Microsoft has placed a ban on up to 1 million Xbox 360 consoles from the popular Xbox Live service. Affected gamers will need to buy a new console if they want to play online again.
The consoles were banned after owners modified their Xbox 360s to be able to play pirated games.
Banned consoles displayed a message yesterday saying there was "no recourse for terms of use violations".
Gamers who have been disconnected can recover their Xbox Live profile when using an unmodified console, but their banned Xbox 360 has received a lifelong sentence.
It's not all bad news though as modified consoles will still work offline.
Microsoft has said that prohibiting this group of gamers is part of an ongoing drive to fight piracy. There has been suggestion that this latest wave of exclusions was to specifically stop people downloading pirated versions of the much hyped Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
“We can assure you that if an Xbox Live member follows the Xbox Live terms of use, purchased a retail copy of Modern Warfare 2 and played the game on an unmodified Xbox 360, no action will be taken,” the tech giant said.
It seems though that some gamers who have modified their consoles in order to make back-ups of games they had purchased have been affected. Microsoft won't reveal specifics as to how it has decided which gamers to ban from Xbox Live.
Modified consoles have been spotted on eBay as gamers seem to be trying to get rid of their disconnected consoles to those who haven't heard about the ban.
Industry figures suggest that the video game industry loses £750m a year due to piracy.
14 thoughts on “Permanent Xbox Live Ban- Gamers Told to Buy New Console”
but if put my HD from an baneed xbox on a new one?
can i use my gamertag from de banned xbox and still having my achievements and saves?
I was one of the ones that made copies so that me and my two sons could play at the same time. I own 3 xbox 360’s and there is no way I am buying 3 copies of the same game at 60 bucks thats close to $200 with taxes. Not on a working man’s salary. Anyways they banned us, all three of us.
Each of us had his own xbox live account and we purchased microsoft points regularly. Yesterday I called to cancel all three xbox live accounts. Who loses? Microsoft does. We will be doing more outdoor activities from now on, which is what we should have been doing in the first place.
They gave up their tail for one game MW2 (which is not that good).
From what I heard, if you take any saved data that was generated on a banned xbox, it will get your new xbox banned as well. I think the only way to go is to format the hard drive on the banned xbox, then recover your gamertag on the un-modded xbox. The downside to this is that you will lose all your saves. I don’t think anything can be done to recover your saves.
J.P. seems to think like a lot of people that he should determine what he pays for a product. I wonder how he would feel if a customer of the company that pays his wages said, “I need three of your things but I’m a “working man” so I’m going to pay for one and just take the other two. You make a lot of money – you’ll never miss it.”
And then 1 million of his customers did the same thing.
It doesn’t matter what else you bought. You stole two copies of the game, you and your kids got the full value of three copies. The game sales drive the backend architecture investment – if the 1 million thieves stop playing then my play experience will get better.
I heard about this with the original Xbox and back then the catch was if you modded it you couldn’t play online and plenty of people still got modded machines just so they could play the game. Now I guess they were getting away with it on the 360 and now they can take the machine online. They should’ve expected it. Look I know games are expensive I know I have over five consoles plus a computer, but if you do something your not supposed and get caught what is there to get mad about. Frankly I think Microsoft was nice they only cut off the machines the accounts and achievments can be transfered to another system. Which the players account is still intact. Hell pick a mem card and you can transfer you saved games over too. Seriously in the end its not that bad. And they had to the right to lock out each and every Live account associated but chose not to so end the end be thankful that’s all they did.
Except…that’s exactly how it works, JP. We don’t get to ignore the rules if we don’t like them. What you were doing was theft. The justifications people are throwing around for this are ludicrous.
Sorry, you aren’t getting much sympathy here.
oh dear… never mind, at least the consoles not bricked. Nintendo would have just bricked it at the first chance they get.
It’s such a shame that they make so much profit on these games and the prices are ridiculous. Their marketing only gets the attention of children who could only wish that they could get their hands on them. As parents, we don’t like to see our kid in these state. We want to provide for them but at cost like this, no wonder prople turn to piracy. I’m sure most people would rather own the original but they are left without choice.
ive been banned today and just realised u cannot play the installed game from the hard drive anymore so your xbox is making the loud noise while your playing. oh well at least it’s not bricked. who has the money these days to buy every game. it could be a lot worse.
If you’re not able to afford the games then don’t bother buying the console.
Joe> Stealing is taking something from someone> They loose you gain. Buying a game and making copies is not stealing.
1.If the man could not afford 3 copies of the game then MS have lost nothing by him making backup copies.
2. MS have not been deprised of any possesions. You could argue that they have lost a sale – See point 1
Copying something is NOT stealing.
Hey there, this maybe a little late, but I have been wondering. If you owned a banned xbox, but still played xbox 360 games that were pirated, and decided to get a new xbox to get back online, will you be banned again because of the games that you played that is being carried to the new xbox or no?
I own an Xbox and a Playstation and both are really good game consoles. Let’s see what are Microsoft’s future updgrades on its Xbox game console.:~’