Microsoft Disconnects Modded Xbox Users [Slashdot] [Archive]

DP ServBot

11-11-2009, 02:40 PM

S-4'N3 writes "The BBC reports that Microsoft has disconnected approximately 600,000 Xbox users from Xbox Live because the devices they are using have been modified, either with software or with new chips, to play pirated games. '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.'"http://games.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&op=image&style=h0&sid=09/11/11/1821255 (http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/11/11/1821255/Microsoft-Disconnects-Modded-Xbox-Users?from=rss)
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otoko

11-11-2009, 03:08 PM

Fine with me, I do neither.

Frankie_Says_Relax

11-11-2009, 03:46 PM

Six HUNDRED thousand?

Wow. That's a lot!

Impressive.

Push Upstairs

11-11-2009, 03:58 PM

http://tribewithted.mlblogs.com/nelson-haha.gif

kedawa

11-11-2009, 04:06 PM

Was there some recent ban party, or is that just their running total?

insinion

11-11-2009, 04:10 PM

They always ban in waves ROFL

skaar

11-11-2009, 04:24 PM

Yep, I know a few people that have been hit by this. Bound to happen eventually.

That's still a fuckton of people if it's at once, though.

The article seems to read that it has banned USERS not CONSOLES, however. I always thought they hit the console not the Live account.

chicnstu

11-11-2009, 04:28 PM

A couple of my brother's friends do this stuff. They were playing Modern Warfare 2 when it leaked and they also have large gamerscores because they gamesave. Let's see if they sign in anymore.

skaar

11-11-2009, 04:31 PM

I like one of the comments taking exception to "a small percentage"

600,000 of 20,000,000

there are some who would call this "three percent"

ScourDX

11-11-2009, 04:36 PM

600,000+ is a lot. I wonder if those number are from country which support piracy.

carlcarlson

11-11-2009, 04:36 PM

I know a guy who just got banned. I think the massive pirating of Modern Warfare 2 might have been a bit of a last straw, because they just let loose and started banning people left and right.

Good riddance, I say.

Spazmonkey

11-11-2009, 05:15 PM

It was mostly the Call of Duty game. Many people were playing it waaaay early, and that's just asking for trouble with such a high profile title. I'm not going to say I personally play burns, but if someone just refrains from dumb things like that, you can't really get caught.

adam_devry

11-11-2009, 05:27 PM

I wonder if this is going to help company's from closing. Are more games going to be sold now? I cant wait to find out

darkslime

11-11-2009, 05:32 PM

HAHA serves them right.

Also look at this retard: http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/626/capturel.png

kupomogli

11-11-2009, 05:43 PM

I don't pirate so I'm glad Sony isn't doing the same for infrastructure on the PSP.

If it ever happens to the PSP though, I won't mind upgrading to official firmware.

heybtbm

11-11-2009, 07:14 PM

This happened to someone I know this past weekend. He has 100's of burned games and has a huge chip on his shoulder. His take is that he "deserves" to play free games because evil corporations are greedy...blah blah blah. I have no sympathy for him.

Gotta love Microsoft's timing. 2 days before the biggest game of the year hits....lol.

skaar

11-11-2009, 07:51 PM

There's a bunch of cheap 360s about to hit ebay.... yikes.

izarate

11-11-2009, 08:09 PM

So Microsoft is guaranteed to sell 600,000 extra consoles this season. Brilliant! And people wonders who are buying those Arcade systems.

By the way, Modern Warfare 2 was sold in South America as soon as it got into the stores (no "Don't sell until XXX" crap). I visit an Argentinian forum frequently and some guys were able to buy it since November 2nd (not bootlegs but original games). I wonder if some of them also got hit by this or just modded consoles.

Steve W

11-11-2009, 08:45 PM

HAHA serves them right.

