Robin Hoods Playground

Xbox Live Ban Reaches 1 Million, Microsoft Tells Them to Buy a New Console
by: Jason Mick
According to reports, Activision may have requested Microsoft to ban players with modded consoles

Yesterday, news broke that Microsoft had banned a massive amount of players from its Xbox Live service which is available on its popular Xbox 360 gaming console. According to reports, the banned players had one thing in common -- they had modified their console's hardware or firmware to carry out unauthorized activity such as installation of an alternate OS, playing out of zone media, or running pirated software.

Initially, the estimates pegged the number of banned users at 600,000. Now CNET is reporting that over 1 million players have been banned from the service. That's a pretty incredible number as Xbox Live only has 20 million subscribers. That means that approximately 1 in 20 players has been banned, or roughly 5 percent of the service's total population.

The ban coincided with the release of Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Tuesday, and many are speculating that the rampant piracy of the game before its release triggered Activision to demand action from Microsoft. Pirated copies were widely floating around torrents sites over the weekend, and players with modified consoles may have taken it out for a spin ahead of release.

Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson has stated, "Players who find their Gamertags banned from Xbox Live have wound up in that situation due to violations of the Xbox Live Terms of Use. The Xbox Live team monitors players for not just cheating, but also for things like threats, racism, profanity, and just being an all around poor sport and ruining the game for others."

He continues, "When a Gamertag comes up as violating our policies for online behavior, the person who owns that Gamertag is punished by being banned from the service. Keep in mind, this isn't just a ban on a particular game. This is a ban on the Xbox Live service as a whole, so you won't be able to go online at all during your ban. Initially, you may be banned for a day, a week, or depending on severity, permanently! Kiss that $50 goodbye."

The ban revokes the consoles' crypto keys, making information saved by them unreadable on other Xboxes. The ban also limits the console's functionality, via blocking HD installation and the use of a media extender. For those banned, they do have the option of buying a new console, but that's a rather pricey option. Users who do move to another Xbox should be able to get back on Xbox Live as Microsoft hasn't yet banned Gamertags -- just placed the ban on individual consoles. When it gets down to it, it appears that as Major Nelson pointed out, over 1 million Xbox users are out a bit of money and enjoyment because Microsoft decided to crack down hard on console modding.

The crackdown is not without precedent. Apple in 2007 bricked thousands of unlocked iPhones, which it claimed were illegally modified and violated its EULA. Microsoft also reportedly will be banning third party storage in its latest update for the Xbox 360, forcing users to buys its more expensive memory sticks.

Update: Thur., November 12, 2009, 2:30 p.m.:

In recently released statements Microsoft says the ban is permanent and suggests owners of modded Xbox 360's buy a new console. In a statement eerily similar to Apple's following the bricking of unlocked iPhones, a Microsoft spokesperson commented, "Users of banned Xbox consoles can recover their profile to another, unmodified Xbox 360 console to resume their Live service. The banned console will be unable to connect to Xbox Live."

Reportedly, Microsoft discovered a way to detected modified DVD-drive firmware, leading to the bans. Modifying the firmware allows users to run otherwise disallowed discs such as out-of-zone media, backup copies of DVDs or games, and even pirated games.

At press time hundreds of modified/banned consoles are reportedly flooding eBay and other online auction sites, as owners of the blocked consoles presumably try to dupe those who haven't heard the news into buying the damaged goods.

Hey,do you think they actually found out how to detect the ixtreme firmware?It'd sound reasonable for all of the bans.Seems more likely than the banning of consoles to get money and increased console purchases for christmas.

Iva had like almost everyone in my school banned

man my system got banned today but its all good like i said thanks for the hard work guys but i still play my modded without the live so i still after the achivemnet points

finally got hit wednesday night 9:30 on the dot! oh well its gonna be a good christmas with all of these verbatims i got itching to be used lol!

daqid wrote:finally got hit wednesday night 9:30 on the dot! oh well its gonna be a good christmas with all of these verbatims i got itching to be used lol!

