600k Xbox Live Accounts Banned By Microsoft
Filed Under: Games | By: Peter Holness
Nov 10, 2009 | Comments 51
According to a source, Microsoft have begun a mass banning spree that has left over 600,000 Xbox Live users unable to use their console in the US and Canada. It is not known if this is going to happen in Europe or not.
The ban is to target all users who have modified their console so they can play pirated games, and Microsoft isn’t finished with you yet. The Microsoft employees who handle Xbox Live accounts have been pushed to ban around 1 million accounts before the Christmas holidays have finished.
According to the source; “Our office has gone to hell,” referring the amount of phone calls they are getting from angry and unhappy teenagers who do not realise they have broken the terms of use agreement that comes shipped with the console.
If you have a modded Xbox 360, I’d be careful until after Christmas if I was you.
Has your modified Xbox 360 been banned? What have you done about it?
Source: Pinoy Cosplay
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A friend of mine’s was banned last week – a UK machine. He had flashed his firmware on the DVD drive. This was previously thought to be undetectable…
Europe also confirmed. I live in Sweden and my Xbox got banned last week.
Well good move by xbox, i dont see why I should fork out 39 quid (if new) for a game that some person has downloaded for free. The industry looses out and anyone who complains about this are just as bad as the pirates themselves!
Good. Piracy is one of the main reasons media is so expensive. Stop bloody doing it!
I hope they’re happy now. A lot of hacked Xboxes out there buy the xbox live membership and games from the marketplace. Now they have banned so much people I think a lot of them will buy a new console. Not an xbox this time. As a lot of hacked consoles have originals and hacked games combined they will lose a lot of money. Anyhow, I bought a lot of games for the xbox but wanted to play my backups instead of my originals. Too bad. For me Microsoft is dead… Welcome to linux and Playstation3!
Same here, my bro got banned and he also flashed his firmware on the dvd drive.. guess no mw2 for me this christmas
They have a new update to get aroung this. its on sickfingers.com fourms
Mine was banned, and what I’ve done is gotten a new xbox and plan to mod that one too. I think the issue was people playing non-stealth games (which I was guilty of). So, whether you’re on Xbox Live or not, and you play a non-stealth or non-verified stealth game Microsoft logs that. And based on that information they banned all the people that had done so. I have several friends that weren’t banned, but all their games were verified stealth games. Ergo…
I have modded plenty of consoles in the past for some piracy. But I stopped doing that as it was and is ethically wrong. But with my knowledge of modding I decided to stealth mod my kids Xbox360 and back up the games they own as they kill a game every few months, and don’t say ‘That old excuse, as a lot of us do exactly that. Their xbox has now been banned clearly for modding only and not theft. It’s my purchased procucts, why can’t I do what I like with them in the privacy of my own home? Okay, I broke their terms of use, fair enough. I have now just purchased a couple more Xboxs, and am no longer interested in xbox live (more advertising than anything else). I have also modded these boxes and downloaded games from the net. I will never pay for an xbox game again, yet we will own them all. We can also play games long before their release date, and multiplay on our own wireless LAN. I have also saved around £100 in Xbox Live fees. Microsoft we cannot thank you enough for your blind intolerance. I see the sale of banned yet modded Xbox consoles are also going through the roof so we can sell our old banned consoles. Live has also lost major earnings and a huge chunk of online players. Looks like Sony will win yet again.
4 of my friends from Holland have been banned the last 2 weeks
lol serves them right i struggle to buy games,as they are expensive due to the pirate guys well done xbox know fine them thousands for each game lmao
Bloody good job – MS dont care if they lose the pennies you pirates spend on Xbox Live Marketplace. If you can’t afford to buy the games then you don`t deserve to have them, it’s as simple as that. Best piece of news for ages. I bet MS sell a heap load of new Xboxs and then the games to follow as people replace their old copied titles with ones purchased from stores.
Well done MS!!!
the problem is not having properly stealthed games or by breaking release dates. My box got zapped today and i was playing MW2 on a properly stealthed game. I dont know how they are detecting the mod but i suggest disconnecting your xbox from the internet for awhile to try to avoid being flagged..
