Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Disconnects Modded Xbox Users
S-4'N3 writes "The BBC reports that Microsoft has disconnected approximately 600,000 Xbox users from Xbox Live because the devices they are using have been modified, either with software or with new chips, to play pirated games. 'Microsoft confirmed that it had banned a "small percentage" of the 20 million Xbox Live users worldwide.
Microsoft said that modifying an Xbox 360 console 'violates' the service's 'terms of use' and would result in a player being disconnected.'"
Apparently some people have gone as far as calling death threats to a "Director of Policy and Enforcement for Xbox LIVE" and his wife (theres also irc logs where he came to say it on #360banned)
There has been modded xbox360 bans before too, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to people when they do get banned. And at least it keeps the cheaters off games.
By "disconnecting" it means banning from playing in the "live" online network (which you must pay to play anyway).
It is still possible to play offline games with banned xboxs
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I think the correct term is "de-resed." And it should be pronounced using the best possible David Warner snear.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Listen, I hate Microsoft. I think the people who run Microsoft are criminals. I cannot for the life of me believe I'm about to say this:
You buy an XBox 360, you can do whatever you want with it. Mod it to your heart's content.
But the Live network belongs to Microsoft. They have a right to disconnect you if they want.
Now excuse me while I find someone to fulfill my user name.
This should mean I'll never lose to some 12 year old in Halo or CoD again, cause I'm sure they were all modding. Yep, that's definitely it.
600,000 of 20,000,000
there are some who would call this "three percent"
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
The great thing about online console play (the only thing, really, that it has over PCs) is their closed nature. It's much, much harder to cheat on a console than on a PC game. Don't get me wrong. I fully support their right to mod their own hardware. But I don't want to play them online.
I took it into a shop [the Xbox], there was a guy back there and I asked him and he did it for me [chipped it]. He charged £75 to get it chipped but at the end of the day I said to myself I'll pay £75 to get it chipped, after two games I've paid the money back.
I've probably saved about £600 and I've copied roughly 30 or 40 games. A lot of them I've downloaded or I've taken off friends that have downloaded themselves.
So at what point do you put two and two together and realize that getting kicked off playing online is not such a bad thing if you've saved £600? Is there really any wonder why XBox Live wants to deny you service? How exactly do you maintain outrage at being banned?
His sob story was going pretty good until he got up to those last paragraphs of admission and even saying he'd never do it again (implying he is wrong).
My work here is dung.
Bought a 3rd-party X-box over 6 months ago. I got a second when it RROD'ed, and noticed that the other couldn't play some games that my original could. I'm guessing that the original has a non-original DVD drive, and that those games are well-silkscreened copies, as they never did come with a case the way the Halo game had when I got the system...
So I wonder if when I turn that sucker on now (it's been solder-reballed which fixed the RROD) whether it will be permabanned from XBL. Mind you the only time I really log on to XBL is when playing video files etc, because it appears for some rather idiotic reason it tied the Codec downloads to your account rather than an overall system update. I suppose I'll just have to run it unplugged from the network.
Overall I wouldn't have a problem with not using the machine on XBL (I don't really do so anyways), but the fact that updates/codecs/etc are tied in there makes it a pain in the ass.
I think it's more funny how people like him think they are entitled to get any number of movies, music, games, etc for free without paying as if they are owed them. Yet, I bet if you asked these same people if it was perfectly okay for their boss to no longer pay them a salary for their work because the boss didn't feel like it, they'd be all up in a tizzy.
There are some very funny, outraged posts regarding this in the official xbox live forums. Microsoft has also banned players for a number of other offenses, including obscenity and racism, and these posts are great. My favorite: http://forums.xbox.com/29600400/ShowPost.aspx#29600400
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
I don't hear apple lock up modded apple tvs, and jailbraked iphones, and have m$ ever given free wi-fi in airports?
No, apple would never lock people out from violating their EULA! Never!
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/11/11/1336200/OS-X-Update-Officially-Kills-Intel-Atom-Support
Never!
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/09/07/15/221238/Apple-Update-Means-Palm-Pre-Can-No-Longer-Sync-With-iTunes?art_pos=23
Hitler is going to be pissed!
PISSED!
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
That hit me where the pun don't shine. Ouch.
Reply to That ||
Not being an asshole myself commenting this way , but m$ is being an really asshole doing this, I don't hear apple lock up modded apple tvs, and jailbraked iphones, and have m$ ever given free wi-fi in airports?
Ever hear of NASCAR or Formula 1 banning a vehicle for fining a driver/team for using hardware that was modified in a manner which was against their rules?
Ever hear of a baseball/basketball/football player being fined, banned, or reprimanded for using 'modded' hardware? (roughed up/greased baseballs, Corked bats, illegal cletes)
Olympic atheletes for using illegal substances in their hardware? (doping)
Microsoft was well within its rights to do what it did, and what's more, they were RIGHT in doing it. One of the key ways in which someone cheats at these games starts with modifying the hardware to bypass controls on modifying the client data.
When I play a game in a controlled environment (online service) I expect the service to make an effort to ensure that each person is playing on a level playing ground.
What Microsoft did here wasn't evil, what they did was one of the fundamental things necessary to run a fair and level game.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
And the evil M$ has no obligation to let people copy games and then play them on their online marketplace.
They didn't disable their equipment, it still works just fine. Just not online via their servers.
Seems pretty reasonable considering that copying those games is considered illegal I believe and if M$ did support using pirated games on XBL they could be liable legally themselves.
This is also helping to protect the rest of the community from those that think it entertaining to cheat and exploit online.
This three percent is one helluava mighty pirating engine ain't it? According to Microsoft, it's this three percent that's been the cause of the falling profits all this time. Now that they have been eliminated from being able to purchase stuff from Live... er.... I mean, uh.... now that they've been ejected.... No....
Can we just jump to the "Profit" step now, quick-like?
Edith Keeler Must Die
Talk about suicidal. Sentiments within the gaming community are critical when it comes to consoles. Many will see this as an attack on them.
Aww, look at all the console kids wanting to be PC gamers.
Why would they want to sell more 360s? Don't they still lose money on each one? My understanding was that they did, but made it up on the games and such. Buying an extra 360 isn't going to cause a user to buy more copies of the game, so why would they be trying to encourage more 360 sales that cut into their bottom line?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This guy says he didn't
http://consumerist.com/5402056/xbox-gamer-says-he-was-banned-online-for-no-reason
There is a war going on for your mind.
The timing on this is making me skeptical. It looks like they waited to do the bans until the Christmas season. That way little jimmy will be asking for a new xbox because his old one got banned.
Did Microsoft really think this through? The people who mod Xboxes are their best customers. They are the enthusiasts who care enough to learn more about the console.
99.9% of them are people who want to play free games, or cheat on games. People who cheat on games ruin the experience for everybody else. Most modded Xboxes were modded by some guy at a games store, anyway, and that guy charged for it, it's not like these guys went through the effort of modding it themselves... they just paid some goon so they could steal games.
The remaining 0.1%, yes, actually just wants to write software for it. Slashdot pretends this group is the larger percentage, but Slashdot is wrong about a good many things.
Comment of the year
The number is a wild ass guess. It's from a an anonymous post to a forum. In typical internet fashion it's being parroted around as fact.
http://www.digital-forums.com/showthread.php?t=608748
It's literally friend of a friend info that the BBC et al. is reporting as fact.
I find being offended by me offensive.
You really think so? The "backups" that most people use in their modded XBoxes are backups from some guy on a torrent site who himself probably only rented the game. How are these people their best customers? They probably play more games and have higher gamer scores, and might even pay for XBox Live Gold, but MS still isn't making as much from them as someone who buys only a few games a year.
And the evil M$ has no obligation to let people copy games and then play them on their online marketplace.
I agree. I even got modded troll for saying so.
Cheaters are not their concern (at least, it certainly doesn't seem to be). Microsoft's best customers are not so much the people that buy their consoles - it's the people that buy games for their consoles. The argument here is that people are modding their xboxes to sidestep Microsoft's DRM protection in order to play "backup" games. The people doing this are not particularly interested in creatively modding their xbox so much as being able to (via someone else's creative work) download torrented disc images, burn them to dvd, and play them on their xboxes.
The only problem with this approach is that some (undoubtedly small) percentage of users who are in fact doing creative things by modding their xbox could also fall victim to being a false positive from whatever method Microsoft is using to identify the modders.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
'Cause modding hardware you own should be illegal!
No, but violating the terms of use you agreed to buy using their service means they are perfectly justified in banning you from that service when you break the rules.
I wonder if we'll get stats on how many of the consoles were banned were actually registered as modded because they used the 'copper penny heatsink' mod to prevent Red Rings due to overheating and just didn't reassemble their console correctly.
Did you bother to read the post that he was responding to, or is that just some knee-jerk reaction that you have as soon as you see anything that might be considered disparaging of Apple? Particularly seeing as how the poster didn't insult Apple in any way but rather simply posted links to factual data that indicates what Apple has done that is contrary to the statement of the person he was responding to. Put down the pike; your Nirvana is not under attack.
The people who mod Xboxes are their best customers. They are the enthusiasts who care enough to learn more about the console.
I really cannot see how they are Microsoft's best customers. How does it improve Microsoft's or game publishers revenue when exactly these people almost never buy games. Considering theres no homebrew scene in Xbox360, the sole reason people get their consoles modded is to play copies.
