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Video Game Hardware

Play your hacked XBOX 360 online today and get BANNED~!

Microsoft has finally evened the odds. After so many months of people seemingly getting off ‘scott-free’ playing pirated XBOX 360 games online, Microsoft has finally chosen this day to cut them off completely. If you have a modded system, and somehow think this gives you the right to play on XBOX Live among legit users with non-hacked systems and no cheats installed, you might want to think twice before turning on your 360 today. You might just be greeted with this:

XBOX 360 banned!
Source: Gamerscore Blog (official Xbox 360 blog)

No warnings, no excuses. If a mod is detected, your console is blocked from being able to connect to Xbox Live for good.

Needless to say, a lot of people may be begging their parents for a new console this week. And after that, surely they will never again try to use Xbox Live. At least, until the next mod chip comes out that bypasses this detection. Then comes the next round of bans from Microsoft. Let the cat & mouse games continue!

Gaming on Xbox Live is about to get much easier (and I think I will try turning on voice chat again).

Tags:

  • _Lynx

    Heh, I guess voice chat is still as dangerous to your nerves as it was.

  • Xbox360-

    Anybody would think it’s wrong to get your Xbox360 chipped (by the tone of Carl Nelson’s article). Well Carl we all aren’t overpaid pen pushers with “I know best” attitudes. If you can afford it pay it. If you can’t get it chipped

    • Nick360

      If you’re so poor you can’t afford $50 for an entire year. Chances are you should not be playing games at all cuz you should not be able to afford games period considering buying one game is more than the price of a year’s XBL subscription.

  • http://www.hardcoreware.net/ Carl Nelson

    If you can’t afford to buy games, why did you buy an XBOX 360? There are tons of old XBOX 1 consoles and games available on the used market. What makes you entitled to get whatever you want free of charge?

    • woah

      because i can…..

      • NoCashGMBob

        +1

        People live by the ‘because I can’ philosophy everywhere everyday Carl. Just because this particular flavour of that attitude is sour to your tastebuds and sensibilities, doesn’t make it any different.

        Capitalists gouge and take advantage of any weakness or moral grey area each and every day, why? because they can.

        Well, I can get games for free, mostly with impunity. I choose to, why?

        BECAUSE I CAN.

        Dog eat dog Carl, deal with it.

    • John Doe

      Having a modded system is excellent….i have one xbox just for online play where i use official games i buy… But my modded system lets me play every game i want and if its good enough for online ill go buy an actual copy… Buyt other then that everyone else is the retard for paying all that money when truthful the games could be priced at half the price and developers would make plenty….

  • C0pl4nd

    your are only banned if your xbox has got the firmware hack and you go on the halo 3 beta as that is what has the mod detector in it

  • Lycho

    I don’t have my 360 chipped because i can’t pay for it, i buy every game. BUT i do burn the games to spare the original discs. that way i can make a new copy if the first gets scratched or similar instead off paying full price for the same game again

    • for the chip

      at the end of the day any one hu says that they mnake a copy of their games incase they get scratched n damaged then theyre chatting bubbles you can pay £2 at your local game or gamestation to have your disk repaired. although the chip is a much cheaper option this is cheating the companies that have spent millions of £$’s on developing these games for us to play in our leisure. im sorry but i dont agree with it if you cant afford it tough shit basically sorry guys!

      • sum1

        if your from australia like me you would know the pain… anywhere from $100- $120 for a new game that just came out is alot to pay… (thats around $85 – $100 USD) ill get a chip because while your all like “ohh they spend millions in developing the games” we spend billions getting ripped off.

        • cool papa mack

          Yea i tottaly support this guy ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

        • Djhg2000

          Best comment ever!

          I live in Sweden and here a new game cost between 499-899 SEK (about 60-110 USD).
          No wonder piracy is such a big issue here :)

      • cj

        I agree with what u say, but i tried to get my game repared and they just gave me a big fat fuck you. The only thing i think is wrong from the MS depatment, is paying for xbox live, its bullshit allways has bin and always will be. What can you do, appart from watch MS squeeze the money outta our pockets. Its not like they need the extra cash, its just greed…

        Its not as black and white as you put it.

