Network now...NEWS
Up To One Million Xbox Live Accounts Banned
Microsoft has banned "a small percentage" of Xbox Live users found to be in possession of modified Xbox 360 consoles.
While the platform holder didn’t release specific figures, the Guardian reports that the number of users affected ranges from 600,000 to one million. Xbox Live had over 20 million active members across 26 countries as of May 2009.
The report suggests that the most recent wave of bans is part of an annual sweep carried out by the platform holder to stop modified consoles, which enable users to play pirated or imported titles, from connecting to its online gaming service. The bans don’t stop consoles themselves from working.
"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 Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers' Association has suggested that piracy may cost the videogame industry as much as £750 million a year.
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Well 1 million people looking to buy a new console will certainly sure up sales over the holiday period.
Meanwhile, Craigslist brimming with banned, 'modded' Xboxes.
Things must be getting desperate over at Xbox HQ, what with the mass banning and the release of fresh Natal vapor. So transparent!
I think the concept of modding consoles will die down partially if companies decide to get rid of region locks. Especially collectors like their imports but do not always have the space to have multiple versions of a particular machine in their house...
It will defo help, but collectors are an extremely small percentage of the people who have modded consoles. The vast majority unfortunately are thieves
EDIT: Also just realised i have a second hand 360, hope its not chipped! Is there a way of knowing/ finding out?
Let's hope it was all those annoying 12 year olds that kept tea bagging me in Halo...
Couldn't have say it any better.
I fear life is not that fair
Fair play to Microsoft, Nintendo is trying hard too with attempts to ban the R4 type devices. Maybe we are seeing the beginning of the end of piracy in the Western world at least.
We'll see the end of user freedom long before the end of piracy. They won't stop piracy.
As depressing as it sounds, I'm inclined to agree. I can already hear the 'DRM DRM' of heavy boots, lol.
its an un-winable ( is that a word?) war but if the amount a company spends on piracy prevention is less than what they stand to lose through piracy then they will always battle.
Well done!
that's insane. Perhaps necessary, but it's still an uncomfortably high number.
600,000 people gambled and lost.
I dont blame Microsoft, im just suprised they didnt do it sooner.
Come on Sony and Nintendo follow suit and ban the thieving bastards
I think they do it on an irregular basis so that the modders can never be sure that their techniques are working...
A mod shop might mod a couple of hundred customer's boxes... if they were banned the moment they were modded, the modder would be able to tell through trial and error exactly how to hide the modifications from xbox live.
But with the irregular ban dates, the modders can never really know if their mods are undetectable.
Sure, now the modders know what they were doing was flawed, but they won't have a chance to see if the new tricks they develop work until some undetermined future date when MS decides to nuke all the modded consoles again.
O.K that make sense, cheers
wow
Good