Microsoft Bans Live Accounts For Modded Consoles

[AstroManLuca]

100% failure rate? Jesus fucking christ... EVERYTHING has a failure rate of 100% if you use it long enough. I agree that you should be able to fix your own console without issue, but the 100% failure rate claim is pretty absurd.

I think he might be using a different way of measuring "failure rate" specifically designed to make the 360 look more unreliable than it already is.

Take a random sample of 100 Xbox 360s sold in the last three years, and maybe 30, 40, 50, or even 60 of them have failed. That's still bad.

But take a random sample of 100 Xbox 360 owners, and divide the number of failed consoles owned by those people by the number of working consoles owned by them, and you can get 200, 300, 400%. If, on average, those owners each went through two failed 360s before getting a working one, that method returns a value of 200%. But it's obviously a bad statistic for several reasons. One, it doesn't measure the actual rate of failure, but rather the average number of failures experienced by Xbox 360 owners. Two, no one is going to send a working console back to MS, but they will send back a broken one. So it artificially inflates the number of broken consoles while reducing the number of working ones (presumably, the maximum number of working consoles per person is 1, not accounting for those who own more than one).

Basically, people need to quit using messed up statistics to define "failure rate." Failure rate is the chances of a random Xbox 360 failing, and that can't be above 100%. And that's just looking at all consoles sold. If you take your sample from consoles sold in the past one year, I bet the failure rate is much lower than for ones sold in the past three years, partly because they've had less time to fail but also partly because MS has greatly improved the design. Unfortunately, that doesn't help people who bought their consoles a while back and no longer have an extended warranty to cover their older, more failure-prone consoles. And it DOES suck that MS will ban you for fixing it yourself rather than paying them $100 to do the same thing. It's one thing to void your warranty for doing that (that goes without saying), and I understand it's in the TOS, but it doesn't make it suck any less. You'd think they'd be able to distinguish between people who simply fixed their out-of-warranty RRODs and people who have actually modded their consoles.

 

[zerocool84]

So if your console is banned you can't even get updates for games right?

 

[Queasy]

So if your console is banned you can't even get updates for games right?

Nope.

 

[AstroManLuca]

So if your console is banned you can't even get updates for games right?

A quick Google search reveals that it is at least possible to get dashboard updates by downloading them from MS and burning them to a disc (I guess this is for people who don't have Internet access), but I'm not sure if you can do the same for individual games.

Even if you can't patch your games, though, the fact that you can update your dashboard should at least ensure you're able to play all your disc-based games, even the ones that may require a dashboard update to play (are there any that do?).

So the worst case scenario is you can play all your games, but some of them might be buggy since the games themselves can't be patched.

 

[Homerboy]

Just got my xbox back up and running (please note RRoD doesn't always mean your SOL. Mine was a simple $15 used PSU off ebay to fix) and I'm banned. Ah well. I wonder what the chances of them automatically NOT auto-renewing my XBL Gold account is? I'm guessing 0% and they will require me to call in and cancel it. How convenient for them.

 

[brblx]

let me lay this out so it can be understood.

1) i never defended pirates. i'm referring to people being banned for replacing broken hardware. replaced fans are suspected to cause this, replaced DVD drives are confirmed. both parts are very common failure points on the 360. you also have the HDD thing concerning non-modded consoles with aftermarket drives and MS's general peripheral rape, but i'm not gonna get into that.

2) people's live ID's are being banned, not just consoles. and it was stated that if you challenge microsoft and they still deem you to be a pirate upon their non-existant 'reevaluation,' you get all your downloaded content revoked. this is much, much worse than simply making you go buy a new console, considering the hundreds if not thousands of dollars of DLC some people may have.

3) every person i know with an xbox 360 has had it fail. i bought one a year after launch and am on my third console- and i barely even play it. a good friend bought one two years after launch and is also on his third. pretty much everyone who ever purchases one of these turd boxes will have it fail, and many will have the replacements for their failed console fail. it's one thing to have a large number of something fail and require replacement with a 'fixed' model. it's completely another to have made nothing but excruciatingly meager quality upgrades over the four year life of a console that still results in most all of them failing. if you can't admit that this is as close to a 100% failure rate as consumer electronics can get, please take microsoft's cock out of your mouth and explain why.

