Report: 1 Million Xbox Users Banned for Piracy

[rooket]

[citation][nom]CChick[/nom]oh. I was talking to this cheap motherfucker. hmm, you got as much games as ppl who dont pirate ? hmm rrrright. while I dont have Xbox. I got over 70 PS3 games, and over 200 PS2 games, and probably 300+ PS games. Plus all other Saturn, DC, TurboGraphic/PC-Engine/PCFX. etc. Ahhh. so yeah, you can stfu now.[/citation]

gosh u guys are pissy. I don't burn away all my money on video games. I know a guy who owns $30k worth of PS3 games and that is just rediculous. I own other things besides JUST video games and computers.... sheesh.

 

[nelson_nel]

[citation][nom]nelson_nel[/nom]I agree to suck at match in hopes that you may one day realize you suck at LOGIC.Done now.[/citation]

Damnit; I also agree to suck at spelling. Math*

 

[CChick]

[citation][nom]rooket[/nom]not necessarily, nelson.. my live subscription expired over a year ago and I had yet to renew. I don't do the online credit card deal cos I know they keep renewing you until you call in and a lot of people including myself are probalby too lazy to do so. I knew a guy in the UK who had an xbox live gold on his CC and he was so damn lazy and also so busy with real life things such as having a g/f and raising a newborn... that he just let it lapse and he kept re-incurring what would it be like 70 pounds a year there or some rediculous fee because console companies LOVE to shaft the UK.. so he was paying for 12 month subscriptions for full price for at least 2 years without even turning on his xbox system.as far as buying a new console I have an extra one already that I bought 3 years ago for 200 dollars. I'm in no bad shape at all. Just a little bit more wise this time.xbox live ban ftw.[/citation]

your friend is just a moron. too busy with real life my ass. if he doesnt have that 15 minutes to call in to cancel, I think he does not have what it takes to become a father.

Again, you failed, Cheap mofo.

 

[CChick]

[citation][nom]rooket[/nom]gosh u guys are pissy. I don't burn away all my money on video games. I know a guy who owns $30k worth of PS3 games and that is just rediculous. I own other things besides JUST video games and computers.... sheesh.[/citation]

lol !

omg u know a guy owns 30K worth of PS3 games? lets see so does that mean he bought every single game came out since launch?

if thats the case, I think the person you "know" is nothing but a sore loser LOL.

and hmm ... spend all money on games and computers ... hmm , does having 3 car thats heavily modded, having a boat, a house count ?

 

[rooket]

[citation][nom]CChick[/nom]your friend is just a moron. too busy with real life my ass. if he doesnt have that 15 minutes to call in to cancel, I think he does not have what it takes to become a father. Again, you failed, Cheap mofo.[/citation]

nah he makes enough money to not really care about that bill rolling in on his credit card. and I dunno where you get the idea you are obligated to say someone you don't even know is a bad father. (heck I hardly even know the guy he doesn't live in the USA)

you can call me cheap all you wish but I like having actual money I can do things with rather than sit on my fat ass in front of a console all day long playing sub-par video games. I got bored with that system, time to move on. I was never overly excited about the "next generation" consoles, they never delivered what I thought current technology was capable of. When the 360 first came out, all the buzz in the chat rooms was "this looks like it could have been done on Xbox1". Mainly speaking about PD0 and other launch titles such as King Kong. It wasn't that spectacular.

Also nelson it isn't a spelling competition I don't mind if u misspell some words it is all good.

 

[rooket]

[citation][nom]CChick[/nom]lol ! omg u know a guy owns 30K worth of PS3 games? lets see so does that mean he bought every single game came out since launch? if thats the case, I think the person you "know" is nothing but a sore loser LOL. and hmm ... spend all money on games and computers ... hmm , does having 3 car thats heavily modded, having a boat, a house count ?[/citation]

u can say u have anything on the internet and people will believe u. I don't feel obligated to tell anyone how many cars I own or how modified they may be. Just can stir up other arguments which are nonsense I have found.