        • Danny

          Wtf? It’s not greed wanting more money, it’s business. They try to increase their profit like any other business

        • greedy too

          thats greed. idiot

        • NoCashGMBob

          cj: point being they can, so they do, you hear that Danny?

          so tit-for-tat I can so I do.

      • minty

        the chip, if you live in the UK(not sure about the USA) there’s a law that states people are allowed to make BACKUPS of games as long as they have the original games and if they get rid of the original game they have to destroy the BACKUP

        so microsoft should take into account that there are people in countries that can’t afford to pay £30-£50 a time for a game or don’t go running to mommy and daddy if someone else has something better and they want to take care of their games

        what microsoft should do is let people go on and if they receive multiple complaints about one person then they should ban them if only for a week

      • NoCashGMBob

        Quit whining, the world loves you for being so saintly bud, so get off the soapbox.

        I can, so if I choose I will, if you don’t like it, I don’t care.

  • http://www.hardcoreware.net/ Carl Nelson

    Right…

  • http://yahoo.com Bill Compton

    Hi Jim. Photos i received. Thanks

  • w00t w00t

    Best part is after the ban. only a small number of modded consoles were actually banned. if you modded your system before ever connecting to live and then connect after the mod and then do the updates it works fine.

  • dave

    Its not about affording it or not. Your simply an idiot if you choose to spend upwards of $60 for each game when you could simply pay the price of the blank dvd to have it burned. Microsoft will never be ahead of the world of pirating so get used to it.

    • CraigLadd

      i agree mate, no matter how much they try and stop it someone will always find a way to bypass it.. microsoft will never win.. simple as.

      • The Dude

        There Aways a Way I was thinking to my Self that In the First Xbox There Was Some thing On it That Detected the Mods And some one Found A Way to take it of I wonder If Some one esle Could Find it on the 360

  • USMAN

    the microsoft ppl r dicks… even ur 360 console is genuine u get banned coz of there error making softwares of detecting what ever modded 360…

    mine was original but i don’t know how i get banned i purchased from Microsoft outlet but
    they banned me.i got only two original games …

  • http://www.serebii.net erccw3

    Sucka’s thats what they get

  • robbo

    xbox 360 are rubish its ps3 is the best oh ya

  • concerned gamer

    the thing is i got 2 xbox360….. the first one is original while the second is mod…. sometimes when i play my pirated games, i put my HDD from my original 360 onto the mod 360 and play the games to get the acheivements…. so if i go online with my original xbox360 will i get banned??

  • http://asddva@asdfv.com VIOLATOR

    QUOTE:the thing is i got 2 xbox360….. the first one is original while the second is mod…. sometimes when i play my pirated games, i put my HDD from my original 360 onto the mod 360 and play the games to get the acheivements…. so if i go online with my original xbox360 will i get banned??

    NO!

  • VIOLATOR

    You can ONLY get banned for playing backed up copys ONLINE.

    As backing up an original game disc.. is’nt illegal and you can play these offline.

    But playing them online..is a No no to microsoft.

    • Unsure kid!!

      umm i understand you get banned from playing copied games but what if you have a modded system and you buy Halo original and only play that game online can you still get banned!! Because if my xbox is mod but i use an original Halo disk to play online would it work?!!

    • minty

      not really because a fortnight ago a mate of mine was going mental because there were quite a few people with gears of war 2 and call of duty world at war

  • thirdeye

    buying pirated games is like stealing cars. its illegal and its no use tryin to bash MS about it. get a life and buy original.

    • Jake

      How the hell is copying software like stealing cars?? Stupid. All your doing is copying (not stealing) the data. the original disc is intact and fine..unlike a stolen car….get ur shit straight.

      why reinvent the wheel? why give bill gates more money? beat the system, its fucked up anyways.

      • David

        You actually ask how copying data is like stealing cars. Well, if the data isn’t yours, you are taking it without permission. Therefore, it’s still stealing.

        • gregg

          well you paid for the data, at what point does it become yours, never?

        • Mike

          According to the license you agreed to when you bought the game, or any Microsoft software including XP and Vista, never. You are essentially renting the software from them and never “own” it.