Ive been reading many news reports on this and games are so expensive because of pirates copying them. What i dont understand is Microsoft are banning the machines from xbox live but not from playing pirated games so people will still copy the games and play offline!! It doesn’t solve the problem they need to ban the machine, account and stop the machine from playing copied game full stop.
Just move to PS3 ..xBOX sucks anyway
Re Prices
For the ones who complain that modded boxes mean retail prices are high…
How do you explain the fact the PS3 games are the same price as XBOX 360 games, In fact XBOX 360 games are the same price point they were when the machine came out.
Bottom line for me is after wasting lots of money on disappointing purchases, I prefer to try a game before I buy it, If i play a ‘copied’ game for more than an hour I do go and buy it – I stick to that rule.
please these publishers will never bring the cost of games down. you guys are dreaming. and anyone who gets banned may buy a new xbox, but i’ve had one of my newer xbox’s still rrod along with friends/family same thing. i haven’t been banned yet but that’s because i haven’t used my live much lately. guess i’m gonna just use xbox to play all my other games and buy games i want to play online on my ps3. =)
Mark , the problem is that people who havent stolen anything are being banned. Just because you have a modified xbox or even if your playing a burned game it should be ok as long as u purchased the game itself. It is legal to burn pc software to discs as backup as long as you purchased it, why should it not be the same for xbox games?
Xbox’s tend to scratch and ruin $69.99 games all the time. In addition people who bought used consoles that were modified are being banned too when they had no idea it was modded and were playing with legit games. I’m going to continue to burn games but will no longer purchase them anymore. I am also going to cancel my xbox live account as its BS that they even charge us to use the service in the first place, $100 a year to use a peer to peer connection? they dont even use dedicated servers.. nintendo wii and ps3 offer this service free, why not xbox
when do you think the banning wave will end? i have a modded box and havent been banned yet. i have a burnt copy of mw2 but im not gunna play it cause im scared. ive been playing my other burnt games but i have a feeling if i play mw2 im done. i think im just gunna wait it out.
IF ALL COMPANY’S WASNT MONEY GRABBING BAST*RDS IN THE FIRST PLACE THERE WOULD NOT BE ANY PIRACY, THEY ARE OVER PRICED AND THIS IS WHY PEOPLE RESULT TO CHIPPING THERE XBOX AND SO ON.THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WHO CANT AFFORD TO PAY £45 FOR A GAME AND IF THEY CAN GET IT FOR FREE OVER THE INTERNET AND PLAY IT WHY NOT?
AT THE END OF THE DAY WHEN PEOPLE MOAN FOR E.G WHAT CAR SAYS ” November 10, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Good. Piracy is one of the main reasons media is so expensive. Stop bloody doing it!”
HE IS TALKING OUT OF HIS A*SE SO YOUR TELLING ME YOU HAVE NEVER DONE PIRACY? YOU PROBABLY JUST JELOUS BECAUSE YOU DONT KNOW HOW TO HACK YOUR XBOX STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT PIRACY AND GET A LIFE LIKE THE REST OF YOU PIRACY HATING C*CK FU*K’S!
awsome i need help i havnt gone online in a long time and i have a soft mod dvd drive what should i do?
well well well the console modders are banned from xbox live boo hoo. i see a lot of people has taken the wrong idea here. there are paying customers who use the live service. legit folks never visited a torrent site or mod community.
and they dont deserve to waste thier hard earned money having to play with cheaters and torrent kids.
