Microsoft Bites Back
Nearly 3% of Xbox Live users face the 'ban-hammer'.Published 11/11/2009 at 11:20 by Gastos84
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Up to 600,000 Xbox users may find they can no longer access Xbox Live. Those affected are those that have modified their consoles in order to play pirated games; a move that is contributing to almost £1 billion loss for the gaming industry, each year.
The consoles will still work, but modifying it will void the warranty and get you banned from the Xbox Live service. Modifications to an Xbox enable them to run unofficial software and pirated games. Microsoft released a statement which clearly outlines their stance on the situation:
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…
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 has some 20 million customers on its Xbox Live service.
Source: BBC News
Comments
Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.
Gamoc | 11/11/2009 11:22
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Good.
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 11:22
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+1
Raen | 11/11/2009 11:24
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I concur most wholeheartedly.
skibadee | 11/11/2009 15:27
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ps3 has a advantage there as no copying do you hear that valve
Uhyve | 11/11/2009 22:36
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That is quite odd if you think about it. You know Sony doing a better job of making a secure OS, since I believe Microsoft makes quite a popular OS; “Windows” or something
. You’d think that their experience in the area would have helped them.
Gamoc | 12/11/2009 09:27
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Windows? Never heard of it.
Seriously though, ever used Windows?
BadBoyBoogie | 11/11/2009 16:32
Let There Be Rock
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+1. Anything that might deter pirates has got to be a good thing.
FRUIT0FDOOM | 11/11/2009 11:26
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Damn Right Skippy! No consoles a float flying a black skull and bones flag in these waters thank you! No consoles a float flying a black skull and bones flag in these waters than you! Shut up parrot! Christ, should try the decaf!
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 11:31
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Taxi for Fruit
FRUIT0FDOOM | 11/11/2009 11:32
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With reinforced windows please! Should be shot after that one
cc_star | 11/11/2009 11:44
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Listen strange things happen when you fire up MW2 multiplayer, the minutes turn into hours, into days into weeks.
He’s only had 2 hours sleep before getting back in the battlefield
hazelam | 11/11/2009 12:12
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days into weeks?
how would you know that the game’s only been out a few days, unless…
say you didn’t cc :0
Pesico | 11/11/2009 11:30
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Nice move by Microsoft.
lewis815 | 11/11/2009 11:32
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Couldn’t agree more, for some reason I feel gaming is something that should be paid for. Music on the other hand.. I agree with the people that say that it promotes more obscure music as people will try before you buy, and then pay to see them in concerts if the material is good. Gaming doesnt have that extra money making thing, you pay, you play, you finish. Dont pirate on games!
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 11:36
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I abhor piracy of any media. That’s not because I’m a prude, that’s because they are areas of entertainment that I thoroughly enjoy. Piracy is only adding to a lack of new and exciting investments.
lewis815 | 11/11/2009 11:40
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I agree to an extent with most media, but there is two I disagree with, one is music, just simply because I will buy it if I like the album and see gigs and end up spending like.. £200 on an artist that way. Instead of the £10 I might pay on an album, not liking it then putting it away. (Plus there are things to show the music business is thriving at the moment, album sales were at an all time high recently I believe).
The other thing is TV from other countries, mainly because it’s pretty pointless having to wait 4 months to see stuff from the states when its there readily available, plus more often than not I end up flicking the channel on when its on to watch it again anyway. But yeah of course I can understand why people are against piracy, I can just see the pro’s for the particular business as well.
Gaming and films, big no no.
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 11:50
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I would actually say that the Music industry is one of the worst hit. I will always pay for an album, even if i’m just seeing if I will like it or not.
Radboud | 11/11/2009 11:56
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For me it is really simple.
If someone has something you want and they ask a price for it, than you’ll have to pay up. If you don’t want to pay, than you don’t want it that much….. simples….
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 11:59
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Agreed, and let’s not forget that it’s not just the Artist or Band or Director that will suffer. The revenue will also be helping to pay the wages of so many lower level staff too, from secretaries and PAs to warehouse operatives and packers.
