Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Project Plex-Box 332

Posted by CmdrTaco from the fun-hacks dept.
Greasy Spoon writes "Behold! The most ultimate XBox in the whole world. After growing tired with the dull black appearence of this guy's XBox (even with the green lighting skin added) he decided to spruce it up a bit."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Project Plex-Box More

Project Plex-Box

Comments Filter:

  • Pretty boring (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheGrimace ( 626238 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:09PM (#7579589)
    It's an XBox in a plastic case. Somehow that just doesn't excite me much.

    • Re:Pretty boring (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's going on sale soon at eBay. /. has just been used for promotion.

    • Re:Pretty boring (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JudgeFurious ( 455868 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:20PM (#7579883)
      My thoughts too. "This? This is the ultimate XBox?"

      So basically all I need to do is replace the body on my corvette with a square plex box that a monkey could assemble to have the "ultimate Corvette" right? I'll pass.

      Post the story where some guy takes the existing XBox chasis, makes a mold of it, and casts his own in aluminum or clear plastic with lights inside of it and it might be worth the slashdotting that this guy's going to get.

      • Re:Pretty boring (Score:5, Funny)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday November 27, 2003 @10:56PM (#7580145) Homepage Journal
        Not like this really matters, but if you are going to make one out of aluminum, you are not going to cast it. Cast aluminum is not that sexy. You're going to have to machine it. I suggest bead blasting and then anodizing it black afterwards, but of course the color is up to you, and a polished aluminum Xbox would be pretty sexy, too.

        Injection molding on a home scale is possible but that requires far more intense machining than making a new case for an Xbox, as you have to make molds, and machine them to a mirror finish. If you were going to make a plastic case you'd be far better off gluing it. The glue used for acrylic (aka, plexiglass) is simply acrylic dissolved in some kind of solvent; the same solvent will bite into the new acrylic. If you do a good job gluing it's very difficult to tell where acrylic has been glued.

        Aluminum is definitely the way to go in my book, because it hasn't been done to death. I would very much like to make an aluminum case for my game boy and game boy player - separate cases of course, as they are now - that would make it match my red game boy SP. But then, where do you stop? If I make a case for the GC, I'm going to have to make a controller, too. But, a metal controller is going to get wicked hot, so then I'm going to need to add cooling fins and a fan, and before you know it I've dropped it in my lap and it's assaulted my crotch. No no, far better to let someone else do that shit, and make aluminum parts for my car, instead.

      • Post the story where some guy takes the existing XBox chasis, makes a mold of it, and casts his own in aluminum or clear plastic with lights inside of it and it might be worth the slashdotting that this guy's going to get.

        Casting? Fsck that. Post the story where some guy takes the existing Xbox chassis and has a replacement made out of milled titanium, or maybe milled lucite. But casting? That is so 1999.

    • Re:Pretty boring (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:40PM (#7579949)
      Give the dude some credit now. It takes talent to turn a $179 computer into a $600 computer.
      • It takes talent to turn a $179 computer into a $600 computer.

        Yeah, as opposed to Microsoft which has been turning a $600 computer into a $179 computer for the past two years.
      • It takes talent to turn a $179 computer into a $600 computer.

        Not really. After you pay for the Windows license...

    • Plastic! What *will* they think of next? Aluminum? Now what I'd really like to see is a mad overclocker make a case out of pure Magnesium.

    • Re:Pretty boring (Score:5, Funny)

      by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Friday November 28, 2003 @12:19AM (#7580342) Homepage Journal
      The developer version of the x-box is a transparent x-box case anyway.

      This really is more boring than you'd imagine!

  • "My XBox is naked!!!..." (Score:4, Funny)

    by tombou ( 233875 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:12PM (#7579604)
    "My XBox is naked!!!...

    but it doesn't light up, and that's a problem for me..."

  • Great... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Thargok ( 661682 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:12PM (#7579605)
    The God of Hubris sits in amazement as he wonders what is so great about a plastic to plexiglass with lights conversion. He then realizes how easily the title of 'God of modding' is and is content with hubris.

    • "God"? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by t0ny ( 590331 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @11:51PM (#7580277)
      If he really were the god of modding, you would think he could make something that didnt look like somebody dumped parts into a fishtank.

      IMO, it looks worse than before he started. BTW, "God" needs to learn to use a spellchecker before he posts a page on the internet.

