Should't be playing on the live servers! My console is working fine.
1 Million Xbox Live Players Banned
Microsoft takes action against members accused of playing pirated copies of games.
By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek
November 11, 2009 11:31 AM
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) this week booted as many as 1 million players from its Xbox Live gaming service due to the company's belief that they modified their consoles to play games illegally downloaded from file sharing sites.
"All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty, and result in a ban from Xbox Live," Microsoft said in a statement.
The move comes amid this week's release of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", the mostly highly anticipated Xbox 360 game of the year.
So-called warez copies of the game reportedly showed up on pirate sites prior to its release—a development that may have prompted Microsoft to take action, possibly in concert with or at the behest of Infinity Ward, the games publisher.
"The health of the video game business depends on customers paying for the genuine products and services they receive from manufacturers, retailers, and the third parties that support them," Microsoft said.
Xbox 360 consoles are equipped with Digital Rights Management technologies designed to detect pirated software, but some players have successfully "modded", or modified, their machines to circumvent DRM protections.
It was not immediately clear how Microsoft detected the jury rigging.
Consoles banned from Xbox Live will still function if games are played offline, but players booted from the Xbox Live service will not be able to sign into their accounts or engage other players over the Internet.
A player banned from Xbox Live told the U.K.'s Radio 1 that he was "gutted" and "distraught" by the decision. The player admitted paying an electronics shop more than $100 to modify his Xbox so it could play pirated games.
The Xbox Live gaming service counts more than 20 million members, according to Microsoft. Earlier this year, the company extended the Xbox warranty to cover a problem known as "the red ring of death"
This should boost Xbox 360 sales as well!
PS never buy Xbox 360 off eBay...of course it's been banned and you're screwed.
So-called warez copies of the game reportedly showed up on pirate sites prior to its release—a development that may have prompted Microsoft to take action, possibly in concert with or at the behest of Infinity Ward, the games publisher.
I hate groups who release things early. All it does is focus more attention than is needed. If you want to pirate shit fine. At least wait until the street date to release it. Retards.
It was not immediately clear how Microsoft detected the jury rigging.
I'm sure it's either they can now detect modified firmware or they do a check on the media. Some people have said they've been banned and they haven't even played anything so my guess is they can check the firmware on the drive.
Aslanna wrote:
I'm sure it's either they can now detect modified firmware or they do a check on the media. Some people have said they've been banned and they haven't even played anything so my guess is they can check the firmware on the drive.
If that's the case then I should be banned as I have an ancient firmare hack on my machine. (maybe it's so old it's like using landline phones that the cylons can't detect!) My firmware has no stealth.
Either way, it will only hurt for game patches if those are disabled. I get my firmware updates from games that have them installed. The latest game release when a firmware is released, typically has the new firmware on it.
A ban won't brick the console, just prevent connections to live. Essentially they're forced into the same situation that you live in voluntarily.
there's a few stories popping up in a few blogs on how people are complaining that their consoles were not modded and they did nothing wrong. Hopefully they haven't had any false positives.
Animalor wrote:A ban won't brick the console, just prevent connections to live. Essentially they're forced into the same situation that you live in voluntarily.
Well not really. There are a few features that also get disabled. So it's better to not have your console banned if you have the choice.
Animalor wrote:A ban won't brick the console, just prevent connections to live. Essentially they're forced into the same situation that you live in voluntarily.
Well I have to log into a Live Acct for all my achievements, etc as well (although you can create an act offline). Some games force you to log into a Live Acct and you need it for multiplayer local COOP.
I've been reading up on this. Apparently when banned, you bcan't copy games to the hdd any more, your saved games and profile can't be moved to a new console/hdd(they show up as corrupted.
You also can't use the media center extender anymore either. MS ain't fucking around with this..
Yeah that's why if you have a modded console you shouldn't log into LIVE. Which has pretty much been the rule since the original XBOX and LIVE. But people got lulled into a false sense of security with "stealth" firmwares. While they may have been safe in the past my guess is Microsoft learned how to detect them so you're pretty much screwed if you login. At least for now. While I don't have a problem with them banning consoles from LIVE I think some of the functionality disabling is a bit lame.