I doubt that this effort will even result in an increase in revenues that will be enough to pay for the enforcement. There must be better ways to improve profitability.
It is not only that for Microsoft. They also have to care for their game developers, who are obviously going to bitch if theres rampant piracy going on and MS isn't doing anything for it. When there's the constant fear that your console could get banned from online play at any time, people begin to think if its just wiser to get the games they like and not bother with it. Unlike PC's, consoles are just supposed to work, and complicating things takes that aspect off. Yeah it wont stop piracy completely, but it will lower it.
First of all let me say that the market for used xbox consoles just got extremely dangerous!
Microsoft needs to set up a system where you can check the status of an xbox console remotely so people can still sell consoles with confidence... 600K Xboxes are about to go up on ebay for a deal that is just too good to pass up.
Secondly if you assume that you do not mind playing games offline that you have pirated, you can still beat the system. Is that not what this is all about?
Step 1: Buy an xbox that has been live banned for very cheap off ebay. It has already been modded, so you dont have to pay for that.
Step 2: Download 50-60 dollar games for free and play them to your hearts content, offline.
After a few games you have already made your money back from the initial purchase of the console.
What if you want to play on xbox live? You have a live console that you do not hack and just enjoy online games there.
You still have to buy games that you want to play online, but there are a lot fewer online games that are worth playing than there are short and sweet single player games that you can just download for free.
does the slashdot crowd think copying 30-40 games and "saving £600" is good?
And, how many of those games does the modder actually play on a regular basis? With the mod, he can get access to 30-40 games. But does he really play 30-40 games?
I'll bet money he plays just a few games. Now do your math. It's close to a wash at 75 pounds.
Microsoft was attempting to create a closed market for games when it developed the Xbox system. The free-market system found a way to defeat that closed system. Or, don't you believe in free markets?
Best regards.
So as major video game publishers leave the PC and flock to the consoles, what's the viable alternative to the console cartel if one wants to play local-multiplayer video games on a TV set?
It means you do without if you don't want to agree to the terms laid down by the people providing the service. Gaming is not a fundamental need. You aren't going to die if you can't play a video game.
Then I agree that he should have his account unbanned. Microsoft made a mistake banning him if his story is true and they should fix it and recompense him for the error. It still doesn't mean I have sympathy for any of the actual modders.
Where have I heard this before? http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/11/11/1336200/OS-X-Update-Officially-Kills-Intel-Atom-Support
"Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
The only problem with this approach is that some (undoubtedly small) percentage of users who are in fact doing creative things by modding their xbox could also fall victim to being a false positive from whatever method Microsoft is using to identify the modders.
Many users seemed to get banned this time after they played their pirated copy of Modern Warfare 2 before it was released, so it shouldn't be a problem for those who aren't modding to play pirated copies. MS isn't of course disclosing their methods to identify modded consoles, but this seemed to happen to many.
There are three reasons to mod your Xbox:
1. Turn it into a cheap PC
2. Play homebrew software (basically #1)
3. Steal games.
All of these rely on the same method: replace or disable protections on the OS or base firmware. It's in the quick start guide(the thing that tells you what is and isn't included) that if you mod your xbox, you will not be able to play Live! and may not be able to play the games you own.
So why the hell is anyone surprised about the ban?
And why the hell is anyone even angry about the ban? They expected it!
This is really simple. You don't like the product, don't buy it. Microsoft hasn't misrepresented a thing here. It's kind of the same thing as the hackintosh, actually. Is Apple evil too? If so you have a real simple remedy -- don't buy it. These companies are within their rights entirely. If someone wants to sell a different kind of game console and a different kind of game network where games are cheaper and mods are allowed, then fine. Maybe there's a business there. Maybe this is your big chance. Go start that business and stop whining.
I think the GP was trying to get across that it's pointless having a go at Microsoft for locking out modded consoles from Live, then in the same breath say that Apple would never, ever do such a thing. The OP was cognitive dissonance at it's best (or worst).
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Microsoft just isn't providing a service that is supported with that modified equipment, just as I can no longer get warranty service on my car because of the mods that I've made to the engine, even though they're happy to provide service for my wife's stock vehicle.
All of that is useless because you agreed to their terms of service when signing up for Live, which also contain terms about just exactly this. You wouldn't get far in court.
Actually, according to the story, his consoles are banned, one of which he claims is never played online.
Microsoft does not ban gamertags on modded consoles. If he violated the Xbox Live ToS in some other way, they might, in which case they would email him separately. Most modders can recover their gamertag on another console fine, however.
I don't know how it is where you are living, but a 16 yr old American has quite a few legal employment options.
There is a war going on for your mind.
"My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Microsoft ban 600,000 consoles last night. I guess it's pretty serious."
Will tomorrow bring us a story how MS's holiday goal is 1,000,000? Internet journalism at it's finest.
http://team-xecuter.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51518
Mow lawns? Yard work? Do stuff for your parents? I know it's a strikingly new idea to most teens, but your parents don't HAVE to give an "allowance," and I would dare say that some of them may even be willing to pay their children to do jobs that they otherwise have to pay someone else to do... like clean the house if they do maid stuff, or mow/garden/etc if they hire landscapers, etc...
Did Microsoft really think this through? The people who mod Xboxes are their best customers. They are the enthusiasts who care enough to learn more about the console.
Got news for you. The console manufacturers- not just MS- are in this for the money, and enthusiasm for the console doesn't really do that. Matter of fact, they probably don't want people finding out too much about the console anyway, because that opens the way to homebrew and/or piracy, regardless of the intention of the original hackers. (Even if it wasn't used for piracy, MS and its gaming rivals would rather you could only use your console via their official channels, which likely make them more money).
Nothing new here; 25 to 30 years ago, Atari tried to suppress information about their VCS console and 400/800 computers to stop other people making their own games and reducing Atari's slice of the pie. (They did, however, and their efforts beat the heck out of Atari's third-rate offerings).
In short, MS et al don't care about enthusiasm. Their "best customers" are the ones who spend lots of money on games through official channels.
(BTW, though I disagreed with the above comment, I didn't consider it "flamebait".)
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Wouldn't "Dude! this Xbox has a mod-chip so you can play copied games!" be the main selling point of such a console?
one of which he claims is never played online.
If it is never played online, then how would he know it was banned and why would he care?
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
Uh, "save your allowance" ring a bell?
I'm so sick of DRM, proprietary hardware, and other BS like this from Microsoft & Sony.
In this case its particularly annoying that they won't present any evidence of the supposed modding and its likely that many people who didn't mod their systems got banned.
All this content management seems like its directed at killing the secondary sales market for both consoles and video games.
This is like a one-strike law run by a big business behind closed doors to ban people from the internet.
I call shenanigans!
if you sold it, you can not deny anything if it gets changed by the buyer.
So MS better watch out if you disconnected EU Xbox users.
you might end up getting another case with the EU.
For an EU Xbox user to be disconnected from services MS has to proof that changes made to the Xbox result in illegal use - eg. actually using pirated games. The ability alone is not enough!
You mean the ones that allow it? Those laws?
It is YOU who find you are mistaken. About a great. many. thingssss.
Your pal,
Darth Sidious
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
There's a large, officially supported homebrew scene on XBL. They even have a channel to publish your games and get paid for them. There's a lot of officially published info on the system, including getting into the graphics hardware and creating networked games. There's not a whole lot you can't do with their system other than not writing managed code (which may/may not be a big deal depending on what you're doing). I'd say the main intent here is to get rid of pirates.
I'm sorry mr statistics. Besides "its obvious to me" where did that number come from? Thanks for quoting the survey.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
It's clear this guy isn't interested in going to court, if he's admitting that his recourse would be to commit fraud against a retailer who sells MS products just to get back at MS.
I don't know why he thinks cheating a dealer out of $X of retail product is going to hurt MS in any way at all ... either the dealer is going to eat the loss or his insurance will cover it and his rates will go up. Or maybe he thinks the dealer he buys stuff from is responsible for MS Live's decisions and should eat the cost on their behalf...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkDxF2kn1I
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
It appears that this update reflects chipped XBoxes. I guess this story isn't about the storage update that is coming up?
I'm waiting on that update to determine if I can buy a laptop 120GB drive for $60 instead of just deleting crap off my 20GB drive.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
1. With XNA there is 0 argument for writing software for your 360. MS has given you all the tools to write/send software to the 360
2. If you have a modded box, MS really doesn't care, what they care about is if you play online and have potential advantages over other players
If you mod, just don't play it online - they can play offline and do whatever they want, just don't play on Live
The remaining 0.1%, yes, actually just wants to write software for it.
Actually, there's no reason to mod your xbox to write software for it.
There's a hobbyist dev kit! It's a free download, even. You can write code for the XBox on it for free, and some schools are doing this. Now, if you want to install that code onto your own XBox... you need to pay an annual membership fee for the service that lets you do this, and then you can load the code onto your own unmodded xbox, and you can connect to it with a debugger and stuff. No hacks or mods necessary (in fact they interfere).
(And that fee also covers what you need to submit the stuff you write to the process that lets other people download it, and lets you get paid for that. I have bought a game or two that were written this way. There's some innovative stuff in there.)
apple has never officially supported atom OR palms pretending to be ipods. But then I suppose you'll point out that MS has never officially supported modded xboxes, so touche'.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
And this information is based on what study? As we know, people who download music from torrents are actually buying more music than those who don't. Why should it be different with X-Box players?