  • Key-lock (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zagar ( 610861 )
    I like the key-lock concept, great way to prenvent your children from playing when you don't want them to be playing.

  • Mixed feelings (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jptechnical ( 644454 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:14PM (#7579618) Homepage
    While I applaud your for your efforts, isnt this thing a little big? I mean it looks like it has twice the volume of the other case.

    I would be more impressed if you took some of the original shape or something so you could look at it and still recognize it as an XBOX.

    complaining aside, good work with the plexi, I would have a mishapen mess and nothing but scratches and abrasions

  • Behold ! (Score:2, Funny)

    by xeniten ( 550128 )
    The most ultimate slashdotting in the whole world!

  • Oh oh ........ (Score:3, Funny)

    by jobbleberry ( 608883 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:15PM (#7579629)
    I guess this voids his waranty then :)

  • Looks great, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi@[ ]oo.com ['yah' in gap]> on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:16PM (#7579634) Journal
    does it cook a turkey in under 3 1/2 hours?

  • Seems to me ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Niet3sche ( 534663 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:17PM (#7579639)
    That this is not in the spirit of modding. For instance, when he says, "look for it on ebay soon!", it sucks all the joy out of it for me. I thought that we, as a Geek Collective, made mods to overcome limitations imposed on our tastes. Instead, this seems to just be a mod to sell for profit.

    I'm not sure how this sits with me.

    My $.02

  • Thats one dead server... (Score:3, Funny)

    by node159 ( 636992 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:17PM (#7579640)
    Ohh the HUMANITY!

  • mirror (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ultrapenguin ( 2643 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:19PM (#7579649)
    here [pbx.mine.nu].

    I don't understand though, most people case mod to make things smaller/nicer.
    He managed to take an already huge XBox and turn it into something even bigger.
    Why not just put a normal PC inside that case then? Heh.
  • he decided to spruce it up a bit

    That's nothing. Check out this spruced-up case mod [nhnursery.com].
  • It looks like its twice the size of the original X-Box. I can understand why someone would want to put the X-Box in a new case, but quite frankly this looks worse than the original casing. Im not particularly impressed!

    nick ...

  • Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tyler Eaves ( 344284 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:23PM (#7579673)
    He took something in a big, and ugly case, and then put it in an even bigger, and uglier case. Um, right. Even funnier, at the bottom of the page:
    The Final picture. Project Plex-Box is a sucess. Look for it to go on sale on ebay soon!
    He actually thinks someone will buy it? I'm not sure which is smaller, his brain, or his...well, you know.

  • God of modding? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:24PM (#7579682)
    I'd think god would have steadier hands with a dremel tool....
  • Not to cross the threads, but if he did two of these, would they be X-Boxen?

    If someone could post a complete linguistic analysis leading to a 100-post flamewar, that would be nice.

    Thanks.

  • Call to MS X-Box support... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:26PM (#7579690) Homepage
    <owner> My XBox DVD Rom drive is broken.
    <MS> Ok, no problem sir, we can replace it - is your warranty still valid?
    <owner> Well, it's in date...
    <MS> Have you done anything like adding a new hard disk sir?
    <owner> Errr, no... not as such... just some small comsmetic changes in fact.
    <MS> Stickers? Those are covered.
    <owner> Not exactly.
    <MS> Paint? I think we can live with that.
    <owner> Well, I sort of ripped it apart and made a new case for it.
    <MS> ?!
    <owner> Which glows. But thats not why it's broken! I never went near the DVD with the hammer when I was taking the case apart.
    <MS> !!
    <owner> Hey, when you take it back for repair, you will be careful not to scratch the pexi glass right? Or break the soldering on the new LEDs.
    <click - call terminated>
    • The Xbox warranty lasts for about five minutes. Rumor has it that as soon as you open the box, it expires. I was originally planning to buy a used Xbox so I could mod that, and then use my shiny new one with Xbox live, but I'm going to do the opposite and buy a used one for that, because the new one I bought has the dope dvd-rom drive that reads everything.

      Note that my mods do not include a really extremely ugly magnification of all that is wrong with the Xbox.

      • Thanks for the link about bzboyz.com and Pricewatch!

        A while back, I bought a couple motherboards from them - and I thought they had excellent prices. They took a little longer than I liked to ship my items, but I get that with most of the bargain-priced vendors on Pricewatch anyway. (I think they purposely take their time getting shipments out the door for anyone who only pays for "standard" shipping. I suspect they make a tidy profit on overcharging for priority/express type shipping....)