 

[rooket]

[citation][nom]CChick[/nom]lol ! omg u know a guy owns 30K worth of PS3 games? lets see so does that mean he bought every single game came out since launch? if thats the case, I think the person you "know" is nothing but a sore loser LOL. and hmm ... spend all money on games and computers ... hmm , does having 3 car thats heavily modded, having a boat, a house count ?[/citation]

Well.. he probably does at that. he is a video game collector after all. Idk why u are so atimate about trying to tell me how I should spend my money. Do you realize that buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of video games is NOT a smart investment at all? use your head and don't try to tell me how to live, I don't try to tell you how to live do I. and you must be so certain that I am not about to buy a retail copy of MW2 because it is a great game which I have not even played yet. why not be more positive instead of trying to drive people away from this stuff. if people want to be all negative so much maybe I'll just not buy it then and find something else to do with my own cash.

 

[rpmrush]

Clever MS. This is funny. I don't play online games. Just solo PC games. I do know that those who play online, especially XBOX junkies are gonna be fiending. They will buy a new XBOX. To whoever thought MS just lost money...think again.

 

[buwish]

WOW. MS puts its foot down. It's pretty rare that they do this, especially with pirated versions of Office, Windows, etc... But I guess it's a lot easier to track down modded XBOX firmware from a server and hit a few buttons to stamp out XBOX piracy.

 

[jgiron]

They ban the consoles, not the users

The article says it bans the XBOX Live account which is tied to a user (aka bank account) so if that user tries to register another XBOX 360 they might be in trouble if they use the same account. MS would most likely blacklist that XBOX 360 so that any other users attempting to use it will get a warning or just get banned. The reduces the value of the XBOX 360 (since you can't use Live and all if it's glorious features)

 

[necronic]

I'm actually surprised to see that many people defending MS on this. I am very much so against piracy, but I always got the impression that people here were generally for it. Good to see that there are some people with personal ethics around.

And honestly, there is no excuse, particularly for consoles to pirate. 4 good games can keep most light play gamers busy for a year, and anyone that has to play tons and tons of games needs to sign up for gamefly (or the blockbuster equivalent). If I could rent PC games I would do it all the damned time.

Anyways, good to see them fighting back against this crap. Its a benefit for developers and legit gamers.

 

[rooket]

All they did for me is ban a system that is 4 years old which is going to RLOD anyway because they contract to crappy Chinese manufacturers that have very very poor quality control. Nice work M$ but this system was overdue for breaking down anyway. I was laughing last night when it happened.

 

[necronic]

Also, people complaining about prices for consoles need to take a step back and think about it. A computer capable of playing current gen games will cost 3 times as much, at least, and something that cheap won't be able to keep up for more than a couple years at best. A ultra high end system (2-4k) will have problems keeping up after only 4-6 years without some serious upgrades. My computer, for instance, was built right before the i7 socket shift was announced, so my obsolescence cycle got fed in the a.

On the other hand, you have an xbox, which costs ~250, has a 2 year warranty for RROD and other failures, and has an expected turnover of 6 years.

So you can buy a computer that may give you 6 years if you are lucky, for 2k, or you can get an xbox that WILL give you 6 years (unless it bricks right after warranty, MS is still pretty good about fixing them after warranty expires), and will have far less issues with bugs than PC games (Borderlands for example).

Console gaming is incredibly cheap

 

[Guest]

My brother modded mine as a "gift" when I was in the hospital, I was pissed, I didn't even have a way to burn or download games. So I had never played a copied or downloaded game in my xbox and it went down last Saturday. I called him up and made him buy me a COD Warfare 2 Elite with the 250 gig hard drive. No more worries.

 

[steiner666]

THIS JUST IN:

Ppl think paying $60 a game is bullshit!

Get with the fucking economy M$ idiots!

 

[princeofdreams]

People thinking M$ will regain the money lost need to think again. The 360 is sold at a loss, they make their money from the commission they charge to game publishers for it being placed on the 360 (Some $10 I believe)coupled with the money from add on equipment and from the xbox live gold accounts.

