control the X360Key using your iPhone or any Android device, it just gets cooler and cooler as firmware updates come out. Using the X360Key means no longer will you have piles of game discs laying around and all your titles can be loaded from a USB hard drive with ease, there is of course the huge benefit that you will no longer have to worry about games being scratched or the kids losing them which we all know happens more than we would like. There is also the other upside that you will no longer be using the consoles DVD drive as much and so will extend the life of the laser in your console considerably, changing the drive in an Xbox 360 can be a costly afair.
The installation for the X360Key is also going to be a Solderless one, this is going to be a great thing for people that are ok with taking things apart but have never ventured into the next level of soldering which can be a big step even for people that are confidant with building PC’s for example. There is one drawback right now which is that you will need a copy of the drive key which is located in the DVD drive of your console, to retrieve the key from your DVD drive this requires special tools such as the x360USB pro & CK3 Lite for example, but since a lot of people have already been flashing their own drives with a custom firmware they already have these tools and are confidant with retrieving the key from their drives. For those that do not have the tools already we offer an install service when ordering and you can send you console in for us to install the x360key for you. The team is planning to implement a feature on so that it can extract the drive key for you to then install on the MicroSD memory card supplied, but there is no date on when this feature will be implemented. Apart from the key extraction the x360key install should be pretty straight forward, there are plenty of videos on YouTube on how to disassemble your console and we are sure the team will also have very detailed guides on the process once the product is out in the wild.
Now we will go a little more into detail about what the X360Key actually is and the methods behind its function. For those of you familiar with the Wode Jukebox for Wii the X360Key is pretty much along the same lines, it’s a optical drive emulator, this means the device itself is capable of emulating the DVD drive inside of your console, when enabled your console will see your external USB storage devices connected to the device as being the actual DVD drive inside your console talking to the motherboard. We are really big fans of this technology here as it comes we believe with less problems associated with traditional flashing of the Xbox 360 DVD drives with a custom firmware which once again we talk a little more about below. Just like the Wode Jukebox the X360Key is also running an internal Linux kernel to be able to provide this optical drive emulation, so in a way it is a little computer in its own right. This is a good thing as it means it will be able to handle complex updates to its core firmware and for whatever reason needs a fairly complex change to how it functions due to a change in the Xbox 360 drive firmware or motherboard firmware that the team should be able to create an update for the devices O/S that can cater for the changes.
Another massive feature that is planned to be added to the X360Key with a future firmware update after release is the ability to make legitimate backups of your original games onto your external USB storage devices using the Xbox 360 console itself, once again this is one of the most popular functions of the Wode Jukebox for Wii and will of course be a huge feature for the X360Key as well. They have not given an ETA on this feature being implemented into the firmware but we would say it will be within a few months of its release. Until then people can use the traditional means of making backups of their original titles using a Kreon drive, we sell these in our Xbox 360 service parts section and they are not overly expensive and for now an easy means to make images of your original games to store on your external hard drives for the X360Key to load. But once they release the firmware update which enables you to use the DVD drive in your console itself to backup right to your external hard drive it’s going to be a perfect all in one package just like the Wode is now for Wii.
As some of you might already know the latest dashboard updates for the Xbox 360 now reflash your drives firmware, if the drive is running a custom firmware such as LT+ this new dashboard update will remove your custom firmware and return the drive to a stock firmware. This means you will now have to either pay someone to re-flash the drive or do it yourself, why this is starting to look like it will become a real pain is because if every dashboard update from here on in re-flashes your drive back to stock you will need to flash it every time a new dashboard update is released with a custom firmware. For those paying people to flash your drive this is going to become a costly process that eventually you are going to get sick of paying for, also if you are doing it yourself you are quite quickly going to get sick of having to open the console every month or so to update the drives firmware again. This is where X360Key will shine, these dashboard updates will not affect it at all, once it’s installed it leaves your drive with a stock firmware and so when these dashboard updates do come out they won’t have any effect on the hardware itself.
Now there is the possibility that if they make changes to the drives firmware that an update for the X360Key will need to be released for it to support the new firmware type it is needing to emulate your drive for the USB loading function, but we don’t see this as being a big problem as we know the team is known from their past products to offer updates fairly quickly in most cases and being the X360Key is their new baby product we believe it’s going to get super support and if any updates are needed to support new firmware types loaded onto drives from dashboard updates they will get onto this quick smart.