The fact that modders can play some games for free, doesn't mean they pirate ALL the games they have. I'd speculate that people who tinker a lot with their X-Boxes are more likely to get an X-Box game as a present, for example, which generates revenue for Microsoft.
In the USA, at least, the manufacturer can't deny warranty coverage due solely to modifications, unless those modifications directly caused the damage resulting in the warranty claim. SO, even if you modify the heck out of your engine, they still have to honor the warranty for the rest of the car.
I don't own an Xbox so I really don't care either way, but the people who I know that do mod theirs mostly for free games or ehanced features (like running the game without the disc) but none of the cheat.
Of course being anecdotal, I'm sure there are hardcore cheaters out there somewhere.
But anyways... It a moot point for them as well because each of them owns 2 or more xboxes.
One for Live and one for single player.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I wonder why people go through the whole hassle of pirating games, one you might get the ban hammer and two it might ruin your XBOX. Just so you can save a few bucks? Why not just wait for six months or so then hit up eBay or your local used game store. Sure you might not be able to play the latest and greatest game with all your friends online but you also won't get your XBOX banned or ruined.
Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.
Considering theres no homebrew scene in Xbox360, the sole reason people get their consoles modded is to play copies.
Wut.
There's a huge Xbox 360 homebrew scene, supported by the company itself: http://creators.xna.com/en-US/
Oh wait, let me guess: "that's doesn't count as homebrew because it's not indie enough!" Whatever.
Comment of the year
That's the question of the day. His post is all over the place.
There actually is a home brew community for the 360. I toyed with some small projects for a short while. It was neat I guess.
I made up obviously fake percentages as a rhetorical advice. I hope you can use that on the 6th grade reading comprehension test you're trying to pass.
Comment of the year
Why are so 'many' of the 'words' in 'quotes'?
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I think Microsoft took the best course of action in this situation. Ban the modded consoles from the protected Xbox Live network (to stop possible cheating) but still allow almost full functionality of the modded console. AKA, you bought the hardware, do want you want with it.
No they aren't. They made a contract, the consumer agreed to the contract. The consumer violated it and got banned.
It is the correct way to do things. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Simple.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
vendor lock-in for this is the main reason I will never own a console. That and games are a lot more fun on a PC.
3% of consoles were banned. *FAR* OVER 3% won't plug the ethernet cable back into their XBoxes anytime soon for fear of being banned. Of that percentage, some of them will buy a new 360 and play fair, some will try to mod again, and the rest will continue to play pirated games offline and not buy DLC. There are plenty of people who may pirate the games but not the DLC since it's more difficult.
Now, maybe Microsoft did the calculation and figured out it makes sense, or maybe they didn't ban people who meet certain DLC $ thresholds, but not from what I've heard so far.
And to top it off, they are permanently banning these consoles not only from Live, but from certain offline features, which is a far reach beyond what they should be allowed to do.
I also think it's fair to say that piracy has made the 360 more popular than the PS3 and that MS has used it strategically, but that's another discussion to be had.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
I'm sure the timing isn't accidental. Whole lot of kids out there begging their parents to replace that bricked console now..
This does work. This spring my son dropped out of the reserves (to save his grades for his final year of school and thereby his whole career path) and left himself without his planned summer job. So I paid him and two of his friends minimum wage for a month as they completely re-landscaped my yard and built me a deck. It was a real win/win. He graduated, my yard looks better than ever and they stayed out of trouble and still had some fun because they spent a month hanging out in the sun.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
"There's a large, officially supported homebrew scene on XBL."
And you don't have to mod your box to participate. Which means that the intent is, as you say, to zap cheaters and thieves.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Not that I disagree with your point (in fact I agree with it), but I'll point out the difference being that professional athletes are paid to adhere to the rules, while console owners have paid, and in addition the banning process subtracts substantial value from the hardware owned by the user.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
I had an "allowance", but I had to work to get it. If I didn't mow the lawn/do the dishes/clean my room/etc, I didn't get the money. (As opposed to what I'd call a "stipend", where some parents just hand their kids money every week.)
So, now if you want to go to eBay and pick up a used console, you are at HIGH RISK. (This goes for the entire used XBOX market.) MS really should set up some kind of verification system where you can call in a serial number and check an XBOX or "preowned" system where you can get a guaranteed, stamped approval. I'd bet that pretty soon, we are going to see a flooded market of XBOXes that won't be able to connect. Imagine what Craigslist is about to look like.
:) DOUBLE BAM!
Now what about if you aren't using LIVE? Nothing's going to stop you from running pirated games now, and it's probably going to be really cheap to get these "dead" consoles now. Life's good! If you buy a $50 or $100 used console and download a few games, you have already saved yourself the cost of a console. BAM!
There aren't that many good online LIVE games IMO, so it makes a lot of sense to have the cheap "dead" console to play the majority of the enjoyable ones. And if you really want to play LIVE, just mooch off your friend
In short, MS et al don't care about enthusiasm. Their "best customers" are the ones who spend lots of money on games through official channels.
So what's wrong with that? I love it when a client of mine enjoys my work, but I love it more when they pay me for it.
It doesn't count because there's absolutely no need to mod or hack your console to develop using the Microsoft tools.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Just another looter.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
What does wi-fi in airports have to do with Microsoft?
"Now, randomly, arbitrarily, they are being punished for 'gaming' their system."
How can you write stuff like this with a straight face? It's all Microsoft's problem because they didn't lock the hardware down enough?
I suppose I can rob your house and blame you because your locks suck, you have no alarm system, and you didn't install iron bars on every window and door?
And enthusiasts that steal? Keep 'em off the system. If they're not enthusiastic enough to actually buy the game then they're simply parasites on the system as a whole.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Yeah XNA is great for 360. But as it's directly supported by MS, people don't need to mod or hack their 360 to develop homebrew software for it. Which just strengths my point that only reason people mod their 360 is to play pirated copies.
I'm sure this hasn't escaped most slashdotters, but Live is a huge incentive for people to buy legitimate copies of games, which is why they so vigorously defend it. I'm all for fair use, and I'm inclined to agree with the fellow above who said, essentially "You own the hardware, do as you please. Microsoft owns the network, so they can do as they please as well."
What this amounts to, is that any game with a strong multi-player component is less likely to be pirated, since you can only play the single-player portion once a modder has been IDed -- This is great for the Devs (unfortunately only after the publisher has taken a substantial cut), great for users since software hacks are uncommon, and great for microsoft since they get a cut of game sales too.
I'm not sure if Sony has an answer to this since their network isn't centralized. Even if they can detect such things, they'd either have to distribute lists to third parties (who run the servers themselves), provide a verification service, or act as a gateway in the way that live does. This is definately something to consider as a third party developer -- One of the market players has a very strong anti-piracy incentive built in, while the other has nothing. Extrapolating from the 3% of Xbox live that was banned, and assuming that maybe 1/3rd of that number wouldn't buy the game if it weren't for piracy, a 2% sales gain for no additional effort isn't anything to scoff at.
It's not about selling new consoles -- After all, they're barely breaking even, if at all.
They expected it!
That implies that they actually read the quick-start guide or the ToS. Most of the time, they've read neither. (That's no excuse, of course.)
I have several friends with modded consoles and hand held systems. The only chatter they generally spread is encouragement to mod your own system so you too can download ripped games.
There was nothing "random" or "arbitrary" about banning a select group of members from online services due to the detection (in one fashion or another) of non-standard hardware.
The argument that it stifles innovation or profit is rather flat when taken at face value. For some systems it might make sense, but there are outlets already in place for people that want to develop for the XBox 360. There is a thriving independent developer community out there. Streaming media? There are plenty of ways to get that rolling as well, legitimately.
You just can't rip games is all.
Maybe I've just missed it. Can anyone point to a real life example of something worth modding your system for that doesn't involve torrented games, tv shows, music, movies, etc.
And before someone sidesteps the discussion, no, putting in a larger hard drive doesn't count in the context of this discussion.
Well, to be fair, if we can infer anything from the recent music studies, the same people that are hardcore enough to mod their xbox and steal some games are still buying other games. In music's case, it's been shown a few times those people downloading music frequently are still legally buying more music than the average consumer.
recent reference: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090828/0444096038.shtml
Having said that, we can't really know for sure right now since nobody has studied games specifically, as far as I'm aware. It's probably not that far off.
I'm a little torn on this though, since I have a modded original xbox for xbmc, but my 360 is unmodded. I like the idea of getting rid of cheaters, but there still are some valid reasons to mess with your box in some cases.
It's astounding that comments like this manage to get modded up so high when they contain unverified data. Like everybody else here, I implore you to give us the source of those numbers.
The following is hardly evidence, but merely an anecdote that may be typical of some Xbox users: I have an original xbox. I don't do much online play, but I do own a significant number of games (more than 10), and have played most of them through. After I noticed my Xbox starting to become irrelevant, I picked up a [legitimate] copy of Mech Warrior and soft modded it purely to install Xbox Media Center (now XBMC). Currently, XBMC is the only application that I use with the Xbox. I have never played a pirated Xbox game (on my system or otherwise), and I have never cheated on an Xbox game (on my system or otherwise). I certainly did not mod my Xbox in order to do either of those activities, and I do not plan to ever do those activities in the future. If I did play online and were banned, it would be unjust, unwarranted, and fiscally irresponsible from Microsoft's standpoint in that they would lose out on my monthly revenue. In fact, the main reason that I have refused to use Xbox Live is because of Microsoft's inane policies with regard to modding.
