As reported on Online Blog and elsewhere, a 22-year-old Cambridge graduate has just become the first person to be convicted for modifying a games console - a crime that, however hard I try, I cannot imagine cropping up on Law and Order Criminal Intent.
Importantly though, the felon didn't merely chip his console in order to play imported Japanese dating games. He was selling modified Xbox units complete with larger hard drives each filled with 80 pirated games. However, from October 2003 it has been illegal to perform any kind of modification on a videogame console so import fans could well be in line for the same treatment. Because, of course, the regional coding of videogames is so monumentaly important it must be protected by criminal law.
Anyway, the man was sentenced at Caerphilly Magistrates' Court to 150 hours of community service - outside the court building, weeping Microsoft employees and their relatives screamed for justice and pelted police with warranty-invalidated consoles. That last bit may not have happened.
Did I tell you about the time I enraged Sega Japan by running a feature in DC:UK magazine instructing readers how to bypass the Dreamcast region lock-out? I'd probably be put away for that nowadays.
