I don't mean to cast a shadow on this.... but I've heard it is illegal to mod an X-Box in the United States.... I have brought this up over at Obsidian Entertainment... and people looked into it, and said it was illegal to do....

As far as I understand it that is about making hardware modifications to an X-box to make it more moddable, which for some reason is illegal in the US, not about modding the games on the Xbox itself (which is a separate issue).

Still, I'd presume this is mostly meant to stop stores/companies from selling modded X-boxes (which has not been too uncommon from what I've heard), not to screw over someone doing it at home with their own machine. After all, the warranty will no longer be valid if you do, so no one but yourself will (potentially) be hurt by it.

At least that's the idea I've gotten when I've read about this (I don't have an X-box myself though so I haven't followed the issue all that closely.)

Yes it is illegal to modify the Xbox but don't get them wrong on that an Xbox is not going to get you a life sentence in the slammer and is really more frowned upon then it is illegal anyway. There are I would say more then 1 Million Americans who mod thier Xbox's and not very many of them have been arrested or have had any legal issues what so ever. Basically as long as you do all of your own modifications that do not involve stealing roms or bios from any software and games you should be within your legal limits.;)