 

[AstroManLuca]

if you can't admit that this is as close to a 100% failure rate as consumer electronics can get, please take microsoft's cock out of your mouth and explain why.

I have never had Microsoft's cock in my mouth. I am aware that the Xbox 360 has had (and still has, in all likelihood) an abysmal failure rate. I'm just calling you out on your claim of a 100% failure rate and the way you're arriving at it. It doesn't help that you're using completely anecdotal evidence. And I thought that you, like some people, were using a flawed method to arrive at your estimation of what the failure rate is.

If you keep getting failed consoles from MS over and over again, and go through four of them before getting a working one, then your personal failure rate is 4/5 (80%), not 4/1 (400%). And even that isn't an accurate way of measuring because not only is it simply anecdotal evidence, but again, you are only going to keep one working console. Again, I think if you were to randomly sample a bunch of Xbox 360 consoles rather than using an inherently flawed system of comparing how many working vs. non-working consoles you and your friends personally have had access to, you'd probably see a failure rate of more like 40-60%.

Still totally unacceptable, but you're using flawed methodology.

 

[brblx]

i wasn't calling you out, i understand your logic. there were some people on the last page that sounded like fanboys, however.

if i have four consoles that have failed and am on my fifth, standard reasoning says that the fifth is going to die an untimely death, too. again, that's closer to 100% than any consumer product should ever be. and i'm not sure why you seem to think i said there was a 400% rate, you started that line of thinking in your own post.

just because i'm giving an example of my personal experiences with the console doesn't mean there is only 'anecdotal proof.' are you seriously saying that having every person i know with an xbox (pretty much any 20-30 year old male has one, so that's a big number) experience failures is not a decent random sample? is microsoft only sending bad consoles to my friends and acquaintances? or are you just saying they're only sending them to tennessee?

i would be willing to bet that if we polled this forum (is that a good enough random sample?) for who has a) had an xbox for more than a year and b) had a failure, i bet the the percentage of people without failures would be in the single digits. independent sources have been putting the failure rate at anywhere between 30-70%, and i've never even seen one that factors in age- which is relevant, because of course brand new consoles aren't failing. i never stated that xbox's were shipping DOA, i simply said that they all have design flaws that are causing failures after long periods of use (though not even close to as long as the standard life of a console has always been).

 

[MStele]

let me lay this out so it can be understood.

1) i never defended pirates. i'm referring to people being banned for replacing broken hardware. replaced fans are suspected to cause this, replaced DVD drives are confirmed. both parts are very common failure points on the 360. you also have the HDD thing concerning non-modded consoles with aftermarket drives and MS's general peripheral rape, but i'm not gonna get into that.

2) people's live ID's are being banned, not just consoles. and it was stated that if you challenge microsoft and they still deem you to be a pirate upon their non-existant 'reevaluation,' you get all your downloaded content revoked. this is much, much worse than simply making you go buy a new console, considering the hundreds if not thousands of dollars of DLC some people may have.

3) every person i know with an xbox 360 has had it fail. i bought one a year after launch and am on my third console- and i barely even play it. a good friend bought one two years after launch and is also on his third. pretty much everyone who ever purchases one of these turd boxes will have it fail, and many will have the replacements for their failed console fail. it's one thing to have a large number of something fail and require replacement with a 'fixed' model. it's completely another to have made nothing but excruciatingly meager quality upgrades over the four year life of a console that still results in most all of them failing. if you can't admit that this is as close to a 100% failure rate as consumer electronics can get, please take microsoft's cock out of your mouth and explain why.