Also look at this retard: http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/626/capturel.png

It kills me that the douchebag doesn't learn his lesson. And he lets his daughter play pirated games. There are just so many asshats out there that think that they are ordained by God to be special and better than everyone else and therefore don't have to pay for anything. That's the age of the internet for you; everybody feels entitled to free shit. They don't think for a second that all those developers that they like might be closing down because people would rather steal games than pay for them.

kedawa

11-11-2009, 09:15 PM

It kills me that the douchebag doesn't learn his lesson. And he lets his daughter play pirated games. There are just so many asshats out there that think that they are ordained by God to be special and better than everyone else and therefore don't have to pay for anything. That's the age of the internet for you; everybody feels entitled to free shit. They don't think for a second that all those developers that they like might be closing down because people would rather steal games than pay for them.
This is just pure bullshit. Most people who pirate stuff just do it because they can. Getting something for free off the internet as opposed to going to the store and paying for it is just a no brainer for them. There's no sense of entitlement involved.
Anyone who's pissed off about getting booted from XBL for violating the terms of service is an idiot, though.

c0ldb33r

11-11-2009, 10:14 PM

600,000? this amuses me.

jcalder8

11-11-2009, 10:23 PM

What do you call 600,000 banned Xbox users?

A good start

Way to go MS :-D

ScourDX

11-12-2009, 12:14 AM

Looks like MS banned 1 million players.

source (http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/peripherals/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=221601267)

Craigslist is filled with people trying to get rid of their modded console. Some even offer to trade for Non-modded console. LOL.

udisi

11-12-2009, 01:17 AM

yup I saw the 1 million figure now. Wonder what % of consoles were modded lol. here's some cannon fodder for the "it's only a small number of people who pirate" people.

tholly

11-12-2009, 01:46 AM

Good. I'm pleased with this. I pay for the games I buy and do things legally. They should too.

WCP

11-12-2009, 02:12 AM

Wow, 1 million 360's! That's a huge freaking number. I wonder if this is a worldwide number? I think Microsoft has sold something like 34 million Xbox 360's worldwide, so that would be 1 out of 34 Xbox 360's are modded. That's a pretty high percentage. Sony on the other hand doesn't have to worry about any of this. They know that if somebody is playing a PS3 game, then it's a legit, retail game. You have to give Sony some credit for having the PS3 on the market for 3 solid years with zero piracy.

After I heard about this ban wave, I went on Ebay looking for a cheap banned 360. My kids are always hogging the living room 360, and if I could get a really cheap 360 for their bedroom, that would keep them off the one in the living room. I saw a ton of pretty cheap 360's on there. I saw one that was a Buy It Now for $55 with $10 shipping. Only $65 for a working 360. Sure, it can't go online at all, but my kids don't even know that online gaming exists. They are too young to know or care about that. They just want to play their Kung Fu Panda or Lego Star Wars.

I ended up buying one for $80 plus $10 shipping, for a total of $90. It was actually a better deal than the $55 one though, because the $55 didn't come with anything. No controller, no power supply, no video cables. Also, it had the RROD in the past and had been repaired. Personally, I think if a 360 has had the RROD, it's very likely to suffer that fate again, so I'm not interested in any 360 that is refurbished or whatever.

If anybody decides to look for a cheap 360 on Ebay, make sure to find one that has a "relatively" recent build date, and that has never had the RROD or e74 error or whatever.

norkusa

11-12-2009, 02:26 AM

Wow, I was actually thinking about getting my 360 flashed soon too. Glad I held off. Kinda expected this to happen though with Modern Warfare 2 coming out. Last time MS did this was right before Halo 3 was released I think.

Don't know much about 360 modding but was there any way for people to avoid this ban? Was it ALL modded 360's connected to Live that got banned? Or just some of them? I thought there was some kind of stealth mod or special firmware that you could use to make your 360 less-bannable.

kedawa

11-12-2009, 07:32 AM

I would be more than a little hesitant to buy a used 360 now that the second hand market is flooded with banned consoles. This is going to be hilariously problematic for EB/GS.
On the other hand, all of my friends that hate online gaming are in for some great bargains on pirate-friendly hardware.

c0ldb33r

11-12-2009, 07:39 AM

I would be more than a little hesitant to buy a used 360 now that the second hand market is flooded with banned consoles. This is going to be hilariously problematic for EB/GS.
I wonder if there is some easy way to test these.