        With a name l
  • "most ultimate" - that's a rather strange phrase, I think. Doesn't the word ultimate already imply that something is, well, ultimate? There shouldn't be different levels of ultimacy...

  • This guy and his "box" on Ebay (Score:3, Interesting)

    by felonious ( 636719 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:30PM (#7579709) Journal
    I saw this guy and this exact plexbox on ebay yesterday. I just looked as I was going to post the url but it seems to have vanished? It wasn't selling for much more than the normal $179. I have a feeling ebay performed a dmcation on it since it was modified from it's original state??

    I sold a jason costume on Ebay after halloween and ebay and Warner Bros/Bitches I was infringing on their copyright? I told them to fuck off since I was selling a costume I bought from a company that was manufacturing it. All this dmca/drm shit is getting beyond ridiculous...
  • It's the most ultimate XBox!

  • Orac anyone? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonent.stonent@pointclark@net> on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:32PM (#7579716) Journal
    It needs a few more blinking lights and a pedantic voice, but it could be done!

  • thanks for clarifying (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ravagin ( 100668 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:34PM (#7579718)

    Ahh, I see. The most ultimate. As opposed to the less ultimate ones, such as the moderately ultimate and least ultimate.

    talk about the penultimate x-box.

    (heh also note the way the submitter just copied the webpage text and changed a few personal pronouns. i am in awe of such laziness.)

    • The first thought that came to my mind was, "Oh, I guess this must be the *first* publicized X-Box mod - making it an automatic most ultimate." There's no way it rates even a "most mediocre" in my book, otherwise.... It's a downright waste of time and materials, really.

      I thought the fascination with transparent cases ended somewhere around the time Radio Shack stoppe selling those see-through "Princess style" telephones and Motorola quit making the transparent pagers?
    • (heh also note the way the submitter just copied the webpage text and changed a few personal pronouns. i am in awe of such laziness.)

      Well, at least he removed the broken entities Word stuck in there, since the page owner was too lazy to actually write his page in valid HTML.

    • On top of that, couldn't spell worth sh!t. That person also doesn't proofread or test their HTML, had several ampersand NBSPs and other amp. HTML symbols that had no semicolon. Sad to say, the crapbox sold on eBay for $305.

  • Quick Capsule Review (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nathdot ( 465087 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:38PM (#7579736)
    To quote the late great Bill Hicks:

    "Quick Capsule Review: 'Piece Of Shiiit!'"

    Seriously. It's fucken ugly. There's a reason more manufacturers out there aren't investigating clear perspex. Computer insides are not aesthetically pleasing.

    So the next time you're thinking about modding your boxen stop and say to yourself: "Can I do better than simply dumping my computer's insides into a fish tank?"... The answer, if you're wondering, is a resounding yes.

    • Re:Quick Capsule Review (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kris_J ( 10111 ) *
      It really is ugly. Now, if someone had manufactured a replacement Xbox case that was completely clear, that *might* be interesting. If www.thebestcasescenario.com did an Xbox mod I'm *sure* it would be interesting.

  • Why? (Score:3, Funny)

    by trystanu ( 691619 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:46PM (#7579763) Homepage
    1) Build ugly ridiculous looking xbox mod, because I can
    2) ...
    3) Make ludicrous amounts of money

    Is step 2 slashdot+eBay?

  • Another lame mod... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kulic ( 122255 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:47PM (#7579766) Homepage
    Is it just me or are all case mods the same these days? Add plexiglass, lights, leds, maybe vaguely interesting feature (X2 logo).

    Does anyone else remember when case modding used to be cool? Where are the stylish custom stickers? (some nice ones on penny-arcade a while ago) The lego man stuck in cryo in the optical mouse? (too lazy to go find this link too)

    Why isn't anyone pulling apart their CD/DVD tray and making that out of plexiglass?

    In summary, novel and innovative=cool, gratuitous use of plexiglass and lights=lame. (Soz for all the whining).

    • Re:Another lame mod... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Palverone ( 166646 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:26PM (#7579901) Journal
      1st link in google! you are super-lazy

      http://metku.net/cryo/
    • I agree. This is just lame... and complete lack of originality by far.

      OKAY CASE MOD'ERS, IT'S TIME TO BECOME ORIGINAL!!!