Everyone is saying these people will run out and buy a new 360, and if they do so what? M$ make no profit from that, and do you seriously believe these people will all run out and suddenly purchase all the games they have been pirating? If you do then you know nothing about human nature

Games developers/publishers continually whine saying they are losing billions each year to piracy, but everyone who pirates a game will NOT buy an original. These people who download 100's of games won't suddenly find an extra $10,000 dollars in their bank account to replace them with.

While I have no doubt that piracy affects the game industry, just as it affects the software/movie/music industry, they will never recoup the stupid amounts they mention

Maybe they should concentrate on delivering superior products that people want to purchase instead of the shite they drum out and charge extortionate amounts for.

And before you flame, no I don't pirate games on the xbox 360, I bought mine for my kids and never use it, I just wait until a game hits the bargain bucket and then buy it for them, no need to pirate.

 

[aeurix]

Next up is :

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

... you guys really want that?

 

[islasian]

[citation][nom]montezuma[/nom]I have modified my Xbox 360 to play the copies of the games I legally own. I have around 90 titles and refuse to pay for the damn game again if the disc goes bad. I dare Microsoft to ban me, as that would give me standing to sue them for violating my right to copy media I own and use those copies for myself.I think it is high time that someone sue Microsoft, [/citation]
Maybe you could get the ball rolling and sue them if they ban you for using your backup of your original game online on your modified Xbox. Which, you agreed to not do when you accepted the terms of the Live account. You're free to make copies of your games, mod your console cus it's yours... thats fine.. I can understand your stance on that... but if you go online and play it when you agreed to the terms of Live that you will not do such a thing... umm.. yah.. good luck with that.. in fact, I dare you, go ahead, start a class action lawsuit against MS if they ban you for using a mod 360 on Live to play your backup....
Maybe Tom's will write an article on how you successfully sued MS cus they banned you for modding your 360 to play your backups on Live..

 

[Guest]

What M$ did is send an update to customers xbox 360's. The program ran a hash check on the dvd drives firmware and sent that hash back to Live's database. It has been planned for some time and they used the lite-on drive for their testing of this. Around the end of october M$ sent this update and they began banning people after the hash checks came back non genuine. ie. Ixtreme. My Xbox was banned. I can still play games for windows on the live service with my gamertag. It's no big deal. There just games. People can play with their friends on xbconnect, or Kai, so it's only a minor stepback for modders. New firmware will be developed to be undetectable and the kat and mouse game will continue.

 

[nelson_nel]

[citation][nom]necronic[/nom]Also, people complaining about prices for consoles need to take a step back and think about it. A computer capable of playing current gen games will cost 3 times as much, at least, and something that cheap won't be able to keep up for more than a couple years at best. A ultra high end system (2-4k) will have problems keeping up after only 4-6 years without some serious upgrades. My computer, for instance, was built right before the i7 socket shift was announced, so my obsolescence cycle got fed in the a.On the other hand, you have an xbox, which costs ~250, has a 2 year warranty for RROD and other failures, and has an expected turnover of 6 years. So you can buy a computer that may give you 6 years if you are lucky, for 2k, or you can get an xbox that WILL give you 6 years (unless it bricks right after warranty, MS is still pretty good about fixing them after warranty expires), and will have far less issues with bugs than PC games (Borderlands for example). Console gaming is incredibly cheap[/citation]

These are all very good points. I took a HUGE break from PC gaming (3 or 4 years? maybe a little more.) just because there weren't many games coming out for it that justified the hardware upgrades that couldn't be played on a console and look relatively great and play similarly.

Now I just got done spending probably about $700-ish on a system with a 4870 that can play anything I want which is cool because at heart I think PC gaming was and can be way more fun that consoles (if you like having up-to-date graphics and what not; I did). The only problem I'm now noticing is that I'm mostly replaying games I've already played on Xbox360 or PS3 for the simple fact that there aren't really any compelling exclusives. We all know why that is... I hope...

If you notice, the quality of gaming on PC and consoles is dipping. Devs have to release several 'junk' titles to build up budgets for the rare good one or two a company may be well known for. The business model is crumblish and it is largely to do with pirating.

This is why we are slowly moving into the 'cloud' which I think will be a gaim for developers but a loss for consumers who know any better. All because some consumers are too greedy.

We all pay in the end.