I agree that modders are not XBoxes best customers, but I do not agree that microsoft is trying to keep their box a secret.
I am a developer in the Xbox live creators club and in order to write a decent game you have to really dig in and understand the hardware in the box. My game has code in the shaders and physics engine to specifically work with the xbox hardware. Whenever I get a slow framerate, it's usually because I've missed a difference between my xbox and my pc.
I'm able to do this because microsoft publishes an API (XNA) and information about how the xbox works.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the XBOX 360 mod is basically flashing the DVD drive so that it can load games from backup DVD's.
The mod does not however remove the protection such an extent that homebrews can be loaded.
So, assuming this is still correct (haven't had a a 360 for over a year), what can you possibly do on a modded xbox 360 if you aren't copying games?
...I got a RROD before they could ban me! Haha! I win!
(DISCLAIMER: I do not have a hacked console. I did, however, just receive a RROD from a very recently purchased Xbox 360 Elite.)
Name...That...Autocomplete!
People who cheat on games ruin the experience for everybody else.
There is currently one chip out which allows you to rollback your xbox kernel to a vulnerable kernel (4532 or 4548), AFAIK xbox live will not play run on these kernels. If that is correct (and i have no reason to believe it's not) then none of these people were cheating. All the other chips are pirate only chips (go on CD-drive to allow pirated games but cannot modify disc images).
So this is to do with "99%" piracy "0%" cheating "1%" running linux,etc
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I really really dislike Microsoft and their practices. I don't give a flip about any TOS. Yeah, you bought the hardware, you can do with it what you will. But I've laid out some serious coin to make certain my kids can play Halo. I don't like the idea that some modder will unfairly kick their butts.
Ban the modders from XBL.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Maybe I've just missed it. Can anyone point to a real life example of something worth modding your system for that doesn't involve torrented games, tv shows, music, movies, etc.
Sure. Linksys WRT54G. Download new firmware and get better signal strength and other improvements. Cisco embraced this modding by making a product line for modding. It's a success story.
Your lack of imagination or lack of appreciation of the creative forces that promote innovation is curious. The story of high tech is the story of the adaptation of old technology for new uses. If Microsoft wants to make money, they need to get creative.
Best regards.
That's a bit different though. People went from downloading illegally to downloading legally because downloading is more convenient than going to the music store and buying a CD, then ripping it to your computer, and the legal download sites allow previews of the songs before you buy. I think modding hardware, downloading DVD ISOs, and then burning the DVDs is less convenient than buying the game, and in some cases, full games can just be downloaded on PSN or XBox Live these days.
There is also no way to rent most music, so it's basically either buy or don't buy. Most games have demos you can download, and if not, most games can be rented for a few dollars a night.
I think the person who downloads an MP3 out of convenience, and someone who goes out of their way to get something for free are two entirely different people. The latter can't really make an argument for convenience or one for "try before you buy."
You don't need to mod your XBox in order to use XNA. Something tells me that the people who mod their Xbox don't do it because they want to make homebrew games. Something tells me that the people who mod their XBox do it because they want to pirate games.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
And that right there is why MS is evil.
You shouldn't have to pay them to put code on your own box.
Now, mind you, I *would* be ok with them only allowing signed games to get onto XBL. They could very easily do that without outright refusing to run the games at all though.
Unfortunately, telling a pirated game apart from a homebrew game is not easy, and it's clearly in in MS's business interest to treat them both the same.
Last time i checked it was $40 for 3 months (or $70 for a year), and that all goes to MS so they make much more money of xbox-live than "game-tax" on a few games a year
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Are there mods for the X360 that can be "turned off" before going online so the console appears, for all intents and purposes, as an unmodded one?
I believe that some PS2 modchips advertised such features.
Did those "terms of service" also permit MS to partially brick your box even when offline?
Banning a console from XBL is one thing. Disabling parts of the offline features that you already had before you signed up for XBL is something else.
We already had a big shenanigan with apple doing that to the iPhone.
All of that is useless because you agreed to their terms of service when signing up for Live, which also contain terms about just exactly this. You might get far in court.
While a TOS is more valid than an EULA he may be able to win in court depending on the circumstances.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Dude, it's a fucking typo and Slashdot has no Edit option. Of course it's supposed to be "device", congratulations, you win. My typo is no excuse for the morons on this board who have no reading comprehension skills, but feel compelled to "correct" me anyway.
So my measured and intelligence response to you is, "go fuck a goat." Thank you.
Comment of the year
Oh look another typo! Crucify me now!!!
Comment of the year
I don't think it's a big deal to have a separate, modded box for development. And after this development, modded Xbox 360s should become cheaper. This is about the Xbox 360, right? The headline says Xbox, but I know what's up :p You do not have to pay Microsoft to put the content on your own box, you have to mod it. How you accomplish that is up to you. What Microsoft (rightly) restricts you from doing with their online service afterwards is up to them. Now, if it interferes with any offline activity, that is some total bullcrap... It's your box, and you ostensibly have a legal right to do as you like with it (as otherwise permitted by law.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Gamers who cared enough to want to do well on Xbox consoles learned that they need to soup-up their systems. It was just another level of gaming. It was easy to do and the rewards were there
Well if souping up there systems make no difference then why did they do it. If it did make a difference I am glad they have been booted off live so I do not have to play against someone online who has an advantage over me.
Microsoft's solution to the situation is disordered. Microsoft is punishing their own customers for taking advantage of Microsoft's mistakes.
Err, yes. If I left my wallet on the table in front of my while I eat, and then I catch you trying to steal it, I am going to jump on you. I will then meat out whatever punishment I feel approriate before handing you to the cops. I know it is a mistake to leave my wallet on display, but it is still a criminal act to try and pinch it. I am not saying modding an xbox is criminal, I am saying that you can be punished for exploiting other peoples mistakes.
You knew the product you bought came with restrictions, so you tried to bypass them. Microsoft caught you, and decided to bypass you instead since they cannot be sure they will generate any more revenure from a player who has the option of paying a pittance for a product that normally costs $60 or whatever.
If I were running Microsoft, I would fire the person who is doing this and replace them with someone who can come up with a win-win for their most clever customers.
Why does modding an xbox make you clever? Surely any old cretin pay someone to do it for them, or just solder the chip or whatever in place themselves. Don't get me wrong, I admire people who are good at soldering, I have done it a few times and i suck at it compared to at least one of my mates. But it is not a sign of intelligence, it is an art of manual dexterity more then mantal acuity.
On another note about running Microsoft, it is plaingly obvious you do not. The average Xbox360 was sold at launch for less than it cost to produce:
http://www.joystiq.com/2005/12/28/xbox-360-costs-715-to-make/
Ok, so things have changed and now they probably can make a profit on the hardware, but who wants to buy one new anyway. There are millions kicking around secondhand you can pick up for a pittance the throw a hard disk in (I just did to use as a DVD / media player in my lounge). This means that the games is where all the profit is, and they do not want alot of freeloaders playing their Christmas run of titles without them seeing a nickel. This will probably be the last Christmas they actually sell any titles for it in any quantity anyway as it must be due for a revamp in the next year or so.
If you were in Steve Ballmers position, you would probably do everything you could to stop someone else being able to give your products away for free without paying you for them. If you did not, you would not be running the company for very long I assure you. The shareholders would remove you with a vote of no confidence.
Remember, companies do no want clever customers: They want profitable ones and that is not always the same thing.
I dont read
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just as MS embraced the modding scene with the 360. You think they completely ignored how popular XMBC or homebrew was on Xbox 1? Again, no one is modifying these boxes to run any arbitrary code - that hasn't been done yet, you're thinking of Xbox1 - these are strictly chips that let "backups" run on the box. The only ones hurt here are the ultra creative "backup" scenesters, which we all know have created a whole lot and done tons for the world. Today the world sheds a tear for their loss!
maid stuff, or mow/garden/etc if they hire landscapers, etc...
What if your parents are maids or landscapers? It's fucking funny how your so outraged that he can't replace one of his parents servants, jesus where did you grow up? Buckingham Palace?
Its not even cheaters since there's no modding titles - no one has cracked the signed code on the discs, so its purely to stop "backups". I'll give people the benefit of the doubt, and it would be slightly more convenient to not load the disc in the machine even when its already on the harddrive through the "load to disc" feature. But if anyone seriously thinks these folks aren't ripping games, you gotta be kidding yourself.
Is it no surprise that among those 600,000 users banned (nearly 4% of their users!) that there was some collateral damage?
One user, who reported having spent over $5200 on the xbox and XBLA, wrote to Consumerist that Microsoft banned his fiancé's unmodded console, and then treated them like criminals when they tried to get Microsoft to fix the problem:
http://consumerist.com/5402056/xbox-gamer-says-he-was-banned-online-for-no-reason
Linked from there is a story from another user whose xbox suffered a fan-induced RROD. Not wanting to wait nearly a Month for Microsoft to fix it, he took it to the shop to have the fan replaced, apparently tripping some sort of modification flag. Microsoft's response to him? Literally (and I quote) "But this is what you get for tampering the console." (sic).
