[The News Bot]

Microsoft confirms it has cut off a number of gamers from its Xbox Live service for modifying their consoles to run pirated games.
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[A Legal Beagle]

Thats all well and good, but what about the users who have been banned for alledgedly no reason.

I recall a thread on here somewhere who had their console banned for apparently no reason and he was getting no reasonable response from M$.

Also, it just a matter of time before the hackers find away round the issue and continue playing illegal games online, which by the way i have never done so and never will do!

[Steven]

No apparent reason or merely a denial? There are two sides of every coin, lets keep this one on topic about the piraters

[P-P-S-S]

I say WELL DONE Microsoft. Despite not being a fan of 360 i aplaud their move. I hope the rest of the console makers follow on the same footsteps.

[Dexxa]

Tbh, Havent they been saying this for years, But havent really done anything, They liked banned a few people and then just stopped,

Fair enough, But what if your orginal gets badly damaged and you make a backup of the game and play it?

I dont support pirate's but making a backup of a game you have brought should be seem ok, Even if you have to register the backup with m$

[David Mackenzie]

Good thing they kick the cheapskate freeloaders off, bad from the point of view that there are legitimate reasons to use a modified console (getting around region lockouts for one).

[invisiblekid]

Originally Posted by A Legal Beagle

Thats all well and good, but what about the users who have been banned for alledgedly no reason.

I recall a thread on here somewhere who had their console banned for apparently no reason and he was getting no reasonable response from M$.

Also, it just a matter of time before the hackers find away round the issue and continue playing illegal games online, which by the way i have never done so and never will do!

Listening to Stephen Toulouse "stepto" (Xbox LIVE Policy and Enforcement main man ) on Major Nelsons Podcast and some keynote speech's, his team VERY rarely get anything wrong and if they do it's to do with on-line gaming rather than modded consoles.

LOL he said a little while back someone was streaming themselves playing Halo ODST before (way) it was out and someone told Stephen. He joined the stream, and said who he was. The bloke didn't believe him, so in seconds everyone saw the guy get banned live on the stream! Later he fessed up.

MS could not be allowed to ban consoles if they could not prove it. There would be uproar and since there aint been, 99.9% of people I guess have modded their console.

Amazingly MS very rarely say anything about modded consoles, even on Majors podcast.

[Mark Hodgkinson]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

Good thing they kick the cheapskate freeloaders off, bad from the point of view that there are legitimate reasons to use a modified console (getting around region lockouts for one).

I can't think of one legitimate reason to flash a 360, it doesn't get around region locks!

[tmarshall57]

My sons Xbox 360 was banned shortly after the Halo 3 beta release a couple of years ago. There was no way the console could have been modified - he just wouldn't have had the knowledge or the contacts - he was only 13 or so at the time. The waranty stickers were still on the machine and the machine had never left the house. I was livid about this and complained verbally to MS and followed up by letter. I received a response which stated that their detection software was 100% foolproof. Hmm.. similar to their operating systems.

I was so annoyed about this stance that I rand the author of the letter at MS UK and he told me that the system had definitely been modified and that this could have been done at the retailers. He had no evidence that my particular console had been modified other than the fact that the MS detection methods proved this. I was really serious about a small claims court claim and then I realised that the console was under warranty. I range the retailer up and told them what had happened. Their response was absolutely magic. They said if there is a problem with the console then just return it, they even offered to have it picked up and paid for the courier costs. Presumably eventually this meant a credit back from MS so no one loses out in the end - other than MS.

I thought MS's attitude was appalling. I'm sure there will be those who say the console must have been modded and I can't be sure what my son gets up to 100% of the time. Well I probably can't but I am certain that the console had never left the house and certainly had not been dismantled.