On the other hand, all of my friends that hate online gaming are in for some great bargains on pirate-friendly hardware.
That's what I'm hoping. I never play games online - I really don't care for it. I've been seeing used 360's for like 75 bucks around here :)

kedawa

11-12-2009, 07:45 AM

I imagine the only way to test to see if a console is modded is to try and boot a copy of an older 360 game, which all hacked firmwares will boot. It's very easy to mod an xbox without damaging the shell or warranty sticker.

I meant copy as in burned copy.

Greg2600

11-12-2009, 09:09 AM

Icarus Moonsight

11-12-2009, 09:22 AM

If it was cheap enough, I'd buy one of the used modded systems. I wouldn't play it online anyway. I'd be pissed if I paid for one expecting it to be LIVE ready though...

DreamTR

11-12-2009, 09:35 AM

I'm not sure what is new about this, they did this with modded original Xbox consoles back in the day. The idea is to keep two systems, one for whatever you use the modded one for, and one for online/regular stuff. I guess MW2 really did magnify the modded problems...

Kitsune Sniper

11-12-2009, 09:50 AM

I wonder if there is some easy way to test these.

Yes there is: If you take it online and connect to Live, you can tell if it's banned.

M$ should really create a test account for used game stores or something.

c0ldb33r

11-12-2009, 09:57 AM

Yes there is: If you take it online and connect to Live, you can tell if it's banned.

M$ should really create a test account for used game stores or something.
I was wondering if there was an easier way. Just cause this will be a pain in the ass for them having to try to connect them all to Live. bleh.

Frankie_Says_Relax

11-12-2009, 11:50 AM

I'm not sure Microsoft gives a crap whether or not Gamestop winds up with thousands of banned systems ... since, they don't see much profit from those anyway (unless you count new XBLA Gold Memberships and XBLA purchases) and I wouldn't expect them to give Gamestop any help with setting up a method for testing for modded systems.

Though, for GameStop's sake they should try to come up with some method to test these systems.

I'm impressed that MS severed that many systems/accounts considering that those users while costing the company X amount of monies in game sales were likely running paid XBLA gold accounts, that's approximately $50 million a year that they're willfully shedding in the face of piracy.

PapaStu

11-12-2009, 12:13 PM

I'm impressed that MS severed that many systems/accounts considering that those users while costing the company X amount of monies in game sales were likely running paid XBLA gold accounts, that's approximately $50 million a year that they're willfully shedding in the face of piracy.

A paid account is paid for already, there is no money lost there. The bigger question is how many of those accounts, were just using the free month cards that come in bunches of different games? I'm guessing quite a few.

Frankie_Says_Relax

11-12-2009, 12:16 PM

A paid account is paid for already, there is no money lost there. The bigger question is how many of those accounts, were just using the free month cards that come in bunches of different games? I'm guessing quite a few.

True, I guess the full 1 million probably weren't re-subscribing players, but I'm sure at least some of them were. Even $10 mil in yearly re-subs lost is pretty impressive for MS to say "we don't need it in the big picture".

kedawa

11-12-2009, 12:28 PM

I was wondering if there was an easier way. Just cause this will be a pain in the ass for them having to try to connect them all to Live. bleh.

Though, for GameStop's sake they should try to come up with some method to test these systems.

Like I mentioned before, they just need to see if the system will boot an older backup. This will determine whether the system has modded firmware. That won't tell them if the machine is banned or not, but it will let them know that it at least has the potential to get banned in the future.
XBL will tell them if the console is actually banned.
I'm pretty sure most retailers have internet access, and the cost of a DL DVD+R is less than $1.