What a disaster.
They never said you can't mod your own Xbox. Fine, it might be illegal in terms of US law, but that's a different story.
But they sure as hell ain't going to let you run modded hardware on their servers.
Frankly, I thank all gaming service providers that keep out cracked/unpatched/edited versions of games. They increase the quality of play immensely. This is the main reason I stopped pirating. Not only did I grow up and lose the time to play, but I decided that the multiplayer component of these games was most certainly worth the money. Thus, they deserved my money. Which is the way it should be.
I say to hell with pirates. Let them pirate all they want, it's not like they'd have bought the game anyways. If all the game publishers charged us for was access to online gaming per game, I would gladly buy/pay it. If it was reasonable, that is. And sure enough, Xbox Live is reasonable. And it keeps fuck tards like you off the servers.
-XcepticZP
Maybe I don't understand the nature nor purpose of these mods, but isn't what you do on your hardware your own business if you are not stealing from Microsoft?
Actually, Microsoft is saying pretty much that. However, if you do mod your hardware, you cannot play on Microsoft's server. You can still use your Xbox in offline mode. It is your XBox. However, you cannot get onto Microsoft's servers, of which you do not own nor have an inherent right to. Basically, if you want to mod your own XBox as well as play online, you had better buy two systems, and only mod one.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
Banning you from XBL for modding your console is good and fine.
Partially bricking your hardware is NOT ok.
I'd still read the XBL ToS closely though...it might include giving MS the right to hose your box if they catch you using bad hardware.
Another example: Rockbox.
It now runs on several mp3 players, and adds additional codecs, crossfeeding, better EQs, better battery life in some players, etc, etc.
:x
And that's ALL they have the right to do.
If MS also fucked up their boxes, by accident or on purpose, then that's not cool.
What if you wanted to have access to downloadable content but don't play online games on xbox live and have a modded xbox so you can use it as an open region dvd player or other innocuous stuff?
As we know, people who download music from torrents are actually buying more music than those who don't.
Do you have a citation for this? I recall finding a link once, but I seem to have lost it.
I doubt most maids'/landscapers' kids are playing xboxes all weekend. It seems to me that some of the most hard-working kids I know are the kids of hardworking parents that couldn't afford to give them money for nothing. The kids worked for their money. And they seemed to tend to stay in school, too, because they had this strange idea in their head that nothing came free, so they were actually willing to work for it. Weird.
No, I did not grow up in Buckingham palace and we don't have landscapers - we did it ourselves. I don't see why you call them "servants," as though it's anything less respectable than a software engineer. They are paid for what they do. Some people do very good work and are able to charge much more for it. I even know landscape architects that are paid for their knowledge of plants and trees, what will work to help drainage or erosion problems, etc.
If the parent can't afford to pay their kid(s) money to do some jobs around the house and their kid(s) are too small to work "in the real world" due to labor laws, then I very much doubt that kid has ANY of these video game worries. They likely do not own an X-Box, they aren't spending ANY money on video games, and I very much doubt they are getting an allowance from their parents (if their parents can't afford to pay them for work, I don't see how they can afford to pay them for non-work).
What is your point? The parent asked for an example of a system modded for reasons other than making copies of copyrighted material. There are tons of examples of this sort of modding.
The parent claims that modding Xboxes stifles innovation, yet does not give examples, simply makes the claim. Has someone demonstrated how much revenue was lost? People who make unauthorized copies of games aren't necessarily going to buy those games if they can't get them free. The actual revenue lost is far less then the sexed-up numbers you'll hear from Microsoft.
What was your point?
Best regards.
I guess I am not following how a modded box hurts MS when you go online to XBox Live.
It's only $39.49 for 12 months over at Amazon (w/ comparable prices elsewhere)
When I was 12 I made enough money to buy all the CDs and computer games I wanted with a paper route. I paid $50 for DOOM II in 1996. Then when I turned 15 I got a job flipping burgers, which I had to walk over a mile to get to. Part time employers love teenagers because they're flexible (easy to cut their hours), they don't compete for management positions, and they tend to have less health issues.
Then in rural areas there's plenty of informal sector jobs like husking corn or mowing lawns.
Regardless of whether a teenager has any employment opportunities or not, video games are still a luxury and by no means a necessity or entitlement.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
You're allowed to mod your hardware. You're just not allowed to use modded hardware on their service, it says so in the contract you agreed to while using their service.
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Have a nice day.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Hell yeah, the prices will drop so low that it would actually be feasible for hardcore gamers to have two X-boxes, a legit one for Live and a modded one for everything else.
The article was understandably lacking technical details of the ban. Pardon my ignorance, but would it be possible to "unmod" the X-box (remove the chip and/or install the latest legit OS) and be able to successfully authenticate to Live?
I know it's a strikingly new idea to most teens, but your parents don't HAVE to give an "allowance," and I would dare say that some of them may even be willing to pay their children to do jobs that they otherwise have to pay someone else to do
Wait wait... what? I'm sorry, in what world is an allowance not, by definition, the pay a child receives from their parents for doing chores around the house?
Those music studies only prove that 10% of those that download music, spend more than all the people that don't download.
This is blinging
93% of statistics are made up on the spot. Yours is yet another example.
Insightful? Bullshit.
Oh please. They mod their consoles for one reason: to not have to pay for games. Sure, maybe SOME people use modchips for homebrew but do honestly believe that most do? You probably also believe that most people go to ThePirateBay to download Linux and BSD ISOs
99.9% of them are people who want to play free games
what's wrong with that? I play many free, and many paid games as well. There are hundreds of free games around on the internet, just google....
ohhhh wait, you mean to say "99.9% of them are people who don't want to pay for expensive games" ? Gee, I wonder how the game industry makes a living with only 0.1% of their customer base paying for their games....
Piracy rates are way overrated. Unless you have factual numbers, please don't feed the RIAA/MPAA/ESA trolls more inaccurate information.
Here are some real correct factual numbers:
- 100.0% of people who like computer games like free games.
- 100.0% of people who pay for computer games would love to be able to play those games for free.
2. If you have a modded box, MS really doesn't care
Oh I think they do... but they can't do anything against it!
bickerdyke
Zipit Z2, for $50 and some modding you end up with a Debian laptop that fits in the palm of your hand.
I have seen first hand someone get punted with an Xbox that is in no way modded, and in fact was a replacement he received from MS just a few months ago, after his first one RRoD'd.
He tried to talk to them about it, but they said their system is fool proof and will not unban him.
No sig for you!!
This is still correct and the answer is there is nothing you can do with a modded xbox except play pirated games. End of story.
Some people are confusing the two because this wasn't the case with the original gen 1 xbox, others are confusing them because they don't know the full story and I guess a few are deliberately blurring the issue because they want to believe in the nobility of modding consoles or something. However MS make a pretty sophisticated (.NET based) dev kit available for free so you can write your own software, and will even help you sell them to a huge worldwide audience. You don't have hypervisor level access but then you don't need it to write your own software.
Games companies who have every reason to study this issue carefully have almost universally concluded that strong DRM is good, so asking for academic "studies" isn't going to achieve much. Unless you believe that every big budget game producer in the world has failed to do even basic homework on this issue, which isn't the case ....
Baned for useing a non M$ over priced HDD others don't do that.
The PS3 lets you your disks.
Direct tv lets you use e-sata disks. and they are ok with bigger disks on the in side of owned boxes as well.
DISH network lets you use usb HDD's
M$ locks out 3rd part memory cards.
How is the Benjamin J Heckendorn able to get away with the xbox 360 laptop?
Nope. The machine's hardware ID is blocked. I'm guessing it's kind of like the hardware signatures used for WGA validation on Windows (i.e. It's based on serial numbers in various system components or something). I also think it's the same mechanism that's used for DRM authentication on the system; media and downloaded games are locked to that console.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
How about modding your system so that you can perform legitimate backups? A lot of us have kids, and a lot of us have seen what kids (as well as 360's) can do to original discs. I have a modded 360, and I only play legitimate backups (which I own) on it. And yep, I got banned too. It means that I can't download patches or buy any DLC. But that's ok.. It saves me $10/month that I was paying to Microsoft and won't be paying any further.. And there's still multiplayer ability via XBConnect and Xlink Kai. Netflix is still available to me via Playon.tv - So, really the big thing I've lost here is the ability to patch my games and pay Microsoft $10/month.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
You don't HAVE TO PAY to put code on your own box. You just have to pay if you want that code to interact with Microsoft's servers.
If you don't want to play on XBox live you can do whatever the hell you want to your Xbox. Just don't try and connect to Microsoft's servers. It's very simple. It's not really nefarious.
There is also no way to rent most music
Not true. I'm an extremely happy ZunePass Customer. For $15 I get 10 free songs to keep an unlimited rentals. It's like Netflix for music if Netflix let you keep one DVD per month.
99.9% of them are people who want to play free games
Yes, they're largely pirates. But in the music industry at least, the more you pirate, the more you buy. In my experience this holds true for gamers as well. You don't bother modding your console unless you really love games. If you really love games, you'll be spending lots of money on them whether you have a modded console or not. Eliminate the pirates, and you eliminate that cash with them.
