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Microsoft releases official statement on bannings

Posted Nov 11, 2009 at 5:35PM EST by Mabie A.

Listed in: Xbox 360 Tags: Larry Hryb, Major Nelson, Microsoft, xbox 360 titles

More reports are coming in, which all seem to verify the unconfirmed word we received yesterday regarding Microsoft's standing order of 1 million banned Xbox consoles on XBL. InformationWeek has now reported that Microsoft has in fact already effectively locked out as much as one million Xbox 360 owners.

Major Nelson, aka Larry Hryb, has previously released a statement, warning owners of modded Xbox 360s of the banning wave to come. Now that it's happening, though, the company has been rather quiet regarding the exact figures. A spokesperson, however, did release the following statement:

While we don't comment on specific numbers, we have taken action against consoles that have been modified and were used to play pirated game discs. In line with our commitment to combat piracy, and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox Live community, we are banning these modded consoles from Xbox Live.

We'll be keeping you updates on more as details come in.

Via InformationWeek

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This will probably help PS3... we now know (i use the term lightly) that over a million console sales were to hackers and modders in relation to PS3's legitimate user base. A million is a lot of consoles. How many of the consoles that have been purchased because the owners have damaged the consoles and while attempting to mod or being banned? (remember M$ do not replace these under the 3 year warranty). So in essence M$ has now made clear to us that the console sales "race" is immensely distorted.

The question that remains is will these owners who have hacked/modded consoles stay with xbox now or if M$ "found" a way to (something which they have had ample time to do) fully secure it and prevent even stealth copies being used on their console.

I for one don't condone piracy and I not even sure that the argument which states that a player should make a back up copy of a legally owned game is justifiable but I wouldnt say that it was wrong. In favour of M$ though they have no way of telling whether an individual owns a back up or a pirated copy. Its a shame that the ban is applied indiscriminatel y which mean both get caught.

I suppose M$ left the flaw in their security so that it could be hacked because they know that there is effectively a market for modded consoles. They have had enough time to close the gaps. They probably allowed the modders to play for a while gain a nice gamer score and then banned them so that they would go and buy another 360.

Just some food for thought

# M$ — vern1000 2009-11-11 22:15

M$ is all about money when they look at there community how large it is and the number of people online playing a certain and then look at the sales for that game and it does'nt even match or come close they had to do something. They r being hit pretty hard now even though they got money and they have ripped people off big time they want more te concoles r at a low and now games sales aren't matching im glad people got there ass rip them like they ripped you. Sony was just smart thats all they seen this ahead of time thats y they did it on blu ray and made service free, Sony sales were slow but consistant, M$ wanted that fast money they got while getting over on people and the people got them back some not enough if you ask me ***** em come over to PS3

# Just your friends huh... — papajag 2009-11-12 00:18

...

# ..... — Silver-Tiger 2009-11-12 01:41

"and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members..."

That's total BS and they know it. Piracy has nothing to do with cheating or hacking the games. Lame excuse.

# using a $ in MS makes you look like a tard. — jrb 2009-11-12 03:40

microsoft's x360 - (268,000,000) attach rate has consistently been higher than sony's ps3 (165,000,000). Check vgchartz.com out, even the weekly totals are in microsoft's favour.

secondly, if you think that sony aren't all about money you are sadly mistaken. Uhm, that might explain why microsoft are more willing to cut the price of their hardware, take a smaller cut from software titles, and offer more bundle deals than sony could dream of - sony are loss making massively on the ps3. Who else could remove backwards compatibility for their console, and then make you pay extra money to play ps2 games on it (god of war anyone?)

granted, you pay for xbox live, but comparing XBL to sony's online effort is like comparing a 1960's banger to a rolls royce, and the figures would tend to suggest that people prefer buying the better product.

so.. shall we talk about the ps3 + modern warfare 2 online fiasco? shall we talk about yet another firmware update to address it, and how yet again it is bricking playstation3's across the globe?

to date there are three things that sony's ps3 has going for it. Bluray (1080p instant on movies will make this point moot), Uncharted2 (xbox has many more exclusive / better games, and practically all cross platform games perform and look better on xbox), it's not been hacked yet (microsoft are actively addressing this issue, even if it means they take a massive hit on their monthly bottom line - that seems like an admirable thing to do to address a real issue).