“i gotz a burned mw2. im not gunna play it im scared ill get teh banzorz” <<<<< THIS
^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^ this is why MS has dine this
and not only to keep their service free of asshats like this. but it will drive up sales. fence sitters who were thinking about buying a game vs torrenting and modding their consoles will now go retail and avoid any issues.
but its people like that kid who have caused this action. its also kids like this that make xbox live such a crap fest to begin with.
i LOL at those who got banned for flash/hacks thats the penalty for getting caught. no different then your isp catching you torrenting the games movies and music in the first place. and then banning you from their service.
as a matter of fact these people are lucky MS dosent just publish these ip addresses so the hounds of the mpaa and what ever body does games copyright infringements.
but for those who bought unawares a modded xbox and have been banned i feel your pain. its like buying a used car and 2 weeks later the tranny just turns to dust. you bought it as is and now your fubar'd lol
you all who modded the boxes and failed to stealth you shit are to blame stupid kids who think that because they can find a torrent site and mod the console (or buy one)
and just steal away and play without penalties or use hacks in online play and think no one cares, lulz
this is what you get. +rep for the PC crowd ROFLMFAO at all the banned modders!
right first off i would like to make clear i do not condone playing copys of games you dont OWN
now there have been lots of people banned from live which in a way is fair but these people have also lost the abiliy to
1) play games from there HDD
which if you have paid for a download form live you now cant play it so MS HAVE to give you your money back for the downloads you have paid for. if they refuse you CAN take legal action
2)they have removed the ability to use the media center features
which if you look on the box its advatised as a feature so they have no right to remove it dont forget YOU on your xbox not them
its like MS buying a DVD player from you and you walking in an saying o your not using this the way i want you to so am gonna take off the play button
you all have rights so act on them
i was banned today too. dont think waiting to go online will solve the problem. i have another modded box but it has outdated firmware that plays wave 1 and 2. this box worked on xbox live fine and i was able to play a wave 2 game with same banned gamertag. anyone know how this is possible?????
All of you above this are wrong. ALL MODDED CONSOLES WILL BE BANNED! Ixtreme is detectable now until the new one is released. You will be banned nomatter if your games are stealth checked or not!
i was banned after getting to play my retail disc of mw2 for about 2 hrs and ive never even played a a back up/copy online or with the ethernet cable plugged in for that matter and really its bs ms wont even let us defend ourselfs “pirates” is what they are brandind us but i have reciepts for every game that has ever touched my xbox but they are right i did violate the EULA and should be banned for piracy F microsoft im getting myself a ps3 for christmas and i will enjoy the psn without a $8.00 charge to my bank account every month and lets face it the ps3 is a better console anyway its not designed to fail no rrod and blueray xbox doesnt even play to put a blueray in the next xbox ill never purchase another ms product as long as i live but you can bet these hackers are only going to work around this nor will this ban make them stop pirating games they just wont play thier stolen goods online in fact alot of them will probley bootleg games they want to try with thier banned boxes and if the like it buy it for ps3 and play online for FREE
My Xbox got banned today, and I stealth check all of my games, I already have a Modern Warfare 2 Xbox so, It’s fine, They can’t stop me playing games on my modded one, just can’t go online on them.
right lets get one thing straight here. The price of games from xbox is not because od piracy. Its because everyone needs to make a profit, like someone else said, playstaion 3 and wii games are priced the same. All modded a=xbox’s will be banned, it has nothing to do with playing games which havent been stealth checked as i was stealth checking allof my games. Also if you think unplugging your ethernet will work, it wont, your firmware has already been detected and you have already been flagges, as soon as u sign on, u will be banned. And lastley it has nothing to do with playing cod mw2, i know someone who played a bought copy on their modded xbox 360 and they still got banned. They will bring out new firmware soon which isnt detectable, piracy happens everywhere, everyday, banning a few people from a network you have to pay to use isnt going to stop it.
Youl all wrong piracy IS Not the cause of high prices companies wanting to make money fast is the only reason piracey is there is because who want to pay £40 for a game that they could get for £2.50 ? Tip make the games cheaper then piracey would go down no one will defeat pirates
I am amazed that so many people have been conned by the reports that Microsoft are banning modded consoles as a crack down on Piracy! and that the modded consoles are the reason that the games cost so much, this is completely inaccurate, if Microsoft really wanted to crack down on Piracy they would continually check fro modded Xbox consoles and not just at certain times, they do a sweep and catch a whole lot of people and then do nothing for the rest of the year, the reason they do it at this time is so that the get extra sales from people desperate to play MW2 or other such games, who then need to go out and buy a new console.