      Maybe if you left your parent's basement, you would develope some sense of originality... but, even in these pictures, it's obvious this guy is a permenant dweller of his parent's cellar.

    • Re:Another lame mod... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kulic ( 122255 )
      All right, feeling less lazy now. Cryo lego man is here [slashdot.org]. The penny-arcade custom stickers are here [penny-arcade.com].

      Meanwhile, I think I have worked out a nice business plan:

      1. Make (lame) X-Box case mod.
      2. Make self-congratulatory webpage (don't forget to have a sucker friend pose in the photos).
      3. Put X-Box on E-Bay [ebay.com].
      4. Post to /.
      5. Profit???

      Methinks my business plan has been stolen already...
    • I agree wholeheartedly. Perusing this mod I scrolled down to find the logo. Surely something original here, I thought, not just a big X. He added a 2 - but the quality of the logo is poor - both aesthetically and technically.

      The 'most ultimate' Mod on any hardware should combine technical and design excellence to produce something genuinely entertaining (even if the entertainment only lasts 10 seconds).

      Personally I'd rather see a plain vanilla Dell Dimension box with a plexiglass DVD tray than this hideou

  • cease and desist (Score:3, Funny)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:48PM (#7579768) Homepage Journal
    This is to notify you that you are in violation of the DMCA. All MS hardware includes proprietary encrypted screws and advanced adhesive patented security technology to protect our IP. By removing these technological protections, and exposing the underlying technology, you have violated more IP rights than you can possible imagine. You are a terrorist. The FBI will soon be at your house to throw you in a dark deep dungeon.

  • THIS LOOKS LIKE ASS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thelizman ( 304517 ) <hammerattack@ya h o o . c om> on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:00PM (#7579812) Homepage
    Lissen up folks, just because someone does a really good job cutting plexi and mounting stuff to it doesn't make it a good case mod. It's a box. My dead granny can make something more imaginitve than this.

    • Re:THIS LOOKS LIKE ASS (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      DUDE! THAT'S IT!

      Ok, first off we dig up your dead granny, completely get her done up at the nearest taxidermist so as to preserve her present appearance (I'm thinking we get either a case that looks like something from Dawn of the Dead or worst case just an old lady with a fairly life like appearance depending on how long she's been dead) and then here's the good part... MOUNT THE XBOX inside her corpse!

      If she's been in the ground a while it would be one hell of a cool Resident Evil machine!

  • It's obvious why he did this... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Osrin ( 599427 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:01PM (#7579818) Homepage
    Clearly (based on the pics) he does not own a TV, leaving the xbox itself as the only form of physical entertainment.

    The black box must have been as boring as hell.

  • Mass-produced replacement cases (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blincoln ( 592401 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:04PM (#7579831) Homepage Journal
    I'm really surprised that more manufacturers haven't jumped on selling replacement transparent and/or coloured cases made to otherwise look like the originals for the most recent wave of consoles.

    It's easy to find them for the PS1 and Dreamcast, so why not the current ones?

    This is the kind of thing I'm talking about [lik-sang.com].

  • All it needs now (Score:4, Funny)

    by KalvinB ( 205500 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:14PM (#7579867) Homepage
    is a spoiler.

    Rice-Box(tm)

    Ben
  • http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?s=070631998 8c808fc1d56e5019740786f&act=ST&f=24&t=71196&hl = And we call it X-CRATE

  • Yeah great (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keir[ ]ad.org ['ste' in gap]> on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:22PM (#7579888)
    "Hey guys, I have a swell idea! Let's take an already huge and clumsy game console, and make it even LARGER! In fact, let's make it 3 TIMES LARGER!

    While we are at it, we can increase its already HORRENDOUS power consumption by ADDING MORE LIGHTS!

    This will get us on slashdot for sure!"

    Seriously though, most case mods are cool, but this is retarded. Not only does it look like ass but the form factor is now so huge you could'nt even keep it in your entertainment centre. Plus I bet it is significantly noiser now that it isn't in its native housing.

    The XBox is already a huge ugly console before doing this.

  • Blasphemy! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A shot from a slightly different angle. I am the God of modding, now if only god had a better camera...

    ... and as God read this most blasphemous of phrases he struck out at the web server with a flood of hits, each wave more powerful than the last. All that could be saved were two zeroes and two ones.

  • "This is my friend Brad Price."

    We should all take heart, I suppose, that someone who would embark on a project so geeky can still have a friend.

