If you thought that your xBox was the sweetest thing on the block because of some hack or upgrade, think again. Xbox just annouced they have banned 1 million plus LIVE accounts because of modified consoles.
In a statment from Wednesday, xBox says:
“All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live,” Microsoft said in a statement Wednesday.
Apparently, most of the gamers have modified their consoles, or downloaded games illegally from file sharing websites. File sharing websites have been quite popular lately and with the brains of many people working together, consoles and games can be hacked to play on the xBox console. The simple fact that you bought a new xbox case isn’t going to get your banned. It’s really more about the gamers that have taken it a step further to download and play retail copies of games, they did not purchase.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some pretty cool xBox mods out there, but most of them should be cosmetic. In some cases, gamers have upgraded the hard drive to a larger one because it will hold more media, but in fact, that console might be blacklisted and will not work online from that point.
Some stores are seeing an increase in xBox’s that have been traded in, purchased and then returned again because “they do not work”. When in fact, the console has been blacklisted and there is nothing anyone can do with it from that point forward.
Taken directly from the Microsoft Terms of 9/2008:
“Terms of Use” agreement, as of September 2008, Microsoft says that players are to use “only authorized software and hardware to access the Service,” and that they agree that their software and hardware “have not been modified in any unauthorized way … and that we have the right to send data, applications or other content to any software or hardware that you are using to access the Service for the express purpose of detecting an unauthorized modification.”
In addition, “any attempt to disassemble, decompile, create derivative works of, reverse engineer, modify, further sublicense, distribute, or use for other purposes the Service, any game, application, or other content available or accessible through the Service, or any hardware or software associated with the Service or with an original Xbox or Xbox 360 console is strictly prohibited and may result in cancellation of your account and/or your ability to access the Service, and the pursuit of other legal remedies by Microsoft.”
I think that is quite clear and there isn’t any need to guess as to what is not accepted. Of course, some people can twist words and take the policy their own way, but I think that if you read it carefully, you should be able to see what is not accepted by Microsoft!
