Microsoft boots modders off Xbox Live One year after it warned that Xbox 360 owners who've modified their consoles would be kicked off Xbox Live, Microsoft today confirmed that a percentage of subscribers have indeed been given the boot. Modifying an Xbox 360 to play copies of games is “a violation of the Xbox Live terms of use”, Microsoft warned on 13 November …
This happened to one of my mates.. He reckons he probably managed to play a copied version of Forza before the release date - doh.
Banning users is never going to be an effective course of action - they'll just go buy another Xbox and mod that one too. Unless M$ think a banned user would go out and spend hundreds of pounds on all the games they previously had for free?
And then you could always keep your banned Xbox for copied games, and have a legit Xbox to play MW2 on Live.. Very few games are actually worth playing on Live - CoD being one of the games that is ONLY worth playing on Live.
And such a small proportion of users actually do the modding that the industry as a whole doesn't lose any significant amount of revenue on sales.
I think you'll find it has been hacked, the main issue at the moment centres around the cost effective nature of doing so.
You'll need to download and store a Blu Ray sized file, so say around 30Gb - not speedy on many internet connections, you'll then need a Blu Ray burner - also not currently cheap and finally the media to burn onto - again, not cheap and really irritating when the burner fucks up as often happens.
That said, hacks do already exist... but the dedicated need only apply!
While it's hard to slate Microsoft for this, I wonder how long it will be before they claim that the Xbox itself (or, at least, maybe the underlying "O/S") isn't bought, it's merely licensed, and may therefore also be shut off?
Linux, because ... well, I can buy a Linux phone. Now for a Linux games console! :-)
Do El Reg Hardware know something the rest of us don't?
I was under the impression the PS3 hadn't been modified (yet).
This is slightly old news though, it's been going around the games sites for the past few days with some people saying it was to do with some players going on XBOX Live with some games that haven't been released yet. Who knows?
It supposedly doesn't just ban the console from XBOX Live, it also does other stuff such as corrupting profiles and stops transferring games to the hard drive.
Personally I don't think it's worth the hassle modding the console.
Rob
Not that surprising really, who'd buy a PS3 anyway? :o) The only game worth getting IMHO (Gran Turismo 5) hasn't even been released yet!
Not heard of that many getting blue-ray players either but ya never know really. Guess the recession has maybe cooled things off a bit???
Shame on the Evil Empire for cracking down on those who dare to crack / unlock / jailbreak or otherwise modify the consumer electronics gadget that they OWN and paid good money for in order to use them how they please....
Oh no wait a minute, this isn't an Apple product so it's perfectly OK, my mistake.
"Shame on the Evil Empire for cracking down on those who dare to crack / unlock / jailbreak or otherwise modify the consumer electronics gadget that they OWN and paid good money for in order to use them how they please...."
Errrr, MS arent stopping you chipping the console - they are stopping you connecting to an (optional) subscription service with equipment altered from the factory spec. This is no different from Sky killing off boxes using cloned cards (fair enough) or linking a box to a specific card (twats!)
Thats like saying "Why cant I walk on this plane with a gun? - I paid for my ticket!"
It was interesting that one of my colleagues was grumbling that he and three of his mates had their modded 360's banned yesterday. They have all gone out and bought replacement units just to play COD:MW2.
This scheme sounds like a great plan for MS to (artificially) boost their console sales figures and market share just before xmas, and to help dilute the % number of units that they wrote off due to RROD faults.
The difference between apple and microsoft is that when you jail break apple iphone, you're doing it to load apps which aren't authorised by apple and so apple doesn't get the revenue from the sale of the app on Itunes. hence you're not free to develop an app for iphone and load it without paying apple a r(L)oyalty fee. Microsoft on the other hand don't want you to play copied games which is their source of revenue. Very few - if any - people mod their xbox to play a homebrew game as is evidenced by the release of the XNA SDK. This means that Microsoft are perfectly happy in users developing their own games and playing them without getting authorisation from Microsoft to do so. That is why Apple blows goats in this situation.