To this day I have not had my 360 fail, and I bought it about 8 months after release. I'm not sure what the big deal is about. Bottom line, people are crabby because they got caught, regardless of whether were replacing dvd drives or pirating games. If people want to stick it to MS, then don't replace your 360, sell your games, and find another platform to play on or get out of gaming. You can't justify bad behavior by pointing out more bad behavior. Two wrongs don't make a right. I agree that MS is being harsh, especially considering from the beginning the 360 has been a roller coaster ride in regards to quality, but to sit here and somehow justify a F'all attitude towards Microsoft and on the other hand defend people who knowingly violated their warranties (some of which did so to pirate games) because MS hasn't really the best product is just silly. For four years, people have had the opportunity to vote for or against the 360 with their money. For four years, people have had the oportunity to avoid the 360 and pick a more reliable platform to play on. For four years, people have been blaming Microsoft for a crappy product yet have combined put thousands and thousands of hours of gameplay into xbox live and spent millions on hardware and games. For four years, Microsoft has done everything they could to remedy a crappy situation. They admitted the problems and extended the warranties.

This is no different from eating an entire steak at a restaurant then demanding your money back because it was undercooked. Microsoft is a company who makes a product. A product that is a luxury. The 360 being produced today is as reliable as any game console. No one seems to remember that it took Sony 5 revisions to get the PS2 right.

Well thats my soapbox. I'm just tired of this bitter rant about how MS dropped the ball four years ago. Its a tired complaint that means nothing today. Everyones a critic but no one wants to own their own actions.

 

[Queasy]

2) people's live ID's are being banned, not just consoles. and it was stated that if you challenge microsoft and they still deem you to be a pirate upon their non-existant 'reevaluation,' you get all your downloaded content revoked. this is much, much worse than simply making you go buy a new console, considering the hundreds if not thousands of dollars of DLC some people may have.

From what I understand, all you have to do is recover your gamertag on a non-modded 360 and it is fine. Gamertags will be corrupted on modded consoles and you'll lose any achievements that you earn after you are banned. Gamesaves will be corrupted and they will not work on non-modded console. You can use the HDD off of the modded console as long as you delete all the profiles and gamesaves first. You'll then be able to recover your profile on another 360.

Your gamertag will never be banned unless MS sends you an email stating that your gamertag has been banned for a specific reason such as an inappropriate name or bad behavior online.

3) every person i know with an xbox 360 has had it fail. i bought one a year after launch and am on my third console- and i barely even play it. a good friend bought one two years after launch and is also on his third. pretty much everyone who ever purchases one of these turd boxes will have it fail, and many will have the replacements for their failed console fail. it's one thing to have a large number of something fail and require replacement with a 'fixed' model. it's completely another to have made nothing but excruciatingly meager quality upgrades over the four year life of a console that still results in most all of them failing. if you can't admit that this is as close to a 100% failure rate as consumer electronics can get, please take microsoft's cock out of your mouth and explain why.

I've had two separate 360s fail on me. Both replacements (one a refurb and the other a Jasper after the USPS lost the downed console) have been running like champs. I know some people have had more and it sucks.

MW2 was torrented out a couple of weeks ago and the 360 version was extremely popular with only PC versions more popular. As I said earlier, the number of people who had false positives is probably less than 1%. There are only a few anecdotal stories about 'I never modded my console but was banned anyway'. I see way more pretty much admitting they were pirating and just trying to find out how to get on to another 360. MS customer service could probably perform better but they are also probably getting inundated with calls about 'my console was banned!'

 

[AstroManLuca]

As I said earlier, the number of people who had false positives is probably less than 1%. There are only a few anecdotal stories about 'I never modded my console but was banned anyway'. I see way more pretty much admitting they were pirating and just trying to find out how to get on to another 360. MS customer service could probably perform better but they are also probably getting inundated with calls about 'my console was banned!'

I hate to beat a dead horse but it still doesn't address the issue of people who resorted to fixing their own console when MS continued to send them non-working ones or when they got the RROD after the 3-year extended warranty was up, in order to save some money vs. paying them $100 to do the same thing. As I said, I know it violates their TOS, but I think banning people who have done home repairs is a bit of an extreme punishment for something that I don't think is on the same level as modding in order to steal games. Again, voiding the warranty is one thing. Banning you from Live is another.