As you will see from the message at the bottom of this page the x360key are now in stock and shipping. The x360key release date was Oct 14th which is when we received our first shipment and were all sent out, we received our second shipment Oct 28th and all pre-orders from April until the 28th of Oct were filled and we have a lot of happy customers. The stock received on the second shipment were the v1.1 models also known as the R7-2 where the team had changed the design slightly. The difference is they have now dropped the micro USB cable coming from the mainboard to the external remote and decided to use a FCC flat ribbon cable design, we believe this was due to some of the problems associated with the Micro USB cables that some users were having with the first production models to hit the market. The other big difference now is this flat ribbon cable runs from the mainboard out to a little USB dongle that connects to the USB port on the 360 and then a cable runs from that back to the remote, this has been done because the old design was not allowing enough power to be sent from the remote to the harddrives and a fair few 2.5” non self powered USB drives were not able to work, this new design is intended to increase the power supplied by the X360Key remote so to better support more non self powered 2.5” drives. All stock being sold now are the v1.1 or R7-2 models and when we go back to pre-orders for the 3rd shipment we expect these to be the R7-2 models as well, that is if the team does not make another revision in the meantime, if they do we will update this section of the page.
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X360Key Xbox 360 Consoles Supported
With almost all Xbox 360 consoles supported on release the X360Key is going to be a big hit... |
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The x360key Xbox 360 USB loader is going to support pretty much all Xbox 360 consoles on release, all of the first fat 360 consoles will be supported in the release firmware and the team has been working hard on adding support for almost all Xbox 360 slim consoles as well, since it’s first announcement the team has added support for the Lite-On 0401 and in Sept they announced support for the 1071 drives as well, so there is only really the Hitachi 0500 and Lite-On 1175 drives that are not currently supported but we know the team will be working hard to add support for these in a future firmware update. We have a table below that shows all drives currently supported and as the team announces support for the drives not currently supported we will make sure to keep updating this table so customers know if their drive is supported or not. | |
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X360Key Xbox 360 USB Loader Features
With features like this who wouldn’t want an X360Key for their Xbox 360 Fat or Slim console... |
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Like we made mention above the X360Key is an Xbox 360 USB Loader, it’s going to give you the ability to load backups of your original games right off any external USB storage devices. This is going to save you worrying about scratched discs or games being lost, it’s also going to go a long way to helping extend the life of the laser in your consoles drive. The team have announced they also plan to add in a feature with a future firmware update to allow the X360Key to make use of the DVD drive in your console to make backups of your original games right onto your external USB storage devices for you. The unit comes with a cute little OLED external remote control that is used to select and load up the titles you wish to play on your console. The X360Key is the first Xbox 360 USB loader optical drive emulator and it’s sure to be a hit. | |
| Fat Xbox 360 Drives Supported |
Samsung All |
Hitachi All |
BenQ 6038 |
Lite-On All |
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Slim Xbox 360 Drives
Supported |
Lite-On
DG-16D4S
F/W 9504 |
Lite-On
DG-16D4S
F/W 0225 |
Lite-On
DG-16D4S
F/W 0401 |
Lite-On
DG-16D4S
F/W 1071 |
Hitachi
DLN10N
F/W 0500 |
Lite-On
DG-16D5S
F/W 1175 |
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= Flashing Tools Required To Retrieve DVD Key = RGH Required To Retrieve DVD Key
X360Key HomePage | News | Updates | Installation
How To Check If Your Xbox 360 Slim Has A Green Tick Or Red Tick Drive Type
1. The first thing to check is if your Xbox 360 Slim console has a Lite-On or Hitachi drive, below is a picture that shows you how to tell the difference between a Lite-On & Hitachi drive by comparing the trays of the DVD drives. If your console has the Hitachi please read below under the flashing Warning message which explains how these drives can be done, they aren’t something an end user can do but we can install the X360Key into consoles with these drive types using RGH. If after checking your console has a Lite-On drive from checking the tray please move to the second step below.
2. The second step is to find out if you have a Lite-On DG-16D4S which are a green tick drive or the Lite-On DG-16D5S which are a red tick drive. You need to check the manufacture date on the back of the console, we have an image below that shows you the location on the back of console for the MFR date. If the console was made before Sept 2011 then you will have a Lite-On DG-16D4S, if the console was made in or after Sept 2011 you will have a Lite-On DG-16D5S which are a red tick drive type. Now that you have worked out if your drive type is a red or green tick drive please read everything under the flashing warning message below.
To install the X360Key you are required to extract the key from the DVD drive in your console, this requires special flashing tools to connect the DVD drive from your console to the PC to extract the key. We are going to provide as much information as we can below so you know what tools are required and explain the difference between our “Green” tick & “Red” tick on our drives supported table above.