As for the claim that Piracy is the reason that games cost so much, just how many copies of mw2 were actually sold? almost 5 million in the first 24 hours, Microsoft estimate that 3% of all games are pirated that means that 150′000 copies were made in the first day, do you really think that if they had that extra revenue they would bring the cost of the games down?
The game companies and Microsoft do not care about you! they care about three things, in the words of ABBA Money, Money, Money.
Now switch of the 360 stop paying for membership to live, buy a PS3 and forget the four red lights, no hi def and scratched discs forever.
Thanks Tayla for posting that link to sickfingers. I will admit sickfingers.com does offer a technical work around but you should not play live
Microsoft made a really dumb move, obvisuasally right after MW2 came out and before christmas so people will beg family members for new ones, probably will do another sweep right before christmas next year, the greedy bastards. Ill keep my xbox for offline use only now, and planning on buying a PS3. If Im paying for games, no way is that money going to microsoft.
That’s sucks Mine was banned too,
My xbox is modded and im here in London does anybody know when I can return online on xbox live agen?? I need 2 get modern warfare 2 goin man?? any ideas??
in response to Comeg:
I really buy your sob story that you hacked your kids XBOX’s to backup their games, and when you got caught your reaction is to buy more XBOX’s, hack them, and then bash Microsoft and continue to pirate. Get a life.
And for this statement:
“and am no longer interested in xbox live (more advertising than anything else)” You clearly have no idea what live is all about. Yeah, XBOX live is all about advertising. Good riddance.
asia is confirmed too.. i just got banned..
I have a modded xbox and don’t care much about live. The monthly fee isn’t really that much but it still costs. But anywhooo i had this one months trial gold membership, used it only once and only for about 5min so i could update my nhl 10 rosters
. But yeah, u can update those without gold too. Otherwise this is great gamebox…don’t get why people argue over “wich one is better ps3 or 360″, what i think, those boxes are pretty much the same u suckers. Xbox had a LOT better gamepad IMO and it was easily modded, ps3 has free “live”. They differ in only couple of things and although i’m an old ps-freak i’d still choose 360 over ps3 if i had to buy new eventhough i would get banned. I’ll play pirate games so long i don’t have money coz i’m a student, when i graduate as engineer in a couple of years and get a real day job i’ll buy those games goddammit! peace MS
i believe xbox is far better than the playstation 3 for one reason the gameplay and things available on xboxz are supperior
also i wish to declare i got round my so called modded console a friend of a friend works for the company who build the consoles took it away and brought me the same one back fully lived up xbox get it up ye !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
but i agree with the fellow who suggested that its to generate more reveue for microsoft if you feel agrieved download windows 7 for free you feel a bit better evening the odds
dont see what the big deal is… i also got banned (in thailand) and although is a headache that cannot update games, etc – does not really effect too much as you can still play all your games.
I will say this much, no way in hell will i be buying a new xbox just to play live – i will just wait for a way to work around this gets out and do that.
Haha Microsoft is gonna make $$$ from this and I love it. Some people are actually so stupid that they think Microsoft is gonna loose money from this mass ban, but they don’t realize that 1/4 people that had their xbox banned will buy a brand new Xbox. Thats 250,000 new Xbox’s Microsoft will $ell. I’m not done, what about the Xbox live memberships? It doesn’t stop there either $$$$ Looks like Microsoft gets the last laugh, fools.
To be honest with all this XBOX LIVE bull SH*T to be honest it is a HYPE so what if we cannot connect XBOX LIVE lol I mean people out there don’t wanna pay so much for something they may never USE everyday of the hour. The only way they got all these XBOXES banned is when SKY patnershiped WITH XBOX. We all know the MYTH “YOU CANNOT CHIP A SKY” BUT YOU CAN CHIP VIRGIN lol.