# you're wrong — jrb 2009-11-12 03:43

actually, it's possible to hack the content of the games to swing the balance in your favour on hacked xbox's.

Granted, it's a minority thing, but it does happen. So, you are wrong.

# so...? — jrb 2009-11-12 03:46

instead of buying games, they would rather buy two consoles? seems unlikely / stupid. That's probably why they're your friends.

# ... — Chris 2009-11-12 06:18

jrb... as much as I think it's a bad idea to Pirate buying two systems in the long run would be more cheaper than buying one system and every game. think... spend $600 on a Ps3 and a 360 and games for the Ps3. If you were to buy the 360 and all the games you wanted to play you'd be looking at around $600 for the system and 5 games.

# hmm.. — unggoy 2009-11-12 06:28

RROD anyone?.. haha..

# These bannings stem from what happened with... — RexNox 2009-11-12 06:31

COD:MW. All those people who modded and exploited that game (the biggest hit this gen) are now going to have to pay the piper. MW2 is going to be the stepping stone to solidifying lockout policies. In other words, this is small potatoes.

We should see it increase of these types of tactics in all of web-involved computing in 2010-2011.

# Am I the only one..... — hypercoyote360 2009-11-12 08:39

Am I the only one who thinks that M$ is well within their rights to do this? I mean, all it's doing is keeping people off of Live, right? You can still do what you want with your system? If you mod your system and are dumb enough to get Live without some kind of stealth mode (if that exists anymore, I haven't modded a console since the original Xbox), then I think you deserve to be banned.

# ^ Exactly — Specht 2009-11-12 10:41

While people have the right to do whatever they want to their system, Microsoft reserves the right to keep their service secure and refuse service to anyone who disregards their terms of use. Although the "cheating" excuse is lame since nobody does it and if they do they're just asking to get banned.

The only thing I could see that's wrong with this situation is that I hear some banned consoles lose some of their functionality. Mind you it's just rumors I've read on the web but I've read that there are reports that some people cannot install games onto their HDDs after being banned off Live. I haven't been banned yet and I certainly would still want that functionality since I find burned copies of some games work better once installed to the HDD such as GTA IV.

With used Xbox 360s at GameStop being $99 this ban wave is hardly a threat to modders. Especially with some stores accepting consoles under their warranty even without the Microsoft sticker.

People who play online with burned games deserve to be banned point blank. If you want to play the game online so bad, buy the damn game. When it comes to copying games in general, I'd rather pay the $2 for the DVD+R DL than the $10 at my local Blockbuster (both of which don't support the developer nearly as much as buying the game) and I'd probably beat the game within the standard rental period anyway. After that, if the online seems worth it, I'll pay for the game for either 360 or PS3 depending on the amount of players on each console.

I'm in no way trying to justify pirating. I admit to being a hypocrite for pursuing a career in Computer Science and yet I still torrent anything I can get my hands on.

On a side note, since when does an Xbox Live related article have anything to do with PS3? If somebody thinks a pirate being banned from Xbox Live will just move over to PS3(if they didn't already have one) they're sadly mistaken. Why would somebody who enjoys modding consoles to do what they want move to a console they can't exploit?

# Just dont Forget — vingadorjr2 2009-11-12 11:54

Hey guys... you are forgeting something very important here. A few months ago, M$ blocked third parties HDs to run on their system.... and now they ar baning one million consoles, and to join the pieces of this puzzle is very simple. Everyone know that when a 360 is banned (mine was), the console doesnt recognizes that HD anymore, and the only solution right now is to buy an new M$ oficial HD. Think about how many HDs M$ are selling right now. And i will let you know that my 360 wasnt hacked, and every single brazilian people are being banned too, hundreds or millions of brazilian 360 owners are geting their pockets ripped by M$, hundreds for sure without modifying their 360, and are geting banned without reason. I will not talk about the hacked ones, because maybe they deserves, but all of my friends are geting banned without having modified theirs. I dont know what has happened with Microsoft, but i do think they are mass baning the accounts by IPs, and only to make profit with their HD business. Think about it.