That said, these people should have known better than to try to use Xbox live with a modded console. This is a predictable consequence.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Why is this news? Microsoft have been doing this since the days of the original Xbox. This is the reason my original Xbox with its 40 quid Xecutor chip running XBMC, serving films and music (I guess I should say "choons") and still playing Halo one and two, has never ever logged in to the games network. The Xecutor chip is switchable and can be turned off to do all that complicated online stuff however ... as long as you never feed it after midnight.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
Or use XBox Connect/Any other LAN tunneling network and not have to pay a subscription? Obviously, this only works on games with a LAN mode, and I don't know how many 360 games actually have that option as opposed to LIVE OR NOTHING! but still.
Am I the only person who's thinking this might actually be the kick up the arse the 'real' 360 homebrew scene needs? I mean, not everyone who's modded their 360 will have been to liberate games on the cheap.
Immolation is the sincerest form of flattery.
If you want your question -- "...why punish people for gaming their systems?" -- taken seriously, why not consider your own context?
No one is "punished," although some people are blocked from using modded consoles on Microsoft's subscription-based online gaming service.
One key reason for this prohibition is that it can be unfair for modded consoles to be playing games with unmodded consoles. The modder may not be actively cheating in any given game, but blocking mods is one way for MS to keep their service (more) fair for the vast majority of customers. Most Xbox Live members are 1) paying and 2) not modding.
Additionally, it's very common for restricted networks to block untested, unrecognized, or user-modified hardware. In this case for example, console mods raise concerns for MS with regard to licensed third-party content that they offer over their service (movies, TV shows, etc). Regardless of one's feelings about Microsoft, their products, or DRM in general, this situation is not difficult to comprehend.
Obligatory car analogy: I can buy a car and modify it extensively, perhaps to the point where driving it on my city's streets is prohibited. Even paying taxes does not give me the right to expect the city to allow (much less engineer for) my cleverly modded vehicle.
No, we simply believe in innocent before proven guilty, so the 99.9% (if it is that high) of people who modify to cheat do not justify banning the other 0.1%.
Non-sense. ToS clearly states clearly they don't allow unauthorized modifications. You're not allowed to mod your xbox, period.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If it isn't an authorized modification, he isn't.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Did Microsoft really think this through? The people who mod Xboxes are their best customers. They are the enthusiasts who care enough to learn more about the console.
99.9% of them are people who want to play free games, or cheat on games. People who cheat on games ruin the experience for everybody else. Most modded Xboxes were modded by some guy at a games store, anyway, and that guy charged for it, it's not like these guys went through the effort of modding it themselves... they just paid some goon so they could steal games.
The remaining 0.1%, yes, actually just wants to write software for it. Slashdot pretends this group is the larger percentage, but Slashdot is wrong about a good many things.
Nobody mods a 360 to cheat on XBL games. The games are digitally signed and can not be altered. Modding the boxes does not allow you to cheat.
This story just oozes WIN. Whether you agree or disagree with Microsoft's stance here, it's pretty impressive that they had the balls to disconnect 3% of their entire subscriber base. Kudos to them for putting their money where their mouth is.
You shouldn't have to pay them to put code on your own box.
I miss the old days when consoles were for playing games and computers were for writing and running custom code. Nowadays you can't just throw in the disc and press the "on" button. You must instead download patches, sometimes install the damn thing and only after all this, can you run it.
What happened to consoles being consoles instead of locked down computers?
Do you know that 37.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot!!!
Just give up and embrace it. Arrr! A generation raised on Spongebob Squarepants will have much better associations for pirates.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Removing the completely artificially created need to handle original media. In my house, the modded systems are always the ones that get used. Why? because we don't have to keep swapping disks. The fall out from that is that they are also the systems that we end up buying the most games for. Why? Because they are the systems that are always plugged in and being used.
I wouldn't buy a TV that wouldn't let me change channels from my couch, so I see no reason that I should buy a game system that doesn't let me change games from the couch.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the same deal if you want to put your own code on your iPhone. Even the fee is the same ($99).
In Microsoft's case, you have to take into account that the hardware is subsidised (they might actually be making a small profit by now, perhaps still amortising development costs), so expect to pay more elsewhere, otherwise people could buy an Xbox below cost and run nothing but their own software on it, which isn't a successful business model.
In Apple's case, the $99 fee applies whether your phone was subsidised or not.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Its not random. Its not arbitrary. Not only is it in the Terms of Service, its been done before. The only people who have an excuse for not realising this would happen are the first wave of "cheaters" (and based on the mod scene from Playstation 1, the modders who actually cheat are few and far between). That's come and gone. These people have had ample warning, its their own fault.
Although I doubt most of them will be upset over losing the ability to cheat. Its much more likely they're upset over losing the ability to pirate games and be on Live.
There are three reasons to mod your Xbox: 1. Turn it into a cheap PC 2. Play homebrew software (basically #1) 3. Steal games. All of these rely on the same method: replace or disable protections on the OS or base firmware. It's in the quick start guide(the thing that tells you what is and isn't included) that if you mod your xbox, you will not be able to play Live! and may not be able to play the games you own. So why the hell is anyone surprised about the ban? And why the hell is anyone even angry about the ban? They expected it!
1. No the mods only allows game backups to run, not to turn it into a PC. 2. NO, see point 1. There is free dev kits provided by MS for homebrew, modding your Xbox does not provide further homebrew advantages in any way. 3. YES, this in effect the only advantage to current Xbox 360 mods as they have only really bypassed the checks for original DVD's.
When I was a teen (not too long ago, I'm only 22 as of writing this), I couldn't afford every game I wanted. You know what I did? Went down to Blockbuster and paid a couple bucks to hire it. Sometimes I was lucky, and one of my friends owned a game I wanted, and would let me borrow it. A few times, we would even plan so we each got different games, so we could trade them when done. Now, I have a younger brother (13yo) who burns every PS2 and XBox game he can. I'd bet the farm the majority of these haven't seen more than a couple of hours of playtime. They have absolutely no value to him. I asked him how many games he's beaten, start to finish, and the closest he could think of was 'unlocked all the characters in arcade mode on Tekken'.
--sherman42
I modded my xbox (xbox 1) and since doing so haven't bought any games for it. It's just so much easier than buying them.
I also used to pirate loads of PC games, it was just so easy. Then Steam came out and it became easier to pay for them than pirate them, so now I do that. I suspect most pirates aren't evil thieves, just lazy (thieves).
Make it easier to pay for than pirate in terms of pure time (game-price/hourly-wage vs time-to-pirate) and we won't pirate it, then you can lower costs as more people pay (and lower costs a while after the release date) and you'll get more sales, and then less pirates, and so on.
This isn't one of those stupid theoretical "just make it free, man, and then I'll pay for it" arguments, this is backed up by the fact, works in practice, and is slowly changing the game industry for the better.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
Did you honestly just make the argument "But it's free to develop software for the Xbox! *cough*youjusthavetopaytorunit"?
Why should I pay an annual fee to run my own code on my own Xbox? What happens now when Microsoft decides that service costs more than its worth?
After the enlightening experience that was playing CoD4 and CoD5 on XBL, I've determined that it's not worth another $40-50 in January when it expires.
Too bad I can't find any softmods.
IIRC, you can also modify any unsigned files, such as the textures and generally any data that's not in the executable. Creating transparent walls seems to be a popular mod, albeit a lame one.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Has anyone mentioned that MS not only ban the Live connection, but ban the 'Install to hard disk' function as well, even when the hard disk is officially from MS? You know the noise of reading DVD on 360 console...
With the abundance of the red ring of death syndrome it's rather sketchy to buy a used xbox 360 already.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Wait wait... what? I'm sorry, in what world is an allowance not, by definition, the pay a child receives from their parents for doing chores around the house?
In this world, it seems.
Pretty sure it will all be explained here:
CD/DVD Copy Protection
I'm saying m$ has never done anything cool to make users like the company...simple...
It costs $99 to develop for the XBox360 at a minimum. You can download the software, and run it as a Windows app, but you can't run it on your XBox360 without paying and there is no emulator or anything like that.
Everything else you said is of course entirely correct, but developing for the XBox360 is the same as developing for the iPhone, except there is an iPhone emulator you can use to test on without paying.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Dude, don't even try to get started with the TOS , since when the US legal system was invented to protect the small and poor? btw, i do not own a xbox, and after the news, never will.
As someone who modded their xbox (not my 360 which remains unmodded). No one with a modded xbox buys game, they download them. The notation that its for backup is silly. There are 2 people out of every 10,000 that use it for backup. I'm not against it being done, I'm all for people being able to back up their games since its a pain in the ass to get replacement disks in most cases,
Its just silly to pretend that the majority of modders buy games, they don't. I know plenty of people who specifically did not want their XBox modded because they would just download games for free.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Giving away Visual Studio Express for free is pretty cool. Those are good tools.
Since when were the small and poor forced to buy an xbox and get xbox live? Since when the poor and the small limited to only the xbox and xbox live?
I don't see the problem.