The argument that people should have voted with their wallet doesn't hold water. If you can't afford to spend $100 to have MS fix your defective console, then you also can't afford to spend $300 to buy a competing product as well (not to mention having to re-buy all your games). And the truth is that a lot of people ARE voting with their wallets. The PS3 is finally gaining some steam after years spent in the Xbox's shadow.

 

[OptimumSlinky]

My two cents:

Personally, I think people who pirate the games download them to their hard drives can and should be kicked. A lot of men and women put a lot of time and effort into making games like Modern Warfare 2 what they are, and for someone to sit there and enjoy the fruits of their labor without paying a dime is not only theft, it's just immoral. Those people have bills to pay and families to feed as well.

That said, I think Microsoft is being a little heavy-handed with this ban-hammer. I know it's probably difficult for them to tell the difference, but I agree that individuals that replaced fans or DVD drives should be given a pass. I had my first 360 fail on me, and while Microsoft replaced mine free of charge, I know not everyone was so lucky. If it were allowed, I'd love to crack my Elite open and install some kind of liquid-cooling system in it just as a safeguard, but ultimately, it's not a PC.

And I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people jump ship to the PS3 (though even those have had some failure issues as of late). I guess it's hard to gauge with modern consoles. On the one hand, people want cutting edge graphics and performance, but they demand it in a sleek, small package, and unlike PC modders aren't willing to accept having five different fans running at once.

 

[MStele]

"The argument that people should have voted with their wallet doesn't hold water. If you can't afford to spend $100 to have MS fix your defective console, then you also can't afford to spend $300 to buy a competing product as well (not to mention having to re-buy all your games). And the truth is that a lot of people ARE voting with their wallets. The PS3 is finally gaining some steam after years spent in the Xbox's shadow."

Maybe they couldn't afford a competing product, but then again maybe they didn't need to. Who said people have to be gaming 365 days a year? There was a time where televisions were used 100% of the time for regulary scheduled programming. Another options would be to just not by any more games after you got your console fixed. Or what if you just threw away the broken console and just walked away? There are many ways to vote with your money. Usually when people get burned, they stop putting their hands over the heat. This is capitalism after all. There are more options than you think. People tend to never think of that taking a break from gaming is an option.

 

[Spicedaddy]

If you're dumb enough to go online with a modded console, you get what you deserve. The people I know with modded consoles usually have a second one that's stock for playing online games, and the modded one never goes online.

And while MS won't come out and say it, I'm 99% sure they're able to detect a modded DVD firmware, and that's how they ban consoles. (not from opening the case, replacing a fan, etc.) Playing a game before release might help them find you, but I doubt they'd ban on that fact alone. Also, if you just replaced the DVD drive because it was broken, then you copied over your original UNMODDED firmware to the new drive, which shouldn't result in a ban.

 

[nitromullet]

while MS won't come out and say it, I'm 99% sure they're able to detect a modded DVD firmware, and that's how they ban consoles. (not from opening the case, replacing a fan, etc.)

Agreed, how would MS know (or really care) if you simply opened your console? Of course if you were trying to pursue a warranty claim that would be different, but then they'd have access to the hardware itself to determine if it had been opened or not.

 

[purbeast0]

Agreed, how would MS know (or really care) if you simply opened your console? Of course if you were trying to pursue a warranty claim that would be different, but then they'd have access to the hardware itself to determine if it had been opened or not.

i dont even tihnk they can detect fw, i think they can detect bad rips that people play.

 

[Homerboy]

I wonder how much money it ends up costing MS too... you ban 50,000 people from getting online, I'd venture to guess that most of them are paying monthly XBL fees. That does add up on MS's end (I'm not saying they shouldn't ban, I'm just saying that it's gotta sting them a little bit too).

 

[JackBurton]

I wonder how much money it ends up costing MS too... you ban 50,000 people from getting online, I'd venture to guess that most of them are paying monthly XBL fees. That does add up on MS's end (I'm not saying they shouldn't ban, I'm just saying that it's gotta sting them a little bit too).

