yah, it's way past that. I don't know what all the groups are called, but there's all kinds of mods for an XBOX...you can even (w/ mod chip) access the HD from the network. Most mods tho do require a mod-chip.
there's iso's all over the place....but from what I've read.....it takes too much for me to risk soldering on my XBOX...i can solder like a 2 year old.......and on top of that.....you have a CD-R issue (some play in it, some don't) and sometimes they recommend just using a DVD-R too...which I don't have.
For me, I just rent games...and if I really like it, I wait till it's out of date, and buy it. Not worth the hassle of modding the ah heck. But the pics of the different XBOX load screen are pretty sweet.
There's even a competition to see if (might be what you're referring too) a group can hack the XBOX to make it run Linux instead of the custom w2k kernel....
What people do in their free time still blows me away. I wish I had the skills to figure sh!t like that out