# Actually... — avatar76 2009-11-12 16:48

They are banning based off MAC address and not IP address, IP addresses change, MAC addresses do not. They have not as yet locked out third party HDs (they locked out memory cards that used SD memory). No one is getting their 360 banned for using a dodgy memory cards / knock off HDs. As well as this what happens if you console is banned for running pirated discs on your computer (oh I'm sorry backups, yeah right), your 360 will no longer play games fom the HDD. What you need to do is go and buy a new Arcade Xbox 360 attach your HD from your old one and redownload use the xbox license transferal tool to transfer all your purchases to your new 360. And then go and download them again.

No one has had their 360 banned for using a non genuine Hard Drive. People have their consoles banned (not their live accounts and not their HDs) for using modified DVD firmware with pirated discs.

I'd be interested in hearing exactly how your friends got banned and what they were doing.

# Enjoy you half consoles modders — avatar76 2009-11-12 17:01

"Which is the more reason to not stay Live for too long."

Why because they might discover how crap the PS3 online service is by comparison?

I love how you use the term "for too long" like it will make a difference how long you connect to it.

There's nothing lofty or even clever about modifying the 360 hardware, it is only done for "backups" and piracy. So I hope MS keep dropping atom bombs on the console modder community. The only people that I'd like to see spared are the JTAG community which are using older versions of firmware to run Linux and other opensource products on the console, that is intelligent and interesting. E4t c4@P and d1e software pirates.

# You are wrong avatar76 — vingadorjr2 2009-11-12 18:40

My friends was banned for NOTHING and me too. If their or mine was hacked, i would tell, because i dont have any **** reason to lie. If you know portuguese, just do a search on some brazilian forums and you will see. M HD was a oficial M$ one and it worth nothing now, because it only accept saves right nos (no more intalls or anything), my Live games too, they go to the land of the dead because and i cant even re-download then again because my account was banned. This problem are happening with many braziians and i do think that its happening to other countrys too. Its not a "CONSOLE BAN", ITS A COMPLET BAN, at least here, because it happens with me and with many other people I PERSONALY KNOW. I dont like the PS3 too much nor i want to go in this assumption, im just relating something that are happening. But, on the other side, if you are some MS insider, then the best way to try to convice YOUR consumer is to elaborate a more trustworth history, because everyone know that the 360 with some more recent firmwares arent accepting HDs from third parties and thats why Datel are so upset. And please avatar76, dont block the Reply option from your replies, and dont expect a flame war here, because im not a brainless fanboy.

# I almost forgot — vingadorjr2 2009-11-12 18:50

IP address may change, but only the numbers from the middle to the last, because the first numbers are ID from countrys, like "100.".... otherwise, how could they ban this many unmofied 360s? Are they going indiscriminate on this banwave? I dont doubt, but i still think that they are banning the batchs from IPs. Its a easier job for then.

# come on guys — pookiepoo 2009-11-13 07:18

Don't you guys think that its a little weird that M$ who have caught you (I use this term figuratively) breaking the TOD only ban your console and leave your hard drive and gamertags intact?

the two things that allow you to continue your gaming journey on another xbox.

If piracy was as bad as they say it is why on earth don't they ban GT's and make people start all over again. The whole idea of the ban is to oust these individuals from the community

secondly christmas is just around the corner so it seems as though this was planned very carefully

# .... — Silver-Tiger 2009-11-14 04:51

I was talking about piracy alone. Changing the content is hacking or cheating or how you want to call it, but pure piracy has nothing to with it, so my statemanet was correct.

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