Microsoft makes most of their money in game licensing. I'm sure they wouldn't mind sacrificing $50/yr for someone not paying for 20 games. I'd cut them off in a heart beat. As a matter of fact, most will probably go out and buy another 360. They'll also think twice about modding their console. If they want to take the chance again by modding their box, they just bet another $200 Microsoft won't ban them. 🙂


I LOVE consoles because they are a closed system. And with a closed system, you level the playing field considerably. In the console world, you may have some exploit in a game people may take advantage of, but you don't have assh0les with auto head shot hacks and all kinds of other BS hacks running like you have in the PC world. When you go online in the PC world, you have a REALLY high chance of the other guy running some bullsh!t hack. With Microsoft banning these morons, it ensures the playing field will stay level (well at least as level as it can be over the net). I commend them for that.

 

[Dari]

Microsoft makes most of their money in game licensing. I'm sure they wouldn't mind sacrificing $50/yr for someone not paying for 20 games. I'd cut them off in a heart beat. As a matter of fact, most will probably go out and buy another 360. They'll also think twice about modding their console. If they want to take the chance again by modding their box, they just bet another $200 Microsoft won't ban them. 🙂


I LOVE consoles because they are a closed system. And with a closed system, you level the playing field considerably. In the console world, you may have some exploit in a game people may take advantage of, but you don't have assh0les with auto head shot hacks and all kinds of other BS hacks running like you have in the PC world. When you go online in the PC world, you have a REALLY high chance of the other guy running some bullsh!t hack. With Microsoft banning these morons, it ensures the playing field will stay level (well at least as level as it can be over the net). I commend them for that.

Well, they'd probably buy another console but still keep the modded one for pirated games. If their objective is to save money, why would they get rid of everything and start all over? I wouldn't.

 

[Homerboy]

Well, they'd probably buy another console but still keep the modded one for pirated games. If their objective is to save money, why would they get rid of everything and start all over? I wouldn't.

Exactly. They will still pirate the games and just play those they don't care about online on the modded machine. Not to mention, if they burned 20 games, they likely wouldn't even have purchased all 20 of those in the first place.

I don't understand the "level the playing field" point either. They weren't cheating in games with modded xboxen...

I'm not trying to defend dloading and burning games, don't get me wrong. But I'm sure MS takes a pretty good hit up front on XBL fees pretty quick. Does MS get a %age of each game sold? or just 1 time licensing fee per title?

 

[cronos]

Well, they'd probably buy another console but still keep the modded one for pirated games. If their objective is to save money, why would they get rid of everything and start all over? I wouldn't.

Just an observation, I went to BestBuy earlier this afternoon and during the 15 minutes I was there, there were three Arcade and two Elite XBOX 360s being sold.

I don't think this is a common occurrence at Thursday 6pm and it's likely not a coincidence. All but one of these people weren't shopping/asking around, they came in, headed straight to the pile, grabbed a box, and head out right away.

 

[Homerboy]

Just an observation, I went to BestBuy earlier this afternoon and during the 15 minutes I was there, there were three Arcade and two Elite XBOX 360s being sold.

I don't think this is a common occurrence at Thursday 6pm and it's likely not a coincidence. All but one of these people weren't shopping/asking around, they came in, headed straight to the pile, grabbed a box, and head out right away.

Prob true. And they will keep their banned machine and continue to play burned games on it too.

 

[novasatori]

i dont even tihnk they can detect fw, i think they can detect bad rips that people play.

I also just want to add one thing on this one - FORZA3, MW2, and Halo:ODST all came out recently, both had a lot pirates playing early and publicity.

Now huge ban wave... coincidence?

 

[Queasy]

Prob true. And they will keep their banned machine and continue to play burned games on it too.

Or sell them on Craigslist, eBay, or try to trade them in at a Gamestop or something.

 

[JackBurton]

Well, they'd probably buy another console but still keep the modded one for pirated games. If their objective is to save money, why would they get rid of everything and start all over? I wouldn't.

If they got banned from Live, they're used to playing online. So playing a game like MW2 just in single player mode will be pretty painful for these people. But sure, they can play all by themselves with their pirated game. They can save all the money they want, offline. 🙂 Don't bring that sh!t on Microsoft's network.