    Note, however, that he did use an absolute singular: "my friend" instead of "one of my freinds".

  • This gets a story? (Score:3)

    by duren686 ( 463275 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:54PM (#7579993) Homepage Journal
    There have been tons of much better XBox mods. Not only is this one completely unimpressive, it's even butt-ass fugly. It would have been better if MjO's "xXx" mod was posted here.

  • EMI (Score:2)

    by Detritus ( 11846 )
    I cringe every time I see one of these plexiglas masterpieces. It may look cool, for certain values of cool, but where is the shielding?

  • It's craptacular ! (Score:3, Funny)

    by trouser ( 149900 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @10:48PM (#7580128) Journal
    This one time me and my buddies set fire to this old shed and it burnt to the ground and it was like the most ultimate shed mod and then this other time we had a whole case of beer and we drank every can and it was the most ultimate case of beer mod and then this other time I got hit by a bus and killed and I never modded anything again. Fuck.
  • Look in amazment of my leet modding skillz.

    Ph33r also my mind-numbingly shocking command of English, and my consistently retarded inability to put semicolons on the end of my entities! Cower in awe of the fact that I obviously did not even LOOK at the web page after I created it! I am so l33t.
  • don't put a mod chip in it.

    You'll void the warranty.

  • My eyes have been raped. (Score:4, Funny)

    by MindNumbingOblivion ( 668443 ) on Friday November 28, 2003 @12:32AM (#7580387)
    So, for those who were going to read the posts and then go look at the page of crappiness, here's a summary.

    1)Bigger box of plexiglass does not in fact make the Xbox any less of an unholy demonic powered eyesore.

    2)Green lights do not make for less power drain.

    3)A better word for "most ultimate" would be...ultimate

    4)And one of my own...I was surprised at first that it wasn's /.-ed...and then I looked at the page and realized why. Any momentary frying of the server would have resulted from the multitudes of viewers getting to the page and simultaneously trying to back out. Like a drunk frat boy who has a sudden moment of sobriety and notices that the girl he thought was teh h077n355 really might not be all that attractive after all...

  • Most Ultimate? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Twintop ( 579924 ) <david@twintop-tahoe.com> on Friday November 28, 2003 @12:55AM (#7580454) Homepage Journal
    "Behold! The most ultimate XBox in the whole world..."

    If by ultimate you mean large and cumbersome, then yes: you have a valid arguement.

    • If by ultimate you mean large and cumbersome, then yes: you have a valid arguement.
      Wouldn't that make all of them the most ultimate X-Box in the world?

  • This just proves... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rjung2k ( 576317 ) on Friday November 28, 2003 @01:08AM (#7580491) Homepage
    ...industrial design should not be done by amateurs.

  • Wow! What a complete and utter clusterfark! (Score:5, Funny)

    by BiOFH ( 267622 ) on Friday November 28, 2003 @01:29AM (#7580557)
    Wow! That really is the ugliest thing I've ever seen! Thanks, Slashdot, for bringing this piece of crap to our attention. Now hundreds of 1337 g4m0rz who have modded [costumes.org] their PCs with... well the same tubes and LEDs and plexy crap, really... can feel better about their 'Tandy 30-in-One' [comcast.net] lookalike craptastic [hardcoreware.net] boxes! They have truly acheived 1960s electronic chic [de220.com].

    Now, if we could find something to make all those airfoiled, spoilered,prismatic,fiberglass Civic [ebay.com], Prelude and Supra mods look like more than some 6 year old's [drivenbyboredom.com] first attempt at a Revell Mustang kit. They need love too.

    Yours truly,
    The Bitch
  • Most Ultimate Shit, in fact...

    Come ON people, why let SHIT like this get on Slashdot? Have you no sense?
  • If it was any bigger, it's need some tubes and a punchcard maker. Seriously, this thing looks like a computer made by Ford Motor Company in the 60's. It could comfortably seat 4 if it had doors. I really had hoped that the next generation of coders/hackers would continue the tradition of being smart. Now I weep for the future.

  • Wow, that is so amazing. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nodatadj ( 28279 ) on Friday November 28, 2003 @07:00AM (#7581321) Journal
    He managed to make the biggest, bulkiest and ugliest games console on the planet even bigger, bulkier and uglier.

    I guess thats why he's a god of modding.

Slashdot Top Deals

"I've finally learned what `upward compatible' means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes." -- Dennie van Tassel

Close