# Raspberry Pi Pico cuts Xbox 360 glitching from 30 minutes to seconds

> **Key takeaway:** A £5 Raspberry Pi Pico with its PIO blocks replaced obsolete PC hardware to dramatically speed up Xbox 360 fault-injection hacking that previously took over 30 minutes.

**Published:** 2026-10-20T15:53:31+00:00 
**Source:** Adafruit Electronics 
**Category:** open-hardware 
**Canonical URL:** https://fosswire.org/news/raspberry-pi-pico-cuts-xbox-360-glitching-from-30-minutes-to.html 

## Summary
A hardware hacker completed a nine-year Xbox 360 modding project by replacing 2017-era tools with modern open hardware. The original NAND dump over an LPT port would have exceeded 30 minutes; a Raspberry Pi Pico running PicoFlasher now handles the same task in seconds. A second Pico programmed the CoolRunner glitcher via Pico-dirtyJTAG, leveraging the Pico's PIO blocks for ~7.5 nanosecond timing resolution at 133 MHz. The project illustrates how inexpensive open hardware has displaced specialized or obsolete equipment in console security research.

## How the Pico replaced legacy hardware
- **1BL bootloader**: burned into Xbox 360 CPU silicon, verifies Microsoft signatures on all subsequent code; software attacks ineffective
- **Fault injection vector**: ~100 nanosecond pulse on CPU_RESET line causes instruction execution error; researchers targeted `mr` instruction during signature check, turning it into move-zero for code execution
- **2017 bottleneck**: NAND dump over LPT port on old PC exceeded 30 minutes
- **2026 replacement**: PicoFlasher on Raspberry Pi Pico completes same dump in seconds
- **Glitcher programming**: second Pico runs Pico-dirtyJTAG to program CoolRunner Rev D timing files
- **Timing precision**: Pico PIO blocks achieve ~7.5 ns resolution at 133 MHz, critical for reliable glitching
- **Context**: software-only Xbox 360 exploit released same week as blog post

## Why it matters
The project demonstrates that sub-£5 open hardware now outperforms obsolete proprietary interfaces for security research, lowering barriers to hardware reverse engineering. The timing-critical PIO blocks in RP2040-class microcontrollers have become viable replacements for dedicated FPGA setups in some fault-injection scenarios.