Microsoft bans 600,000 360s from Live, plans for more

I was banned yesterday for the modded dvd drive. Is there a way to take the xbox apart and replace it with a unbanned used xbox 360 ?

Amazing the number of people screaming bloody murder and blaming Microsoft when it is the fault of those who steal, yes steal, games.

Microsoft is doing this to boost holiday sales.

In 2008 Microsoft sold 1.26 million units, topped only by the Wii and had sold approx. 140,000 units more than the PS3. Since then Sony has dropped the price of the PS3 putting it within competition range of the 360. Furthermore, various console sales predictions have had the 360 coming in last for the past months. If Microsoft bans 1 million 360s and even 1 out of 4 people banned by a new console. that is a boost of 250,000 on top of their holiday sales.

This ban wave was planned and executed to falsely raise the statistics for the Holiday season sales, deceiving the public and making them believe that the 360 community is still the best out there. So when the final stats for holiday season sales come out, don't be surprised to see Microsoft rejoicing because they are the "Best Selling Console" because this is just a manufactured dream that Microsoft by banning modders has fabricated into reality.

Timestorm-cR

Microsoft will be releasing a new "XBOX" with enhanced features that will deprecate this old XBOX
they want everyone to move into this "next generation" that gives them higher control, and end support for this old one..., they do have some XBOX on stock so.. what better way to try and choke sell some...

this is a plot made by modders...
they will be releasing their new stealth mod that is not red flaged by microsoft..

@Guest above - I don't have an xbox and so I'm not into the xbox modding scene, but I'm surprised that a "stealth mod" hasn't been developed already. For other consoles like the Wii and PSP, the modders always seem to be a step or two ahead of the manufacturers.

I bought a 2nd hand elite console, I was never told its modded and played only legit games yet few days ago I was banned! The most annoying thing is that no matter I'm banned from live which I paid for , is that MS also BLOCK THE ACCESS TO THE HD! So games can't be installed to the HD anymore and you can't use the Media center too. This is totally unacceptable I'm throwing my xbox to the trash and getting a PS3 instead. Bye Bye MS!

Is it also their right to block any access to the HD and the media center functionality?

Really the RIAA and the movie industry and Microsoft have every right to sue you. Everything has EULA's the reason the price of game's and such is so high is the number of people pirating. Lets say every banned console has JUST two pirated games most have a lot more. So for example 1,200,000 Million games are pirated so 1,200,000 Times 60 Bucks a game.... that's 72,000,000 Million dollar developers, Microsoft, Retail store, etc lose. If we stopped pirating that money could get given to the people that make the games and the prices would go down..... I stopped pirating years ago its not right how would you like someone to just take your video card out of your computer?

Hey all of you need to stop and listen ok,

I see why ms are angry but if you actually knew more about modding you would realise that people modding there xbox360 isnt tampering with live at all. It should be the game developers taking action imo.

The only source of modding for xbox live is gamesave modding, that affects online play yes but hardware modding doesnt so i dont see why they are taking such serious action against it for.

mabye a month to 3 month ban would be reasonable like a slap on the wrist but a lifetime ban :S all i have to say that ms are money grabbing arseholes ft bill gates.

Yeah... I know that trick already...But MS will catch on because S/N# is embedded within the OS firmware. And all they need to do is track the last IP of where it came from....No matter how you look at they will still find you.....WWWWWoooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhahahahaaaahhaahahaha

lmao......good 1 though

RxM

I totally agree with you Compdata 100%

I don't think sooooo.. they looking at the whole picture for that MASS market. they looking for numbers , not limiting them self to just few thousand users. They really don't care if they lose 1million users. Thats 1 million less hacked users they need to worried about.

Good 1......JudaZ

They are not doing it for one simple reason - price discrimination (and that's what you are suggesting) is per se illegal in the US. The only defense can be given by a court decision based on the merchant's ability to prove that they incur different costs related to goods or services provided to different groups.

Listen, choice is yours.... If games are too expensive for you, don't buy their there system or games ....plain and simple.....

Yeahh... go head... gut it out, swap it and I'll see you in court for Retail FRAUD u dum a..

1. Before you plunk down money on any game, do your self da favor..... Read reviews.....Thats your fault for not reading a good review from a reputible site on Halo Wars.

2.No one is telling you to pay $100 buck on terrible games... your just not a SMART consumer....!

3. If you think by you switching to PS3, ur a fool. Their online can't even complete @ the level with MS. MS live is going on it's ninth generation. Simply the BEST hands down!

RxM

Hello Timonius, I totaly 110% agree with you... These people are just sooo air headed.....lol

Heres a good example of another un educated consumer..(Timestorm-cR) stating that banning users is to raise the statistics for the Holiday season sales, deceiving the public and making them believe that the 360 community is still the best out there. It's plain and simple and has been said over and over again.. MS don't want people with modded 360's on thier servers .......what you don't understand??????

PS3 in general, and thier network can't even or does come close to what MS has built from ground up. Do your homework dude.....making a HUGE mistake....

Here's my 2 cents even though they're lost in a sea of pennies.

Nobody is innocent here. Modders most likely mod their consoles so they can D/L torrents, burn and play games for free, but they claim they need to back up their games.

Micro$oft is banning people to protect their games and their platform and to get more money out of people through new console purchases. Companies in general hide behind the piracy argument to prevent people from making backup copies of discs that get easily scratched. Why hasn't anyone come up with a data storage medium that is long lasting? I think it's because they don't want to. It's not "economically viable."

I can't imagine how many times someone flips games in a console and moves that DVD or blu-ray disc around. I know some people that are really sloppy with those discs.

It's kind of convenient for the companies selling you that game on a medium that is so easily damaged, don't you think?

The old Xbox needed a soldered mod chip in there, much harder to install.
Why did Microsoft do something so stupid as having only a firmware flash stop someone from playing "backed up" games? Or maybe was it part of a bigger plan?

We'll never know....

Off topic PC gamer rant:
So... yeah I'm actually glad this is happening. Hopefully we'll see more rampant piracy on consoles so the gaming returns where it belongs - on PCs! Maybe we'll find some less graphic intensive games with more depth to them. I hate the consolized versions of PC games. So many ruined games. This is why I still play Diablo 2. Frankly there isn't anything new that matches it's glory.

You've all got it wrong. They crackdown every November to celebrate Bill Gates' birthday.

hmm..to those that talk about swapping out the internals, and then sending them back to the store with the original S/N..that would work perfectly....and those that talk about ms finding your ip...well....some people like me...have my xbox connected to my pc for internet access, and use HideMyIp so it cannot be traced back to me.....sooooo that ip tracer doesnt work

Why not take it a step further and ban all systems that have been stolen too???, that way we prevent theft by disabling the serial number of a machine that has been reported stolen. I got my ipod stolen out of my car a couple of months ago and I wished this feature was available to disable the stolen ipod... but wait a minute if they do that and stop ipods and xbox systems from being stolen then I would not have to go ahead and buy another one would I??? My point is: they only use the available technology for their own interest and not the consumers... I rest my case

They only ban 'flash' modded 360. Not for putting some LEDs to your 360 or 12v fan mod.

If you want to mod buy a PC. Simple as that.

no, its not stealing...can belive people stil ldont get that . If you go into a store and take a physical copy of the game, then you are stealing...if you copy the game you might commit a totally doffrent crime...breaking copyright laws....its NOT the same thing. ....and this article is about modding your xbox...and microsoft not letting you use a modified xbox to play on live...thats all