Microsoft went on a banning spree this past week and up to one million users have been banned from Xbox Live for having modded consoles. Don't feel sorry for those idiots as you should know not to connect your Xbox 360 to Live if it's been modded because piracy is bad.
IW reports (by way of CNN) that the banning may have had to do with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game showed up on torrent sites days before the official release and Infinity Ward may have put some pressure on getting Microsoft to go on the ban modders.
Users with banned Xbox 360s can still play games, they just can't do anything online anymore. Well, users can sell their banned Xbox 360s on Craigslist, as Hot Blooded Gaming points out.
Anyone in the land of Destructoid get their console banned? And if so, why they hell did you connect online you moron?
[Thanks, BS3Owner!]
Hamza Aziz, Destructoid's Community Director, has been here since day one. He was born when a tiger coughed up a hairball into a pool of ooze. He was one of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before budget cuts. Hamza works as a previews editor and manages a team in San Francisco. To date he has given away tens of thousands of dollars in prizes to readers. What a dick. Actually, Hamza is as kind as he is hairy.
Likes
Super Mario RPG, Halo, iPhone, Videogame cover bands, Super Nintendo
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
118 comments | showing # 1 to 50
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
11:00 AM on 11.13.2009
| 
You can get stealth chips that were previously undetectable by MS.
As for me, I'm not modding my 360. I value that £40 I'm paying for online and the experience I actually get from playing online. Free games isn't going to make me live in a world of singleplayer games any time soon.
Either way, modders suck and have always sucked...too bad they ruined the Halo series for me in 2004 - oh wait, that may have been Bungie...
No, stealth chips are not necessary. It was purely a flash of the DVD firmware if you had a sata cable connection to your pc. M$ made it simple and accessible, that's why the numbers are so high. I'll be posting a blog about it fairly soon if you want to check it out.
Yeah, how dare people install a stronger fan or fix their own system?
They're not just banning pirates, they're banning anyone who does anything to the insides of the console at all.
On one hand, it is totally legitimate to ban people from Xbox Live if they play pirated games.
On the other hand, it is complete bullshit to ban people *just* because they have a mod chip. Since homebrew software and applications are a great tradition in console gaming, it's stupid to punish the people who contribute to it and are some of the most dedicated customers for the console.
They can't tell if you swap a fan out, and only certain system fixes can be detected. Fans and other parts don't have any communication with the mobo at all, they're strictly power. They're banning people with actual system modifications, things that cause an irregularity in how the system operates compared to a stock 360.
Banning isn't enough? Should we shoot them all in the face? Dude, it's just a bit of piracy. These aren't terrorists or anything.
Meanwhile the ones that pirated simply shrug this off because they saved enough money pirating to buy 3-4 360s, and will just wait for another patch / chip so they won't get caught for years again. After they sell their banned 360 for cash of course.
Meanwhile (yes again) in some Microsoft compound, execs are pleased that more people have to get new 360s since demand has dropped for their little RRoD box.
3 million users would have wanged XBL --> MS "Let's ban oh...about 1 million users so it does't crash" --> MS reports 2 million concurrent users as a milestone for the service during the same news cycle.
Why would MS ban a million people that would have raised that golden stat so significantly? Because they knew that many users would have broke the service, and it would have been Xmas 07 all over again. Huge PR disaster following the release of MW2. Dogs and cats living together.
And yes, if you have a modded box and go on live thinking you wont get caught, you are a moron. That's like stealing in front of a security camera, then complaining when you get caught because you thought it wasn't on.
;p
Modifying an automobile is legitimate. Street racing is illegal.
Modifying a console is legitimate. Pirating is illegal.
It's really easy to see that MS is in the wrong here.
(I have no idea what this means, but somebody requested I write it)
Um, the banned Xboxes still play games dude. So you can still get "new parts." You just can't take it online.
Also, you agreed to a terms of service before getting on live: you wouldn't mod your box. It's in the EULA. I know most people just hit "I Accept" regardless, but it actually says you can't do that. People modded their xboxes and took them on live after committing to Microsoft they wouldn't. Heaven forbid they enforce this.
There is nothing wrong with this. Sure, you are all going to nerd-rage about it because you can't steal games anymore and it's oh so unfair, but the point is modders got exactly what they deserved. If they were smart enough to know how to mod the box but dumb enough to go on Live knowing full well the risks, then...well, just desserts.
Also, people from Intel should come over and kill you if you dare to put a new CPU in your PC, and Ford should shoot people in the head for putting a turbocharger in their car.
No, MS is not in the wrong. If you want to make "homebrew software and applications" like you said, you use XNA and publish it through Indie Games. The vast majority of every modded 360 is used to pirate, or cheat in online games.
seriously people that come down so hard on "piracy" need to take a deeper look at what they are supporting and how they want to live their life rather than knee jerking-
that said I think that MS has the right to ban whoever they want from their online service, you mod your console you give up the right to play in their pool- personally if I had a 360 I would like to have a modded one to go online with and another one to screw around with but I don't right now- I was going to et one last year to add to the ps3 and wii but I got laid off right 'bout then- nuff said on all that
You stole, you got caught and you got in trouble so who cares?
The fact you used "piracy" in quotes makes me think you don't believe piracy is stealing.
You can attempt to justify it in any way you like (say the games are "too expensive" or the industry is "evil"), but piracy is stealing. There is no other way around it.
And yes, life is expensive, but guess what? You actually DON'T need games to survive. Yes, you are in a capitolisitic society and want to own everything you set your eyes on, but you actually don't need half of these things. Pirating them is just the same as going to a store and walking out with the box under your coat. It's stealing something you can't/won't pay for. There is no up-side or way to spin this. PIRACY is STEALING.
<i>"Sure, you are all going to nerd-rage about it because you can't steal games anymore and it's oh so unfair"</i>
First of all, I don't have a modded console. Second of all, your opinion that all modders are pirates is simplistic and uninformed.
No, Piracy is copyright infringement. End of story.
Anyone complaining about being banned for having a modded xbox is an idiot. 'You' stole, unfortunately there are too many people doing this because 'you' would otherwise be arrested for theft.
I'm not coming off on a high horse or anything because I download music, but I'm not going to act like a victim and pretend that what I was doing wasn't stealing.