The original Xbox was different from the consoles that had gone before, in that its hardware shared much with a PC of the day. It was found to be hackable, and one of the most successful projects to take advantage of it was a media centre. You know it as Kodi, but its previous name was XBMC, for Xbox Media Centre. The last version that still ran on an original Xbox saw the light of day in 2016, so it’s definitely a surprise that a new version has appeared.
XBMC version 4.0 brings a host of new features to the venerable platform, including the Estuary user interface that will be familiar to users of more recent Kodi versions, a better games library, and more. The plugin system has been revamped too, and while it retains the Python 2 version from back in the day it’s promised that a Python 3 update is in the works. That’s right, it sounds as though there will be more releases. Get them from the GitHub repository.
We’re not sure how many of you have early Xbox hardware along with the inclination to use it as a media centre, after all Kodi runs so well on a lot of very accessible hardware. But we’re impressed that the developers of this release have managed so much within the confines of a machine with a 2000s-era spec, and have released it at all.
If you’re curious about Xbox hacking, take a look at some of its early history.
In pog form?
Remember Alf?
What? I’m loving this by the way. Ps hope you are well Jenny xxx LF
I’ve been using xbmc4gamers since yea having a full blown media center on a og xbox is a little silly in 2025
No it’s not.
Considering the og xbox is a half breed tween a pentium 3 and a celeron at 733mhz with a almost ge-force 4 using 64 meg of shared ram and half a microwave worth of power… sorry it is silly
I have mine I used it as my main media center for a good long while but these days its mostly a gaming rig, which is funny as its a game console
I think playing old games is a little silly, and keeping it as a media center makes much more sense. Less e-waste I would think and I’m now very conscious about buying DVDs -video on physical media, so I have ownership. I imagine any new Blu-Ray would come with a big push for streaming media, the equivalent of bloatware. Maybe it’s just clicking “No” a few times, but why do it when I have the media center I want?
At full tilt, which these things will do playing back hd media suck 200+ watts and only at absolute best 1080i I’m sure one could find a better media player
I love my xbox, had it for over 20 years, used it to stream Hulu when Hulu was new. Hacked the crap out of it used it as a media center it was a staple of our living room. It’s still the 2nd most used item in my home office and number 3 is a 3d printer
But its late 90’s tech… a pi 1 and kodi can kick its dick in wile running off a phone charger
I do have a couple xboxen that I converted to media centers, but I haven’t used them in a long time simply because a 733 MHz Celeron does not have enough horsepower for modern display resolutions. And now even s-video and YPrPb TVs are not very common, either. But it was fun while it lasted, and I very much preferred the old UI and the remote.
Vintage. I never used it on the xbox but I used to run XBMC on my computer. Later it got renamed to Kodi, which I also haven’t used in years as i replaced it with Jellfin because I moved from an apartment to a house and I want to watch the same TV show in different rooms.
It’s great to see a new release for vintage hardware. Might inspire some people to find their old xbox and put it to some use again.
“… and I want to watch the same TV show in different rooms.”
KODI works great in a multi-room deployment
MYSQL runs on your home server and is the repository for the DB’s, all the KODI instances point to that, no matter what platform it runs on
Hey, I finally get to use that ftp site again it looks like. 😊
I dunno why youd need ~that~ ftp site again, as most softmods are hosted on github these days and xbmc4xbox is aswell. https://github.com/XboxDev/endgame-exploit
(also a great site for newest latest greatest xbox hacks and helpfull tips https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:ENDGAME)
But yeah, xbins spark memories. hop on irc to get access, and then browsing all the mods and bioses. cool stuff
“We’re not sure how many of you have early Xbox hardware…”
I think you meant to say “We’re not sure how many original Xboxes each of you has…” For me, it’s four, but I assume most HaD readers will report something in the 1-2 range.
12, and that excludes the Sega Chihiro, devkit and spare mcpx-x2 chip.
Wish i had more crystals, those go for a nice price overseas in the Usa.
Yea i have 2 … a 1.6 that my wife gave me circa 2005 and another thift store find that looks like God shat on it (its a 1.4 i think) that one day I will do something with
I ran GentooX on the first XBox, after shortening 2 pins on the RAM chip with a paper clip in order to install the cromwell bootloader.
Those were the days.
Dislike to be that guy, you mean disabled the write protect on the tsop flashrom, nor ram.
see https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:TSOP_Flashing#Disabling_Write_Protection but yeah, cromwell was awesome, I kinda wished back then I really tried linux, took me a few more years to fully adapt.
but talking about ram, https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:RAM_Upgrade you can not only install extra ram on 1.0 till 1.5, recent years some folks found a way to install more ram on 1.6 xboxes aswell. you piggy back the ram and find the selectlines on the underside of the motherboard.
My firend recently was testing semen and in the room – you know which one, there was kodi player – you know what for, so it still serves a purpose in 2025.
How did the semen test turn out? We’re all anxiously waiting
15 million/ml.
Slightly bitter, slightly salty.
Not great, not terrible.
To me it has always been XBMC, especially as the Kodi rebrand is forever tainted by the pirate’s favourites “Kodi Stick” and “Kodi Box”, as slang for a device for watching illegal TV streams.
I wish they would also reboot Kodi. A few years ago, it was a great project, and I loved it! But now it feels like abandonware. Many plugins have stopped working, and hardware compatibility has deteriorated…
Really? That’s a bummer. I use it every day.
Have it side loaded on my LR TV and on an android box in the bedroom with a version that came out in January.
Maybe the plug-ins you’re talking about don’t work due to something beyond their control? Hmmm. Maybe check out that January release?
What has deteriorated in the hardware compatibility department?
Wild. That was my goto media playing solution when it came out. Ran an ethernet cable from my PC to my Xbox. Loved having my library available for the bedroom as well. Complete with the Xbox remote. Made several media centers for friends at that time. Fun memories.
I mean it was XBMP first right? Loved that project til XBMC got fleshed out.
Comments saying this is ‘silly’ aren’t viewing this for what it is. XBMC 4 is not intended to replace your existing media center devices. It’s not meant to compel you to go out and buy an Xbox but rather if you already own an Xbox, this app helps make it more useful and relevant in the modern era.
Yes, a modern Raspberry Pi will outperform an Xbox from 2001… but this can also play Xbox games. Try loading up Halo 2 and playing online on an RPi.