So you made an informed decision, am I supposed to congratulate you or feel sorry?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Reminds me of the recent bans on the EVE Online MMO, "Unholy Rage":
"While the number of accounts banned in the opening phase of the operation constituted around 2% of the total active registered accounts, the CPU per user usage was cut by a good 30%. That is a whole lot of CPU for the rest of you to play with, people."
http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=687
i'm no fan of MS myself but i dont see this as inherently evil. by your own admission MS is doing this to protect is business interest. they arent doing it to squash creativity or to promote cancer or something they're covering their own asses. when did CYA = evil?
you dont have to pay them to put code on your own xbox. where did that notion come from? just like with anything you make some concessions when you modify it, how many stickers have you seen that say "warranty void if removed"? would you be pissed if you removed the sticker and then couldnt get a warranty? i dont think your an ass hat so i'll say no, you wouldnt. modding your Xbox means you have to be willing to forfeit the right to use it on Microsofts servers, thats all. why should they allow some unknown hardware on their network? would you allow just anybody with a cat5 plug on your LAN?
Microsoft is evil but this is not why.
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
You don't understand how these 'modders' work - they aren't cheating in game. They are just able to play backup discs as well as originals. Most if not all use that feature to pirate games, but this is a separate argument from in-game cheating, which they aren't doing.
I.O.U One Sig.
you're absolutely right, nevertheless in this regard Microsoft is no different than the dude next door. He gets to decide who he allows on his network. when you softmodded MW you violated your agreement with the publisher and as a result may have to forfeit your right to use your Xbox on their servers. it is stupid but not evil. whats evil is that people keep giving money to companies that demand these types of agreements. people are so cowed that they are too addicted to speak with their wallets. i'm guilty too. the difference is, i'm not going to complain about the consequences being unfair. it is what it is, if you dont like their rules then dont play their game. i hate to sound callous because your point is valid and i think that its just a dumb situation, but there it is.
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
In the US we hold that the presumption of innocence is a right enjoyed in criminal matters. this is not a criminal matter its a contract dispute, as such it is a civil matter and the presumption of innocence is not a right you have.
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
I'll give you the quick hand-wavy answer, which is that modded consoles can run hacks to disrupt the games of other legitimate users on Live.
Touched By His Noodley Appendage.
Many places including best buy are open to negotiation on the prices of some items. TVs laptops, etc. Games, movies, music and the like are not. For music and movies its mostly because the prices are too low to make it worth it. For Games they are borderline, but it doesn't matter anyway, they are fixed price. I've had it explained to me, but I still don't understand how that doesn't violate US laws. Or more to the point why it shouldn't.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Get them an Atari 2600, problem solved!
I was under the impression that MS was preventing you from putting your own homebrew games on your machine...at least until you pay MS the sdk tax or whatever.
Sorta like how a tivo uses signatures to prevent third party code from executing.
Not happening.
Few developers have turned their back on the PC, many are dabbling in multi-platfom due to the similarities between DirectX and the Xbox, all this has meant is that there are fewer PC exclusives not fewer PC games.
Also when the console money dries up, developers will return to the PC which has a higher per-unit return (PC games are A$10 cheaper then Xbox and PS3 games as well)
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The hardware information is obviously transmitted over the Internet. Why not setup a proxy server to try a replay attack? I know it seems a bit obvious, but it's worth a shot. The general idea would be to take a working xbox 360 console, analyze the packets sent after successful LIVE connection, and figure out where the hardware info is being sent in the data stream. Proxy server would rewrite the packets making it appear as though the legit xbox logged in. It's probably encrypted, perhaps try encrypting serial numbers or hardware identifiers in popular algorithms and looking for those in the packet data? If you can get your hands on the patch that disables the mod console it should be easy to RE.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
With the Ring of Death, destruction of game disks, overheating consoles and probably other results of the famous Microsoft quality, and now deliberate sabotage, I really don't thing it's a good idea to buy Xbox, period. Why do people keep on dealing with Microsoft at all, despite it leading to pain, trouble and financial loss every single time? I can only imagine the reason as some bizarre combination of stupidity and masochism.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Not true. You can also play backups of games you legitimately own. This allows you to avoid buying the game anew when the disc is scratched. If you've got kids, you get this point.
When a company wants to increase its revenue they will initiate a ban. The pay method of the individual is never banned. The company will no longer have to provided the service that the end user payed up front for. It is then predictable that a high percentage of users that were banned will immediately repurchase it.
600,000 Gold accounts are worth how much?
Arbitray:
600,000 x $27.50 USD (3 months) = $16,500,000.00
AVG user is on day 10 of 90 day prepaid Gold Service
Ban-Hammer is dropped
M$ just made 14,850,000 pure profit by not having to honor remaining service
Follow week after the Ban-Hammer 50% of users repurchase Gold accounts $8,250,000.00 of new cash surge
If M$ or any company for that matter wanted to curtail cheaters and modders, they would ban your Credit Card (pay method).
... if copyright were remotely rational.
Most people are not lawyers and could not care squat about copyright issues, but I think many understand, perhaps at a subconscious level, that it is simply not fair that copyright lasts for more than one hundred years (at least for now, before the "IP" conglomerates try to drive up the current tersm one or two decades more, I am in no doubt that their aim is to recognize copyright as a perpetual benefit).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Now what about if you aren't using LIVE? Nothing's going to stop you from running pirated games now, and it's probably going to be really cheap to get these "dead" consoles now. Life's good! If you buy a $50 or $100 used console and download a few games, you have already saved yourself the cost of a console. BAM!
Except that the last ban wave will cripple some offline features as well, such as HDD installs (a *big* loss since the DVD drive sounds like a jet engine when spinning), being able to move savegames to other consoles (no more playing you're savegames at a friends place), and I think even some of the media center functions. Also, you won't be getting any game patches anymore, which is also a major downside since so many console games are released full of bugs these days.
Then that's why I haven't get my ass kicked from Live. I knew it had something to do with MW2. My Xbox is modded (it's legal over here) but I only have been playing original games. What kind of idiot it takes to play a pirated game the day/week before release? It's like wetting yourself with blood in the middle of a forest when a bunch of wolves are looking for you
The companies that make a living out of hoarding copyrights have lobbied intensely to make sure copyrights last more than one hundred years (with people living longer, copyrights can easily last 150 or 160 years).
That is abusive, but the defenders of this indefensible situation go very easy on the companies that have created this situation, but quite heavy on the people that pirate a few games (or DVDs, or CDs, whatever).
Criticism of copyright infringers should always come paired with the contextual information in which copyright infringement is happening.
As for the information wants to be free "excuse" as you put it, humanity progressed by sharing information, by communicating, copyright is an abomination that arised only by chance, given that it was expensive to disseminate it when it was too much of it and had to travel long distances.
Now that we have instantaneous communication of gargantuan amounts of information, the original restrictions that gave raise to copyright are no longer valid. Companies and governments are desperately trying to keep artificial scarcity pretty much against the laws of physics (and economics).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you sneak in you are trespassing, so forget about any copyright related issues right there, you are comparing apples and oranges already.
But what about making a photograph of the exhibits? Or what about memorizing the exhibits and then reproducing them?
Why should that be forbidden? It is knowledge, it is art, it is how humans became humans.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Isn't it common knowledge that consoles are sold as a loss-leader because the money is made back on games and games licensing? You want cheaper games, buy a PC. Of course these days, the cost difference is negligible on many popular games.
Consoles have now been around long enough that this must be common knowledge. Not to mention that consoles are a closed platform. You try to modify the platform and of course you are not going to be able to play with anyone else. Besides, if you are modding your console to play pirated/copied games, do you really think the manufacturer will go along nicely with that?
Modding an xbox to play copied games is trivial, i know lots of people who performed the hack themselves... You just need to flash the firmware on the dvd drive, and there are tons of tutorials on the subject.
Modding it to run homebrew is much harder, and would probably require most people to pay someone else for doing it.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
You can't port Linux to XNA... What it lets you do is actually quite limited.
I had a first gen xbox running XBMC, and aside from the lack of HD support (cpu is too slow to decode hd resolution video) it's one of the best media player boxes around...
The 360 would be an HD capable version.
If i buy a device, i want to be able to do what i want and get the most out of it.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The worst part of this tho..
Games used to allow local lan play, most don't anymore... It basically killed the idea of a LAN party. You have to connect to live, just to play a game with someone sat next to you.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I'm talking about morality, not legality here, stating that Microsoft should not ban console modders in this way. Of course what they're doing is legal, I just think it's wrong.
Your PPC version of os X did not stop working, unlike Mickeysoft decided to do with it's customers ...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
"MS really should set up some kind of verification system where you can call in a serial number and check an XBOX or "preowned" system where you can get a guaranteed, stamped approval."
If the console is chipped but has never been online then Microsoft wont even know the state of the console. Even if a console has been online prior to being chipped, they can't tell you for sure that it's not been chipped since it was last online. At best they could tell you if the console is in their list of systems that have been banned, but couldn't say for sure that it wont get banned.
Places like eBay allow you to ask the seller questions- if you ask them if it's been chipped and they say anything other than "No" then don't buy it. If they say no and sell you it and it is then you're free to get all your cash back pretty quick from Paypal (quickly and easily in my experience) as part of their dispute resolution process.
Like you say for people who just want to play offline though it wont matter and is a cheap way to play offline games. Chances are Microsoft aren't even losing out either as people who played online probably will just buy a new XBox and games to keep playing anyway. One of my friends who got banned in the last round a couple of years ago did just that but kept his old box and just used that chipped and banned one to play offline games (like GTA4) and his new one for games he liked to play online (i.e. CoD4).