It is well known to have chipped CABLE boxes still on going hell yer. There is a loop hole all over & I do agree that if it is our boxes being MOD & it is in the interest of our homes then why CAN’T WE DO WHAT EVER WE WISH TO DO WITH THE XBOX?? I understand we breeched their terms an all but it is in the interest of me OWNING the XBOX then the other way ROUND?
Makes You WOnder HUH?
WHAT YOU REALLY OWN IS IT AS GOOD OR WILL THERE BE CHANGES?
What happens to your xbox if you replaced a defective cd drive with a new one. Is this considered modding and will I be banned for it?
Got banned about 4hrs ago …. so what now buy Ps3 with Mw2 or a new xbox ? Ofc im not very rich so i cant afford to buy a new console or game every month so this is important for me cuz 4 Ps3/xbox games = a new Ps3/xbox . Theres almost no use of my xbbox cuz it doesnt save game progress now only good thing is if i want to watch movies on Tv screen
I think it is funny how people “violate the terms of service” then complain about the fact they got caught. Its not fair I have to pay $60 for a game, and then some thief pays $3 for backup copy. Everyone who got banned deserved what they got. Even the people who bought used Xboxs. It is what it is, when you go to a used car dealer, you know what your in for.
As far as PS3 online, it does not compare to XBOX. Most of you guys said, ” Ill just get PS3″ well let me tell you the amount of hackers on PS3 games. Also, with PS3, you get online and thats all… No party chat, friends list, no invites to friends to play games. I know alot of you are thinking, ” so what” but you will see a HUGE difference when you get on the free PS3 service and see the amount of kids and hackers. THe little things it lacks that XBOX had.
I dont have an xbox but if you gt banned
does that mean you can never use the console again because if thats the case then why are they having a banning spree and teens spending hard earned money or parent’s hard earned money which is $300 plus games which are $50 or more and everyone has at least 3 xbox games which comes to be $450 and if teens and even adults are losng that money then people will leave xbox and go to PS3 and online is free and no stupid rules then next thing you know bill gays will be my next door neighbor and if any microsoft worker is reading this then i suggest you make a change fast unless you want your company to lose money and you’ll be out of job and work at payless shoes
so if you wait until after christmas than your algood to play online?
if you think piracy is why games cost so much then you’re a fool…modern warfare 2 cost how much to make? 10m? 20m? 50m? say any ridiculous number you like, it made $550m in the first 5 days. greed is why games cost so much money and the cost of them is why we pirate games.
For all the douchbags saying piraters made the games high microsoft released the games at 60 bucks a pop when the system was released so unless someone started ripping microsoft off before the system was released (im being sarcastic btw) than obviously your comment is idiotic and irrelevant thank you bye….
Also people pirate computer games way more than console games and they are usually way cheaper than console games go figure.It’s basically a big market and microsoft and sony are greedy as greendude states nothing else.
Serves you all right. What the hell right do you have to complain when you’re all carrying out an illegal activity in the first place? Strikes me that’s it’s similar to breaking into someone’s house then complaining that the stolen good are taken away from you when you get caught. Grow up and come to live in the real world. Get off your ass, earn some money and pay for the goddam games like everyone else does.
This is stupid. I, myself, do not have a modded Xbox or anything like that and don’t really care who does and who doesn’t. But, if you did mod your Xbox you know you had it coming.
For those of you whining that your own your console and you can do anything you want with it, you really don’t. It’s the same as an OS on your computer. You LICENSE it, you don’t own it. You might own the physical console itself but you will never own the software, programming, bla, bla, bla, etc., etc. Because of this, if you mod it, they can ban you all they want, refuse your service on games you’ve bought off of XBL and you have no legal right to dispute it.
Piracy is not why the games have inflated in price. As we all know, each new generation of console comes with better graphics, better components, etc. The rise in price is because it costs more to make the game now. Take a look at what it cost to make a game on the orignal Xbox and compare it to what the average cost is to make a game on the Xbox 360, then you’ll understand my point.
In closing, cool it with your self-centered victim mentality and just admit you got caught doing something you weren’t supposed to do in the first place. It’s your fault, get over it.