TonyTheTiger

11-12-2009, 12:31 PM

I think it's a scare tactic and probably an effective one. Make an example out of a surprisingly large number of people at Time A and you probably won't have to do it again at Time B because you've successfully scared everybody into compliance. We read stories at least a few times a month about half hearted attempts to curb piracy. It's rare for any of the big names to send the message that they aren't fucking around. So whatever revenue MS lost is probably not going to have to become a regular occurrance.

jb143

11-12-2009, 12:33 PM

Instead of banning them, wouldn't the better/funnier thing to have done be to make their characters appear to be wearing a pink dress and bows or something? Then they could be ridiculed off instead.

j_factor

11-13-2009, 12:23 AM

Aren't there non-pirating reasons to mod? I know there was with the original Xbox; my friend modded his and never played a pirated game on it.

jcalder8

11-13-2009, 01:28 AM

Aren't there non-pirating reasons to mod? I know there was with the original Xbox; my friend modded his and never played a pirated game on it.
In this case MS would have no reason to suspect that you have a modded system and therefore they wouldn't ban it.

Leo_A

11-13-2009, 01:49 AM

This is going to be a disaster for EB/GS no question, and really for many more people. Microsoft should offer some type of one-time amnesty now. i.e. you can get back on with the console if you restore it to original settings. I don't know how, just saying. Are they talking about software or hardware modding? Banning is what they have to do, don't want to wind up like the Dreamcast.

Why? The people with the capability to restore it are the ones that modified it to start with, it wouldn't do any good for 99.9% of the innocent victims that purchase a banned console 2nd hand.

I'm not sure Microsoft gives a crap whether or not Gamestop winds up with thousands of banned systems ... since, they don't see much profit from those anyway (unless you count new XBLA Gold Memberships and XBLA purchases) and I wouldn't expect them to give Gamestop any help with setting up a method for testing for modded systems.

I suspect Microsoft loves used console sales. They can get 360's to new customers that will buy games, Xbox Live subscriptions, and accessories where the profit is to be made without incurring a loss of selling a new console. Is far better than just having people dispose of their consoles when they're done with it.

Even if they're making a slight profit off new console sales, it's in their interest that customers aren't buying banned consoles since Microsoft would be the ones taking the blame by those customers. In addition, they'd miss out on some major profit sources from such things as Xbox Live subscriptions, video purchases, and DLC sales by having unsuspecting consumers purchasing banned consoles.

Edit - After reading (And enjoying) some threads in their support forum, I think I retract my statement, I don't think they look too fondly upon used console sales.

skaar

11-13-2009, 01:16 PM

One of my 360s that has never run a burn but had an upgraded HD (WD 160GB flashed to look like the retail 120GB HD) was banned during this wave. That'll learn me to not bend over and pay inflated prices for their legit hard drive... that can actually cache more than one game at a time to it. $130 for a $50 hard drive... screw you too.

Also DealExtreme has been selling refurbed 360 hard drives for awhile, presumably drives doing the same trick. And you do NOT need to modify your console to run one of these drives... but you'll be banned for it anyway... maybe.

I know many people who've been hit by this who are now giving away their consoles and stacks of burned games to friends/family - people who might have otherwise bought a 360 during the holidays. I foresee many ripples to come from this whole ban tsunami... and it should be fun to see how it all plays out.

Anyone see the article recently about how people who pirated music the most actually spent MUCH more on music and equipment than those who did so casually?

Yeah.

Flack

11-13-2009, 05:32 PM

Aren't there non-pirating reasons to mod? I know there was with the original Xbox; my friend modded his and never played a pirated game on it.

Not really, not with the 360. There aren't a lot of additional programs (like Mediaplayer for the Wii) or functions (like being able to play ISOs off a USB hard drive on the Wii) that you get by modding the 360. Also, a Wii mod chip allows you to play games from other regions; modding the 360's drive doesn't (or at least didn't). When you take away all those extra things, there's really only one reason to mod a 360; to play burned games.

It doesn't surprise me that one out of 34 360s are modded, either; it's by far the most easily modded system (except for the Wii soft mod). When it's harder to disassemble your console than it is to mod it, you're going to have issues.

Pikkon

11-13-2009, 07:10 PM