For Xbox 360 Fat & Slim drive types on our table above with a Green Tick these can be done by using traditional flashing tools to extract the DVD key from your consoles DVD drive which is then used with the X360Key. For customers wanting to use them with the old Fat consoles with Samsung, Hitachi or BenQ drives you will need a tool such as the Xecuter X360USB Pro v2 to extract the key from your drive using your PC & Jungle Flasher. For Lite-On drives from the old Phat consoles you will need the Xecuter X360USB Pro v2 and also the Xecuter CK3 Probe v3 to extract the key using your PC & Jungle Flasher. For customers with the Slim Lite-On DG-16D4S all firmware version drives you will need once again a X360USB Pro v2 to be able to extract the key using your PC & Jungle Flasher software.
For those that don’t wish to buy the tools or feel the installation might be a little too hard we have the option for you to post or drop the console into us for installation.
For Xbox 360 Slim drive types on our table above with a Red Tick these can be done, but the method to get the DVD key is extremely different to the green tick drives. The only way to get the DVD key from the Slim drive models Lite-On DG-16D5S & Hitachi DLN10N is to do what is called a RGH key retrieval. This is a very complex process and really is not designed for end users, to do an RGH to get the DVD key on these consoles requires soldering in a CoolRunner chip to the consoles motherboard, then dumping the NAND from the consoles motherboard and extracting the key from the NAND. Again this is not something an end user should attempt and it’s very easy to kill the console.
The reason we have a “Red” tick on those drive types is because we now offer the service for customers that have these drive types to send in or drop off their console and we can install the X360Key for them using the RGH method to get their DVD key from their motherboards NAND memory chip. This service does cost more, but as above there is a lot more time an effort involved in the install. This is great news for anyone that owns a Slim console with a red tick drive as we are now able to install the X360Key in those consoles for you.
After reading all the information above we now have five options below for you to choose from when ordering from us. Please select the appropriate checkbox below before adding to cart.
1. The first option is “Extract Drive Key & Install Myself”
You would select this option if you wish to install yourself and already have the ability to extract the key from your drive as you have the tools required to do so or are ordering them from us at the same time as the x360key.
2. The second option is “Postal Install Green Tick Drive“
You would select this option if your console has a green tick drive from our table above and you want to post your console into us to extract the key from your drive and then install the x360key for you, note this will add an additional cost of $40.00ex GST. Once you have placed the order with this option one of our staff will be in contact to organize with you how and where to send your console into us for the installation.
3. The Third option is “Postal Install Red Tick Drive RGH“
You would select this option if you have an Xbox 360 Slim console with one of the drives with a Red tick from our table above and want to post your console into us to do the RGH method to extract the key from your motherboard and then install the x360key for you, note this will add an additional cost of $90.00ex GST. Once you have placed the order with this option one of our staff will be in contact to organize with you how and where to send your console into us for the installation.
4. The forth option is “Drop Off Brisbane Install Green Tick Drive“
You would select this option if your console has a green tick drive from our table above and you are in Brisbane and would like to drop your console off at our address in Fortitude Valley for us to extract the key from your drive and then install the x360key for you, note this will add an additional cost of $40.00ex GST. Once you have placed the order with this option one of our staff will be in contact to organize with you how and where to drop your console off for the installation.
5. The fifth option is “Drop Off Brisbane Install Red Tick Drive RGH“
You would select this option if you have an Xbox 360 Slim console with one of the drives with a Red tick from our table above and you are in Brisbane and would like to drop your console off at our address in Fortitude Valley for us to do the RGH method to extract the key from your motherboard and then install the x360key for you, note this will add an additional cost of $90.00ex GST. Once you have placed the order with this option one of our staff will be in contact to organize with you how and where to drop your console off for the installation.
!!! Now In-Stock & Shipping !!!
Stock Shipping Are English V1.1 / R7-2 MODELS
Free Xbox Fat Or Slim Opening Toolkit Included
12-Months Extended Warranty
*** X360Key LED Remote Please Read Below ***
We now have the option of buying the X360Key without the remote pictured above, there is a checkbox below where you can choose with or without the remote, note with remote is selected as the default option because we honestly believe buying without the remote is a bad idea. But since other sellers have started to offer this we must as well. Below are some of the reasons that buying without the remote is not a good idea in our opinion.
1. We can’t offer after sales support if you buy without the remote, it makes it very hard to diagnose issues without the remote
2. Without the Remote you will NOT be able to play multi disc games.
3. You cannot see important information when updating the X360Key without the remote
4. You must enable the on screen menu interface and is the only way to use the X360Key
X360Key Average rating: 4.9 Stars, Based On 16 Reviews
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