Raen | 11/11/2009 12:00
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With Spotify and MySpace and Last.FM you can get either the whole or album, or at least a sampling, for free from most bands. There really isn’t much point in pirating for ‘try before you buy’, the legal route is much easier. Hell even if you can’t so many bands are on one of the music distribution services (iTunes, Amazon MP3) that you can just pick up two random tracks to see if you like it without really denting your wallet.
cc_star | 11/11/2009 12:15
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I’ve just discovered Spotify, didn’t really ‘get it’ before
Its awesome, there’s no need steal because of it and services like it.
toutski | 11/11/2009 11:37
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I was reading about this on a forum where people where posting to complain… some of the responses were pure genius.
Slap it up them I say.
Boomshanks | 11/11/2009 13:46
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Linky mcLink??
toutski | 11/11/2009 13:50
Legend
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Ill DM you…
cc_star | 11/11/2009 11:45
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I too abhor piracy of any media – nice one MS!
If only wish they could remotely ‘brick’ their consoles.
hazelam | 11/11/2009 12:18
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nice idea in theory but you just know if they did that a heck of a lot of perfectly legal consoles would get caught too.
name me one company you’d fully trust with the ability to deliberately break your console at will.
if they could prove that it would be absolutely impossible that it would effect legitmate consoles then maybe but i can’t see how they could do that.
Mick939 | 11/11/2009 11:47
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I hate pirates
Radboud | 11/11/2009 11:53
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Heard about it this morning coz two of my collegues have been banned from XboxLive.
Suits them well I say!
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 11:54
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Lol. That will be the interesting thing; now we get to find out who has been using mods and pirated games.
lewis815 | 11/11/2009 11:55
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Haha one of my mates has been banned, serves him right he pirates every single new game :/
davidjmclare | 11/11/2009 19:32
always on easy
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lol i bet he used to be well smug too for getting games cheap! loving the ban
xx SgtP3pp3r xx | 11/11/2009 11:58
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The pirates deserve their bans but I can’t help thinking that perhaps greedy developers like Activision charging whatever they like push people to it. Although some people would still pirate a game even if it cost under a fiver, cheapskates.
cc_star | 11/11/2009 12:13
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Is that not like saying Ferrari’s high prices force people to steal cars?
xx SgtP3pp3r xx | 11/11/2009 12:29
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It does happen. People start off small before moving onto bigger and badder things. They pinch a Mars bar from the corner shop before moving onto pirating their games then BANG, before you know it they’ve stolen a big red overpriced car.
lewis815 | 11/11/2009 12:00
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To be honest this could push 600,000 people to PS3. I know a lot of pirates that only stay with the 360 even though they want a PS3 because they can get the games for free.
Hopefully this will mean an upsurge in christmas sales for Sony
a inferior race | 11/11/2009 14:48
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but do we want people like this on psn.
lewis815 | 11/11/2009 14:50
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Lol yeah, as they will have to pay, therefore a higher install base and hopefully better games and more focus from third parties on PS.
Erroneus | 11/11/2009 12:01
Wanted "Trophy Hunter" but was too late.
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Some people just dont’ get it. I’m often asked by people if the PS3 has been hacked and when I tell them no, they loose interest in it *facepalm* I’m pretty sure the Wii is being hurt a lot by piracy, simply because it’s so easy to hack and people are never banned on the Wii services.
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 12:12
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I actually know a couple of people that are using hacked DS’s. Every game available in one big catalogue without a penny spent.
Raen | 11/11/2009 15:21
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To be fair it’s barely a hack with the DS, you just put a cartridge in.
cc_star | 11/11/2009 12:08
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For the record, if you owned a chipped console and pirated games, and you connect to the Xblox Live service, you obviously are the thickest b’tard in the world and not only should you be disconnected from the service but you should be chemically castrated so you can’t reproduce and spread your special brand of ‘intelligence’.
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 12:11
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LOL That was very passionate. I concur
hazelam | 11/11/2009 12:26
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i’ve often thought exactly the same thing but about cigarettes.
put something in the filters that causes sterility so second hand smoke doesn’t do the same thing.