The actus reus in the 2 scenarios might be similar but the mens rea are completely different.
Considering the most prevalent hack for the XBOX appears to be the optical drive firmware modification it shouldn't be a daunting task for the XBOX Live developers to check for the existence of an unauthorised firmware image and flag the relevant XBOX Live account appropriately.
If that's the method of detection then the solution is easy, restore the original firmware for the optical drive and bin the copied games. Unless of course the XBOX owner decides they don't want to use the Live service anymore.
Maybe there are mods for the XBOX that are more invasive than the firmware change, physical mods are going to be difficult to undo. If I owned an XBOX I'd definitely opt for the reversible modification.
The reason that the PS3 hasn't been modified is, I would wager, that there is no need to modify it.
The primary function of modchips is, in general, not to play pirated games, that's simply a side-effect. The primary function of a modchip is to disable the region protection on the console to allow for legally purchased import games to play, and since all PS3 titles are region-free, there is no need to develop a modchip for it.
Nobody mods their Xbox to play homebrew because the mods don't allow the execution of unsigned code, or even the running of games from other regions.
It's ultimately self-defeating anyway - banning the consoles doesn't stop the dodgy games from being run, just prevents access to the Xbox live service (which is optional for online play) and prevents anyone from potentially purchasing Xbox live market place content, or renewing any gold subscription they might otherwise of paid for.
Now, you might argue that people who pirate are unlikely to purchase extra DLC, overpriced avatar shite, themes or XBLA stuff, but by banning consoles you're changing that from "unlikely" to "definitely won't", and they'll continue to play pirated games anyway.
> hence you're not free to develop an app for iphone and load it without paying apple a r(L)oyalty fee
This is a commonly held myth. If you want to develop an app to install on your iPhone then you are perfectly able to do so without paying Apple a penny. The little publicised "ad-hoc" distribution model for iPhone applications also allows the development and deployment of corporate in-house apps that can be deployed to a group of employees without having to pay any royalties to Apple or go through the App Store.
@AC 17:19: you missed the irony ;-)
@ Why is it called an xbox 360?
Trolling is a art, I tip my hat to you my friend.
On topic: Apparently there may be some legit players banned, and it can take a month+ to get them to even look into you console, and before then you get berated and hung up on by CSRs. Although they've had to deal with 599 999 "false" bans for every wrongful bans. Nothing worse than dealing with screaming 13 year olds wanting to play their illegal games (and yes, it is illegal, I'm a pirate and I admit it, but I will not buy and mod a console that could cause them to ban me, DS flash carts all the way). I say, they send out free shipping boxes to people who complain, fix the wrongful bannings, and keep the rest and use them for RROD repairs.
Never turned up any false positives. Ever. Honest, true as I'm (not sexually) riding this bike.
Having spent ½ an hour on the phone trying - in vain - to get my legal, reloaded XP key working with Mustafa Dump - in Delhi, he cheerfully admitted, although it was a UK number - God knows what luck the little cherubs in their teddy-wallpapered bedrooms will have when Xbox sends out a false positive.
You have to love the press coverage on this (mainly excluding the reg). It's pitched at exactly the same level as when MS lost all the sidekick data, like it's a terrible thing for Microsoft to do.
The basics of this is, Xbox live is a microsoft service, you sign a service agreement, one of which is that you won't modify the console. If they wanted to put in the agreement that you would put a huge microsoft sticker on the front of your house before signing in they could. That's it.
It's not illegal to withdraw access to a service for breaking the service agreement, the xbox console is still perfectly fine, it will still play regular paid for games, and in fact still play pirated games offline.
Summary, break the rules, be prepared to deal with it and not cry about how you're no longer able to pirate games and play online.....
Also, the BBC Newsbeat article interviewing someone bemoaning Microsoft for banning him and ruining his life etc. But if that bloke was the games developer who's job was under threat from the propsed $750m of revenue, he'd accept paying for the game.