I hear ya! Forza Motorsport 3 springs to mind, no System Link option :-(
Also when the console money dries up, developers will return to the PC which has a higher per-unit return
That, and PC games sell more units in households with multiple gamers. A multiplayer game that would need one console and one disc would need four PCs and four discs.
Did you honestly just make the argument "But it's free to develop software for the Xbox! *cough*youjusthavetopaytorunit"?
Nope. But I can certainly understand why someone who was attempting to create a misleading impression in a public forum in order to justify an overwhelmingly immoral behavior would claim to think so!
To my knowledge, no one has cracked the 360 to the point where you can run your own homebrew (outside of XNA). There fore the only reason to mod your xbox is: 3. Steal games.
Is there any way to "un-mod" a modded xBox? If there is then some money could be made by buying modded xBoxes then un-modding them and being able to sell them at a higher price.
Because FUD isn't fact and the XBox 360 is an awesome way to play videogames (or some boardgames) with widespread family/friends.
Anger management issues much? Your argument is predicated on a single piece of evidence which is a fabrication of your own mind.
My grade 6 reading comprehension told me your argument lacked substance. My university logic, reasoning and hermeneutics courses informed my sarcastic remark which I stand by -- without even a shred of evidence, your argument is invalid.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
A month or two after the games release you can pick up most games second hand for around the £10/£15 mark, and some as low as 50p.
If you're willing to wait a year or so it's possible to pick them up new for not much more.
I've probably forked out £200 for a library of around 20 games which I could sell for the same price.
Because we have already had 10s of articles on Slashdot talking about the failure rate of the console. This has been discussed and rehashed a million times on here already. Yeah, the launch boxes had a poor design and a unacceptably high rate of failure. Yes, when you send in a RROD'd 360, they are going to send you a refurbished one back (as is any other electronics company for that matter). Yes, many of us has had it happen to us or to someone we know. But that's the point, that is super old news.
Quite frankly, this article has nothing to do with the RROD. It has to do with people who modded their console to pirate games. There really isn't any other legitimate reason to do it. And it is something that has been done before, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it happened again. The modders knew the risk (or should have) and now are dealing with the consequences.
But really, the reason why MS can still do well, is that they have the best game lineup for traditional gamers (I say it this way since it is obvious Wii has attracted a lot of new/casual gamers). I know that early adopters of consumer electronics often get screwed so I waited a long time to purchase a console with a SKU that had those issues worked out.
But you modded your console and now you pirate "all the time". So you should be happy, MS gave you the excuse you need to break the law and not give money to the developers who make quality games. You lost any moral high ground you could have and I hope they ban you soon.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
You're an idiot. He obviously wasn't saying 99.9% of the xbox user base is pirating their games. The parent said 99.9% of the users of 360 mods are pirating their games. Considering you can't really use a modded 360 to do really anything else, I'd say he's right.
But go ahead, keep making straw mans. The parent made no statement about general piracy rates and you know it.
It's common knowledge that if you mod your console and Microsoft finds out, you'll be banned from Live.
I feel like everyone condemning Microsoft for this action are out of touch with what Xbox Live is and what is common sense for an online gaming service.
It's all well and good to say that the .1% of non-cheating modders don't deserve to be banned so no one should be banned, but the other 99% are ruining the service for EVERYONE, including the people that followed the OBVIOUS TOS saying "thou shalt not mod thy xbox" that everyone on Live agreed to.
Problems with the law have to be fixed within the law.
I understand and agree with everything you just said, but it's still NO justification for making unauthorized copies, and there's no reason it be mentioned when chiding people for making unauthorized copies.
Comment of the year
Well, ok, but the point remains that it was an OBVIOUSLY rhetorical device, and you have shitty reading comprehension if you didn't pick up on that.
If you don't agree with my argument, that's fine. I don't care. But don't come at me to "correct" a number which was obviously phony to start with because you don't understand how language works, that's retarded.
Comment of the year
Yep, three copies of Civ IV in my house.
PC gaming is far from dead. There are some genre's that will never work on a console, OTOH I dont see many $SPORT 2010 games on PC.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
In short, MS et al don't care about enthusiasm. Their "best customers" are the ones who spend lots of money on games through official channels.
So what's wrong with that?
I didn't say that there was. I said that it's not what big companies are in it for. They're in it for the money- your views may be different.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
"My grade 6 reading comprehension told me your argument lacked substance. My university logic, reasoning and hermeneutics courses informed my sarcastic remark which I stand by -- without even a shred of evidence, your argument is invalid"
Your counter argument provided exactly as much evidence as his.
If you dispute his claim then provide evidence, which counter overwhelming anecdotal evidence and common knowledge.
See, you're arguing against this guy based on stupid wikipedian "citation needed" pedantry, while ignoring that you cannot prove him wrong.
Which is, why I suspect, you're arguing form and not substance.
This is correct, and it's really disappointing. I got my console modded for the same reason that I got my PS2 and Xbox modded, so I could play import games, either titles that weren't released in PAL or so I could pay cheaper prices than the rip-offs that we deal with in Australia (easily over three quarters of my game PS2/Xbox game collection is NTSC, and I'm trying to resist the urge to take photos of my collection to show I'm not just talking it up as an "importer" that uses the definition as someone that gets their games from fucking mininova or something).
I still have my copy of Raiden Fighters Aces that I can't do anything with and I've on-sold the copy of Oneechabara after the PAL release came out, and I was eyeing off all these great shooters from Cave et al that I was going to be playing on my modded console. You can imagine how that worked out, and I'm just thankful that I only purchased two games before discovering this was the case.
To completely digress, I remember reading some interview with the apparent idiots that did either RFA or Raiden 4 in the US, saying that they specifically made the game region locked so they could get the sales to get permission for a PAL release, or some other retarded logic. The mind boggles. It's a niche market anyway, why you would deliberately cripple your sales chances to entertain some fantasy of selling enough to get a second release of a genre that is hardly known outside of Japan is completely beyond me.
I assumed a mod was a way of getting around this idiotic logic and region encoding and game prices. Okay I lie, I assumed that it wouldn't matter anyway as shoot-em up fan as the PS3 would surely be the source of all the shooters on the next gen system and with it being region free (or at least unenforced for the most part), it wouldn't be a problem. But importing stuff like Culdcept on 360 (thanks for the PAL port guys! Culdcept was one of the games I specfically modded my PS2 for) would have been great.
Back on track to finish, my experience is that it's definitely 0.1% with honorable reasons for modding, and I won't deny that I've tried burned games to see what they are like, but then I imagine I'm one of the few people that returns from a trip to Gametraders or receives a package from Ebay and their first step is to find the burnt copies of those games that they have and bin them.
Hard to say - Microsoft isn't helping themselves when they say "You were banned for violating our TOS - we're not going to tell you which term or how you violated it because that's our policy".
It's worth a read of the xbox live forums before coming to a conclusion - Replacing defective fans seems harmless but the MS helpers say it's grounds to ban your console.
Neither, I didn't like either. You have that choice too and for some reason you're not getting my point.
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
You obviously need a logic course. I made no counter-argument.
You're debating nothing.
I don't need to provide any evidence as I took no position on the argument except that his is invalid.
Logic dictates that he has no point until he does in fact cite evidence for his point.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Rhetorical device or not, you made up a claim with no backing.
I can just as easily say that men are bad drivers and 90% of them admit it, or that 63% of fish are orange. That is to say, you made something up and then tried to make an argument based on that fake data.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
"You obviously need a logic course. I made no counter-argument."
I know, I said that.
You need a reading course.
"I don't need to provide any evidence as I took no position on the argument except that his is invalid."
That's a position, which you are apparently too obtuse to realize. You provided NO evidence that his argument was invalid.
"Logic dictates that he has no point until he does in fact cite evidence for his point."
No it doesn't.
"Logic" has no such requirement, please stop lying and pretending you know what the fuck you're talking about or have justification for your moronic assertions, when the reality is your having a pedantic little wikipeidan editors breakdown because you don't like what he said but can't refute it.
However, since, by YOUR OWN ASSERTION "Logic dictates that he has no point until he does in fact cite evidence for his point", your idiotic claim that "his is invalid" fails BY YOUR OWN STANDARDS.
By the way, I actually HAVE taken many logic courses, which is why I just ran rings around you.
"If Microsoft wants to make money, they need to get creative."
My point was I think they have gotten creative. I think they have embraced the homebrew scene, far more than the other console manufactures. I think one of the reason's you haven't seen a concentrated attempt to run arbitrary code on the system is that MS gave a very nice, officially supported way to hack the box to make homebrew games. Can you turn the 360 into a webserver? Probably not, but I think what they've done is a nice compromise as opposed to "lock it down and sue everyone". The fact that they've taken it a step further and provided a distribution channel for the games so you can easily see what hobbyists have done is another positive step.
As for the pirates, well, this doesn't stop pirated games - it stops the boxes from going online. I agree with you that the current chip does not stifle innovation - I'm sure it loses some dollars, but obviously less than they claim. I can definitely say that the mods they cracked down on are not mods that _promote_ innovation. The only thing they can do is play backup copies of titles - how does that encourage innovation?
Will you people never understand this? The fucking games. THE GAMES MAN! Damn, seriously. We'll put up with any amount of dumb bullshit when there is a game we want to play.
blah blah
Sieg Heil!
fdhdhdfhdfshdfh
dfsgdsfgd frsgrsagws
XOXOXOXOXOXOxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox