Microsoft disconnects Xbox gamers

[The Mackem]

Anyone know anybody affected?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8354166.stm

Thousands of gamers may have been cut off from Microsoft's online gaming service Xbox Live for modifying their consoles to play pirated games.

Online reports suggest that as many as 600,000 gamers may have been affected.

Microsoft confirmed that it had banned a "small percentage" of the 20 million Xbox Live users worldwide.

Microsoft said that modifying an Xbox 360 console "violates" the service's "terms of use" and would result in a player being disconnected.

<!-- E SF -->"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 has said in a statement.

"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."

Many gamers modify their consoles by installing new chips or software that allows them to run unofficial programs. Some chips are specifically designed to play pirated games.

Microsoft has not said how it was able to determine which gamers to disconnect.

"We do not reveal specifics, but can say that all consoles have been verified to have violated the terms of use," the firm said in a statement.

Reports suggest that the ban does not stop the console from working and only affects a gamer's Xbox Live account.

Industry figures suggest that piracy may cost the video game industry as much as £750m a year.

In other news, a UK court has dismissed a man's appeal against an earlier conviction for selling modification chips - "modchips" that allow gamers to play illegal games.

Christopher Gillham's earlier conviction was upheld by Hereford Crown Court which found that playing counterfeit games on a modified console infringed copyrights.

[Kane Knight]

The 600,000 figure came from a joke article. Come on, guys.

[The Mackem]

It's being widely reported here with 'Microsoft confirmation' here. Obviously, I don't own Microsoft yet so I'm just going by what I'm reading.

[Kane Knight]

http://pinoycosplay.blogspot.com/2009/11/microsoft-bans-600k-xbox-live-accounts.html?zx=c732863a4a404ffd

This seems to be the originator of the story....

PinoyCosplay is entirely fictional. Perhaps it doesn't even exist. No animals were harmed in the making of its articles. Any and all resemblances to real people, places, or things dead or living are coincidental. Its content is not publicized in any way, shape, or form, and is purely for the entertainment of its creators.
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[DAMN iNATOR]

The moral of the story here is: Everything will all work out just fine in the end if you just do whatever you please without worrying about the consequences. :y:









:shifty:

[The Mackem]

Interestingly enough that 600 000 figure is rising to 1 million if some reports are to be believed. So we'll work on the 'small percentage' basis for now.

[Kane Knight]

The 360 has a 360% failure rate if some reports are to be believed.

[The Mackem]

I'm just surprised how fast it travels. Before that blog it was just a 'small percentage'. People start picking up the 600 000 figure and then run with it although their tends to be 'if reports are to be believed'. However it's coming across as truth. The news industry is awful at the moment.

[The Destroyer]

Good old news Chinese whispers.

[The Mackem]

The guys on the blog were Phillippine.

[Kane Knight]

The guys on the blog were Phillippine.

So they were trannieS? Hanso's all over this.

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[The Mackem]

*A small percentage of Hanso will be all over this

[Kane Knight]

But it will be reported as much larger....
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[Boomer]

I don't know if its near that number, but pretty much everybody who has a modded console has either been banned or isn't logging back on XBL with their 360 to prevent themselves from being banned. Its a big ban wave, much larger than any of the other ones that have happened.

[CSL]

How long does this flashing gimmick take? I'm pretty good with electrics, common sense, following instructions/tutorials etc. I have a 360 just sitting around doing nothing and I need to get hold of a heat gun before fixing my PS3 so wouldn't mind a console stop gap, especially with free games

[Boomer]

Depends on the DVD drive inside the 360, but if you know what you are doing, no more than five minutes.

And I did go a bit extreme on my comments. Everybody isn't banned, but a lot more that usual. And people who are still online right now with mods are playing with fire.

[Vietnamese Crippler]

10 -15 minutes to take apart the system.

Another 5 - 10 minutes to flash. Mostly depending on what drive you have.

[LuigiD]

People will always mod.
Having traveled quite extensively, people around the world can't afford to dish out 50 bucks for a game every other week. In Italy and Latin America, bootlegs everywhere on the streets. A lot of other places too. I have heard of the same in Russia.

[Ogen]

People will always mod and companies will always try stop them, no sympathy for anyone involved. People shouldn't be stealing from the games companies and the companies shouldn't be charging the price they do for most of the mediocre crap out there.

Never bothered chipping my xbox as I only really play online so losing that would leave me needing a new one,

[El Fangel]

I agree fully with Ogen, Paying $70 for a game that is utter shit is going to piss people off of course. Though perhaps the prices are that high because people who pirate make the profit margin smaller.

Double edged sword it seems, games you dont pay for make the ones you do more expensive.

[Kane Knight]

I agree fully with Ogen, Paying $70 for a game that is utter shit is going to piss people off of course. Though perhaps the prices are that high because people who pirate make the profit margin smaller.

Double edged sword it seems, games you dont pay for make the ones you do more expensive.

Bullshit.
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[G]

one of the main reasons why games are consistently priced, is because selling your game for cheaper would be like saying you have an inferior product. games like cod can set their price so high because it'll sell no matter what, but unfortunantly that means everyone else has to follow suit.

[Fignuts]

If you waste 60 dollars on a mediocre game, you have no one but yourself to blame. You don't have to be a hardcore gamer to take 5 minutes to check out a few reviews online.

[Cool King]

A friend of mine got disconnected from XBL around the begining of the year because he chipped his 360 and played pirated games on it.

I don't think it really bothered him though. :-\

[dablackguy]

Fuck em, they were stealing

[El Fangel]

If you only play pirated games offline and real ones online, what would happen?

[loopydate]

If you waste 60 dollars on a mediocre game, you have no one but yourself to blame. You don't have to be a hardcore gamer to take 5 minutes to check out a few reviews online.

Or Blockbuster or Gamefly or any number of rental places to try before you buy. I only buy games that I know I'll play over and over and over. I'm broke as shit, so that doesn't help either, but my local Blockbuster keeps me gaming.

[Boomer]

If you only play pirated games offline and real ones online, what would happen?

There's still a debate going on about this. Some say the hacked firmware can be detected by MS, while the creators think its more of a problem of the burned discs going inside the console. Some people, however, have sworn to getting banned with a modded drive without ever putting a hacked disc in a console. Don't know why you would mod a console only to play originals, honestly.

[El Fangel]

Obviously they cannot detect if you are not connected to the internet, is it possible to unflash/unmod your system so you could play online and not be detected?

[Fignuts]

I don't think I've bought a bad game since the 16-bit era.

[Verbose Minch]

Obviously they cannot detect if you are not connected to the internet, is it possible to unflash/unmod your system so you could play online and not be detected?

Supposedly it registers it offline, and when you connect it gets you.

[El Fangel]

Wow, what assholes. Haha.

[El Fangel]

Just never connect to XboxLive then.

[Kalyx triaD]

Pirate scum.

I should warn my brother.

[Fignuts]

Wow, what assholes. Haha.


Fuck em, they were stealing

[Funky Fly]

I agree fully with Ogen, Paying $70 for a game that is utter shit is going to piss people off of course. Though perhaps the prices are that high because people who pirate make the profit margin smaller.

Double edged sword it seems, games you dont pay for make the ones you do more expensive.
Only on the PC, Wii, DS, PSP and older consoles. The amount of console piracy on the 360 and PS3 is relatively small and nonexistant, respectively. By comparison, PC, Wii, DS and PSP titles tend to be cheaper anyway. That leads me to concur with the following quote:
Bullshit.

one of the main reasons why games are consistently priced, is because selling your game for cheaper would be like saying you have an inferior product. games like cod can set their price so high because it'll sell no matter what, but unfortunantly that means everyone else has to follow suit.

Partly, but it's also that some delusional lesser companies are making a cash grab and rising development costs (Modern Warfare 2 and other cutting edge games with gigantic dev teams cost a fortune to produce).
If you waste 60 dollars on a mediocre game, you have no one but yourself to blame. You don't have to be a hardcore gamer to take 5 minutes to check out a few reviews online.
This is true. It's also what demos are for.
If you only play pirated games offline and real ones online, what would happen?

I suppose a cache of game data could be kept on your hard drive secretly and then compared to the legit version when you connect to Live.

[Kane Knight]

The pricing issue is utter crap, by the way. Funk aleady started talking about differing prices, but look outside this market. The idea that pricing lower makes you look inferior or pricing equally is inane, and I can't believe people are rationalising it. That's like justifying paying as much for a Yaris as for a Viper simply because Toyota doesn't want their car to look inferior.

Even in other genres of software and entertainment, this isn't the case. This is a very narrow, very artificial view of things that needs to be dropped before that mindset actually becomes one of those "stated a thousand times, so it must be true" deals.

Especially in light of the fact that video games don't depreciate in any reasonable fashion. Not the word reasonable, before anyone points out that most eventually go down to 40 bucks.

Wow, what assholes. Haha.

Are you seriously this much of a twat and I just haven't noticed?

If you're illegally (Yes, not only does it violate US legal code but an international treaty your country signed) modding your hardware in violation of ToU agreements (and the aforementioned laws), how are they the assholes for going aggressively after you and preventing you from using Live?

For the record:

I think blocking the consoles is stupid. I don't really give much of a shit about piracy, because there's no indication it's hurting the industry. Though it's sad when people pirate INDIE games, and yes, that's happening.

I was concerned back when Sony said they theoretically could brick your console. This isn't quite the same, but it's still rather extreme. But let's face it. At this point, you are breaking the law if you're in just about any English speaking industrial nation, even if not to the same extent as the US. I have little sympathy to begin with, and this latest banwave has turned a lot of "pirates" into whiny, self-entitled bitches.

Come on, FA, if you've got a modded console, don't be a bitch. You either knew it was a possibility and went in informed or are an idiot and should have thought a little about it. If not, there's no real reason to bitch about MS taking action against these people as though it was somehow horrendous.

But to recap: MS are tools. Pirates are tools. Whiny pirates are even bigger, more annoying tools.

[Kane Knight]

Also, I seriously doubt they're secretly collecting data even when you're offline.