According to some sources, MS isn't just banning the modded xboxen from Live. They're trashing all functionality, the media live center *and* corrupting *every* *single* savegame you've got. That would be the equivalent of WGA overwriting all your files because you have a "non-original" Windows. I'm pretty sure that's highly illegal, and I'd expect MS to get slammed by lawsuits for this.
Oh well, good thing I bought a PS3. ;)
BTW, the "turn 360 degrees" was awesome. Has anybody here seen Last Action Hero?
Id love to see just how you could do what you talk about, as Im a geek and I love reading up on this and apart from a very very basic disk swap method that soon got patched there's never been a working publicised way to boot backup's on the ps3 (at any cost).
Tbh if there was a way even if it cost more than the orginals id probably do it for the shear sake of doing something interesting with what is essentially a paperweight (not one of the games I wanted when I first got the ps3 nearly 2 years ago has been released yet).
Please, for every 1 person that installs a modchip so that they can play an out-of-region game, 99 will be installing them to be able to play free/cheap copies of games.
Can't feel too worried that they being booted off Live. MS have always been clear that you pay to play. So wannabe pirates will have to have two xboxen or a switch to offline 'steal' mode and 'online/live mode'.
Only issue will be if MS boot people who have done nothing wrong other than replacing the HDD drive with something larger. That would bite given the cost/size of the official units.
I've owned my XBOX 360 for 7 months and it was modded the day I bought it.
Banned on Sunday using IXtreme firmware 1.51
I would wager that more than 15% of Live users in Australia have been banned - 3% worldwide sounds a conservative estimate.
Fortunately you can still play games with a banned box, just not online.
I know for a fact that the ban followed the latest XBOX live Experience update which was installed on Saturday
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They are quite within their rights to ban the freetards from Live (its in the ToS black and white), they arent bricking the console and from what I've heard they don't even ban the Live account itself. The user owns the 360 and as such they can change it and do stuff to it - but they don't own Live and access to Live is not a right that comes with having the 360.
As regards the sales tactic commens than yes they obviously want you to buy a new 360 but they arent putting a gun to your head on that one. If not a single one of the banned users bought another 360 I seriously doubt they would lose alot of sleep over it. You've already bought the 360 orignally and since you are pirating chances are you aren't buying alot of games so they lose out on what £40 a year for your Live? Big deal!
With timing it with the release of MW2 it not only ensures high levels of media coverage of the ban to remind people of the possible consequences of modding their console it also helps that the people frantic to play MW2 might just go out and buy another 360, also it means that people who want it but are tempted to save the £50 and pirate the game might just buy it instead so the publisher wins too.
I'm genuinely shocked at the way some of the media is painting Microsoft as the bad guys here (yes Radio1 I'm looking at you), some days I swear if MS went round capturing serial killers there would be some hack interviewing the killers about how their rights had been violated and why shouldnt they be free to go round killing people.
I thought that they could not detect the firmware itself but the fact that people play pre-release games. You have to be totally retarded to do that if you are on Live.
The PS3 has not been hacked yet because nobody has found a way of doing it, not through lack of trying. Now that the new slim ps3 is coming out (out already?) you can't run Other OS any more so why ain't it been hacked yet then?
The only way I could see is if someone decrypted the firmware modified it so that it can play ISOs from disk, then find an exploit in the PS3 firmware to flash the firmware.
And to the people who say it's because of the BD-ROM, what would stop people burning a ISO loader to a disc then using that like for the PS2 and just buy a huge hard drive or two. Also you can download any file from the internet on the PS3 and execute it, unless it's signed by sony it will not run. Anyone want to exploit that?
"This smacks like net neutrality. No tribunal, no judge, no jury, no appeals.. Just blatant enforcement, yay."
Only one person mentionned that .. funny really
fanboys to blinded to argue about their toys
Society is falling asleep here :)
as for the 360 joke, it highlights the point, consoles really don't help your brain.With a bit of hope the 360 banned gamer will start visiting libraries ? :D
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