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 12:50
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A bit off topic!
I am a smoker and I am considerate. I purposely smoke away from other non-smokers and children. I’m only damaging me. You can’t tar us all with the same brush.
Pirates are purposely modifying their consoles with the intent to steal.
cc_star | 11/11/2009 12:54
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Don’t start me on smoking… I hate the way you can’t sit in beer gardens in the summer without being surrounded by a cancer causing fog… damn smokers!
hazelam | 11/11/2009 13:00
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ok, maybe you started before the links between smoking and cancer were discovered, but people starting now, no excuse.
people that are willing to risk giving themselves lung cancer like that should not be allowed to have kids.
would you want any kids you may or may not have to see you struggling to breathe, nearly coughing up a lung with a fag hanging out of your mouth, trust me when i tell you it’s not pretty.
as a child of two smoking parents i would not wish that on anybody.
colossalblue | 11/11/2009 13:18
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The smoking debate is a funny one. I used to smoke and I still would if it wasn’t so extortionately expensive. I know that’s not the fashionable thing to say but I don’t really care. I enjoyed smoking. Not the taste or the smell or the cost or the assumed health issues. I enjoyed the act of smoking like somone enjoys having a glass of wine or getting a massage.
Smoking is the only addiction in the UK which recieves no form of understanding. Next time you’re in your GP or Chemist take a look around you, there will be posters offering help and understanding to alcoholics, pill-heads and even heroin addicts. Smokers get “You stink and you’re killing babies”. That’s despite there never being a single conclusive study to prove that second hand smoke actually causes cancer. There have just been about a million expensive studies that end up saying “Well, we’re not totally sure but – yeah why not?”
And while you’re wiping out smokers be very careful that you have a back-up plan for funding the Public Sector because the billions of pounds revenue that is earned from the criminal taxation levels won’t be easy to find elsewhere.
One more thing: Why has every hospital around me poured millions of pounds into maternity wards in the past ten years? Why am I paying extra taxes to make sure there are nice soft cushions in the family rooms?
I don’t have kids, I don’t want kids and I don’t see why I should be paying for someone else’s choices or mistakes. At least the smokers pay huge taxes on their choice which goes a long way, if not completely surpasses the supposed drain they make on the NHS. Breeders expect me to pay for their medical care while they gestate, give them nice facilities to make them comfortable while they are guided through the birthing process by that expensive midwife team and then throw money at them while their spawn grows up. On top of the free cash we have to give them to support their maternity leave (all the time they’ve stopped paying taxes).
Oh, and whilst I’m paying my taxes to hand them free money I’m also not allowed to park anywhere near the entrance to my local supermakets and I have to suffer the screaming, obnoxious little feckers scurrying around every public space. They’re even allowed in bars now where they’ve banned smokers!
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 13:20
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Right, we are getting way off of topic
I started after the link, I’m not that old, and yes I wish I could stop, but that’s why it’s labelled addictive. Like I say, I smoke only when I know there are no others around and I always smoke outside. My Nan is currently ill, which stem from years of smoking and no, I don’t want that to happen to me. I will stop the second I hear kids are on the horizon; I will stop when I can no longer afford it, and I will stop at the first sign of health problems. Obviously I can pre-empt all of that and stop now but i don’t want to.
cc_star | 11/11/2009 13:22
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@Cb Quit smoking stuff is all over every single docotors, health centre, hospital I’ve ever been to, and in addition to that it receives enormous amounts of TV advertising
Gastos84 | 11/11/2009 13:24
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Just read Colossalblue’s comment…LOL Incomperable Peter
nofi | 11/11/2009 13:28
Wants a custom tag.
