Mod chip

Xenium Mod Chip attached to an Xbox. The 2x6 header interfaces the chip with the LPC bus, while the red soldered wire overrides the original BIOS's D0 line. A Mod chip, a portmanteau of 'Modification microchip', is a device used to get around the digital rights management of many popular game consoles, including those made by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo for the purposes of playing backup, imported, pirated, or homebrew games and/or applications. They are used mostly on systems that are CD/DVD-based due to the availability and low cost of blank media such as CD-R s and DVD+/-R s.

Almost all modern console gaming systems have hardware-based schemes which ensure that only officially authorized games may be used with the system and implement regional lockout similar to the scheme used in DVD movies. The specific technical nature of these DRM systems varies by system, and may include cryptographic signing, intentionally unreadable sectors, custom optical media, or some combination thereof. Mod chips are available also for some DVD players, to defeat region code enforcement and user.