Microsoft can be sadistic when it wants. It seems part of the company's MO to let pirates and modders enjoy Xbox Live during quiet periods, lulling them into a false sense of security, and then initiating a tidal wave of banhammers once a highly anticipated game is launched. With Gears of War 2 having tantalized gamers all weekend, reports are now coming in that 360s are getting the snip.
In case you don't know how MS operates, once a system is "flagged" as modded or otherwise in violation of the company's TOS, that console is frozen out of Xbox Live and will never be able to connect. Of course, the modder's Gamertag goes unpunished, because far be it from Microsoft to not give you a chance to buy a brand new Xbox legally.
If you were looking for an Xbox 360, now is the time to be wary of places like eBay. A lot of useless 360s will be flying around if a new wave of consoles is being nuked.
What do you think of these notorious "banwaves" that Microsoft unleashes from time to time? I must admit that, even though I had trouble with an unmodded Xbox that was banned, the psychological aspect of this tactic is impressive. Waiting until people get really into a hyped game before cutting them off smacks of a quite delicious cruelty.
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Contest:
2:03 PM on 11.11.2008
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I've always been a bit "hmm" about these bans. On the one hand you just have to take the risk of getting banned with playing backups or pirated content. On the other hand, it's not like people are suddenly going to buy more games if you ban them, and you will just miss out on Live subscriptions and MS points purchases. And if you don't make money off the console hardware, you might as well keep the customers as paying Live members who may still buy XBLA games.
We do need more Hitler gets Banned videos though ;)
BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN
Good show MS.
If this ever happened to the PSP, 99.9 percent of systems would be sold on ebay the next day, ;)
What's wrong with people getting banned for playing illegal copies of games? If they really want to play them, they can stay off Live. If they really want to play them online, they can buy them.
I don't see a problem with it. And I doubt they could do it on the PSP, considering it has crap for online games. :P
what the hell happens if i get ban hammered for no reason?
I love my 360, but modding is why I bought a 360, like the PSP. Without it, it's not so great. I only own a few "real" games.
What if I brought my harddrive to someone's 360 that's modded and went on Live? And then went home and went on XBL on my non-modded system?
I'm glad I have both.
You could always just call Microsoft and dispute the ban. If they look and realize they have no direct evidence that you modded or broke the TOS they will probably lift the ban.
That being said, getting banned from XBL without doing anything wrong is a rare occurrence. If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.
@ Dan CiTi
Microsoft can tell which Xbox you're playing on, so your account would be fine, it's just the modded 360 that would get banned.
You can call. You can dispute.
Nothing will get done. Trust me.
If it's the latter, then they're well within their rights. Not so sure about the former.
They are probably aware that more people are likely to be using their xboxes during this season, which means its probably a good time to do it.
Can you imagine how bad these games would be to play online if they had completely unregulated/unenforced rules and controls on modding?
Pretty stupid though, thinkg "hurr hurr, I'll try a few multiplayer games with my pirated Gears 2 and nobody will notice". I guess that's what you get when you give technology to the masses.
Anyway. Buy the games! If you can't afford them, you have 2 options. You can do without or you can use the fact that you want more games to push you to manage your money or get a better job.
I'll never understand how people can consider themselves a part of the gamer community when they don't even pay for half the games they play. Sure, you're a gamer, but you're dead weight. You are taking without giving and if you get banned you deserve it.
Never going to happen. The serial number is secure inside the CPU and couldnt be changed even if you knew how to build one by hand from scratch. The only course of action you would have would be to change the cpu itself which..probably wouldnt work and since you would need to buy a 360 to get the cpu it would be quite pointless.
I dont have any issue with MS banning modified consoles on live. Im fairly certain they take their time banning for 2 reasons. One is what is listed in the article and 2 is so they can gather evidence. Playing games earlier than everyone else is a small piece. I know they can detect modified firmware as well.
Oh and for anyone who thinks this banning is dumb because MS will only lose money...you can think again. First off you wont get the money you paid for live back. Second chances are pretty good that person will buy another Xbox because the people who mod a console are more often than not true fans of the console. They should also have extra money since they dont buy games.
in the rectum
I M$ want to ban my console from live, fine.
But I own this Box and should be able to do with it whetever I want.
I was playing one of my RPGs and when I was on disk 4 it failed.
It seemd that the disk was broken.
I asked M$ for a replacement disk, but they told me to go to the store where I bought it.
But the store didn't want to give me a new disk 4 either because the warranty of 90 days was over and I didn't had the receipt anymore.
So there I was with my game which I paid good money for.
I had 2 options.
-buy the same game again hoping the disk was OK, more people had problems with the 4th disk of this game. (but I'm not totally retarded)
-flash my drive and download disk 4 from usenet.
Of course I choose the second option since I don't use XBL anyway.
People who think that I should be banned for this should go f*ck themselves.
I didn't pirate anything and I have the right to use this 4th disk cause I paid for it.