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@cc_star I’m assuming CB’s joking. Either that, or he got out of the wrong side of bed…
colossalblue | 11/11/2009 13:30
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yes but it’s not the supportive, coddling kind. It’s the “You stink and you murder babies” kind that were not allowed to say to junkies and alcoholics anymore. There is stupid amounts of money thrown at trying to get people to quit smoking (quite a lot of which is provided by cigarette companies) but it’s all done in a demeaning way that you simply wouldn’t get away with if it was another addiction or something equally bad for you – like drinking (although the binge-drinking stuff has been quite base but then binge drinking adverts are aimed at the proles rather than the “bottle of wine a night” middle class crowd who are actually doing themselves far more damage)
I’m not saying there isn’t money put into it and I’m not saying there aren’t health risks (although I do think they should be properly researched) but I don’t think it’s any worse than drinking alcohol excessively or eating McDonalds (which is probably the single worst health-threat to the western world and we let them make branded toys for kids!). It’s just the fashionable bandwagon to jump on in recent years.
Personally I’d rather have a father who’s addicted to smoking than one who’s addicted to drinking or illegal narcotics (or, for that matter, legal narcotics which actually carry the highest levels of addiction in the UK).
colossalblue | 11/11/2009 13:32
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P.S. in case there is any confusion, a huge part of my comments are tongue-in-cheek. I’m playing devils advocate a bit but the essence of the argument holds up.
Basically there is a different angle to everything and just because an idea is popular that doesn’t make it correct.
cc_star | 11/11/2009 13:34
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So where does this help my cancer smog in the beer gardens problem?
colossalblue | 11/11/2009 13:36
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take a pocket fan for the light-offenders, a baseball bat for the heavy offenders and failing that just hold your nose and drink through it
Vandix | 11/11/2009 13:40
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@cc
Since smokers are banned from the bars, you could go inside… no cancer smog there…
cc_star | 11/11/2009 13:47
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course, not very nice in the brief summer though.
hazelam | 11/11/2009 16:01
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oh god, i’ve created a monster :0
a baseball bat is a bit heavy handed.
one thing i do to smokers is take the bit of plastic wrapper they leave on the bottom of the pack and slide it over the top, it’s quite tricky as it seems to be a little it smaller than the pack when you take it off.
and it invariably takes longer to put it on than it does for the smoker to take it off again, but it’s still fun
of course it doesn’t work with those sideways opening packets, but then you can slide the little drawer bit all the way out and put it back upside down.
davidjmclare | 11/11/2009 19:36
always on easy
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well if the site staff are talking off topic, can i chat about my fave colour? its blue.
toutski | 11/11/2009 12:15
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Do M$ not wave the banhammer every November?
At least I think they have for the past few years. Way to drive the Christmas sales figures.. eh?
xx SgtP3pp3r xx | 11/11/2009 12:50
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In a way it probably does as people will go out and buy a new one.
Lal | 11/11/2009 17:39
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Is it me or is it pure coincidence that M$ did this the day after COD: MW2 came out. i believe the same as “xx SgtP3pp3r xx” that people will go out and buy a new xbox 360, a sure fire way to sell new consoles.
nostrezzz | 11/11/2009 13:32
* Banned *
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Im not a Xbox fan so I dont own a console, I do have friends who have one or two… Why 2? So they wont get banned from Xbox live and still play pirate games… As long as they dont get jail sentances they dont care I guess :’)
PS3 _o_
cc_star | 11/11/2009 13:36
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exactly, I wonder how many non-stupid pirates are out there
ie. one’s not stupid enough to go online with their chipped consoles
baggyg | 11/11/2009 14:30
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“Flashed” Xbox consoles have been out there for a long long time playing online with stealth patches on the images and not getting caught. Although I too disagree with piracy (which is why I like the PS3
), there is the plain fact that piracy sells consoles.
Both sides of the camp will waive there flags and we will have many more headlines like this. But better education of the issues is really needed if any middle ground is to be offered. Consider Steam on the PC for example. This has been one of the best services around since the launch of half life 2 and it works. Piracy has been around since day one (XCopy on the Amiga to clone floppy disks). I doubt it is going anywhere soon
Unfortunately in all media types at the moment, the pirates are winning. By my brief calculation they are currently up £780 million a year.
A little way to catch up yet.