Sounds like the same time as me m8, Just doing some hotlapping on Forza 3, I had actually just reburned another copy of disc 2 DLC and reinstalled the patched version, The one I was originally using wasnt verified but was fine, But I always run another burn once its verified, so yeah was hotlapping around 9.30 GMT and I was logged out of live, This happens sometimes so I was hoping I could log back in, Since hearing of these bans and this has happened in that time Ive jokingly said to my lass, Ive been banned, But then its logged back in fine. Wednesday night when I gets this message my heart felt like it had been stabbed a thousand times. I knew it would get me soon but its so hard to prepare for. It actually didnt sink in and still hasnt fully yet, I just carnt believe its happened. My lass offered to get me a new one yesterday when we went to the Metro Centre but it was too much money for what I would need, 90 quid for a preowned 360, 44 quid for MW2, I could of just got the console but would of been a waste. She only had a 100 on her. Just wondering are you in the UK coz if you are maybee they sweeping this coutry now, as the first I heard it was US and Canada.

I will be back though as all theyve done to me now is vow to do it all all the more, and I will and I will help my friends too. They are just making this worse to be honest. The only thing that annoys me at the minute is the HD crippling, Ive only just got a 120 gigger and now its useless.

All you can do now is wait for 1.62 or 1.70.. if those will even exsist. MS did yhe same thing 2 yrs ago with crackdown due to halo 3.
Big launch equals big ban

Yea, both of my friends have gotten banned in the past week. I haven't logged into Live in 2 days since I'm scared to face the music. I know as soon as i plug into Live I'm going to get that famous Ban Hammer message and it's going to suck. It wouldnt be so bad if we could still rack up achievements on the banned console so we could still play backups. Since the ban corrupts your saves on the modded box it is pretty much a brick.

1 million? That's pretty impressive, you have to admit. I haven't had my xbox modded for too long, so I'm going to try and wait out the banwave and hope I wasn't noticed.

trailz, if you've recently downloaded any XBL updates for the dashboard then they probably already have your FW information....srry dude

M$ has very sleazy, low tactics to boost their sales in my opinion. Banning consoles doesnt really protect live community, you know what protects community banning rapid fire hacks and similar exploits. 4 burned games doesnt not ruin fun on anyone of xbox live. its clear to me that since ps3 slim is stepping up in sales, M$ wants simply do get more hardware sales. trust me that aint gonna work on me. guess im switching to ps3 slim for now, until xbox hacking reaches a new level and hacks that dashboard to redirect to hacked multiplayer servers. if that ever happens....

1 Million....
How do we come up with that number? We aren't reporting every console banned to a central location, and MS ain't sharing their data, that's for sure.
P.S.- for the census, I have 1 banned console this wave.

i got three and two r still runnin fine 1.6 fw east coast us.the one was banned on monday 11/09 and if the other two get banned then ill give one each to my brothers and they can stop wasting money to see if they want a game or not because its now time to just download games all of them no point in inhand rips now that one has been banned.plus ill have free games forever as long as they make them.roinhood should just start there own gaming network im sure alot of users would join from what i just read that could b around 1,000,000 users.....................yeah just joken










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i wouldnt doubt they found a way to detect our ixtreme FW.. they do have the same level of access to all the same tools we have access to so it would only be a matter of time before Microsoft found a way to block it or run a program looking for it after all they do have the name and version and all other info about it... i think even if ixtreme LT does come out they would jus do the same thing and look for it with the same system their using now... i bet if we all had FW that was kinda the same but more unique to each user they would have a harder time either finding out what we are using or looking for whats in our boxes.. what im saying is probly stupid but in a nutshell what im trying to say is they know what we are using and their using that knowledge against us and as long as they can get it also then they can find a way to cripple it.. it would be nice to keep this next FW a secret but we all know thats not possible

forsergi wrote:M$ has very sleazy, low tactics to boost their sales in my opinion. Banning consoles doesnt really protect live community, you know what protects community banning rapid fire hacks and similar exploits. 4 burned games doesnt not ruin fun on anyone of xbox live. its clear to me that since ps3 slim is stepping up in sales, M$ wants simply do get more hardware sales. trust me that aint gonna work on me. guess im switching to ps3 slim for now, until xbox hacking reaches a new level and hacks that dashboard to redirect to hacked multiplayer servers. if that ever happens....

Ok I must say this post pissed me off. Like klutch said b4 people need to stop assuming. Ms is not doing bans for sale.

Activision requested the ban for obvious reasons. Its as. Simple as that.