        • minty

          yeeah but dave that means we steal every day becuase have you ever asked your mate if you can copy a save of his/hers yeeah?? well thats stealing as well

  • Arcangel

    question…… i have my 360 right beside me…… its not modded….. and i have my friend’s 360 connected to the tv….. his 360 is modded…… but my question is this…… if i buy halo 3 original and play it live on his xbox…. will i get banned?

  • Anwar

    Arcangel.. Microsoft will ban you If you use Pirated Disc… they wont ban you If you use a original one..

    • jack

      my friends has his xbox 360 modded can he play a non burned game on xbox live will he get caught

  • oz

    my original xbox 360 was bought when they first came out..
    and has lasted until about a week ago when it died….so sad..because warranty had run out …
    managed to buy a second had 1 for £75 core no pad or games..
    used my orig hd and was playinging call of duty 4 original i dont support piracy
    and was banned at 00:10 last night..
    borrowed back up of my mate and found console was able to play it….not happy..
    my question is this is my account banned or just the console..ie if i go buy a elite new from shop will i be able to play using my original account..

  • 360

    I feel entitled to get things for free… because I can. Which coincidentally is the same reason they charge $59 for games. Corporations do not make decisions based on morals they make it based on the bottom line. Those who steal are playing the same game. They are no better or worse than a corporation they are the same, but on the opposite side. Those who hold to their morals when dealing with corporations get raped daily. They are the truely honorable ones, but the tone taken towards those who steal should be the same tone taken towards the corporation selling the game. They are playing by the same rules, just opposite sides.

    • RottenJ

      Here,Here…very wise deductions my friend.
      who chooses whom will be the book keeper and the rule makers?
      its a fool who assumes all laws are fair. just look around you
      most fines and tickets are to produce funds NOT to discourage you.many laws reflect the “best interest of the people” as defined by some wealthy guys needs for uniform economic structure,(we stay rich you work to continue making it so)
      morals them self have hidden agendas, some are good while others seem to be there to breed insecurity and indecision
      abouts what is rite and what your told is rite(is: these feelings are wrong im a criminal , a thief) BAH! i say! sheer rubbish! a smart person can easily deduct weather something is immoral. burnties and modding are as immoral as preparing something you bought at the store for dinner
      (the broccolis not to be modified..its immoral to add to it)
      F-off its mine! I do what I want, its not costing any bread from the starving programmers family table(gates dont feel no pain)its like napster, the bands werent loosing as much as the label but no one felt sorry for the label so they made the bands step up and bitch(bands traditionally earn their money from touring)the label collects the vast majority of the album sales(band gets 5-10 % divided by however many players in the band) chicken scratch! but the starving bands are sinking because the HANUS thieves ripping them off(smoke and mirrors)
      sez I M8s
      tripping grannies and kicking dirt in their faces is immoral
      robbing folks outside an atm is immoral but c’mon ! give yer head a shake! i think moddded 360′s werent booted till just before xmas just fill the void(who want to go online and play with 9 other peeps) but with the big xmas bundles theres gonna be need to make room..lets face it the kids are where the money is if they want it they whine for it and get it thell but 360 points and all the other shtuff

    • theGenius

      the commment by 360 was the nail in the coffin…check mate fellas…

    • David

      Ok, how bout you come over and give me your Xbox360 FOR FREE. I feel entitled to get it for free.

      Or how ’bout I just go and steal your money right out of your pocket? I should be entitled to it, right?

      • anyname

        I’ll let you copy my money for free! idiot

  • nath

    hey

    well basically i have been reading through the comments and i am getting a new xbox 360 for christmas however it is chipped what is the diffrence between a modded xbox and a non moded xbox and how can yu tell

    Also what is the best way in not getting your account banned by using a modded or non thanks plz reply

  • Law

    @ 360
    lol – that is possibly the best description I have heard for piracy-do’ers, piracy-dont’ers, and the corporations that feed on the blood of others! :)

    @ Oz
    It’s the console that is banned, if you take your harddisk or memcard out and put it in another console, your account is fine. It’s really so they can block any attempts at gaining unfair advantage on Live with modified settings on game disks that are booted using the modified consoles… thats the official line anyway. Problem is, just like last time, they are accidently blocking some m$ refurb consoles from RMA’s that haven’t been modified, and even some brand new elites… as always, they deny all suggestions that their detection method is a little flawed. Anyway, the account is fine, they still want your subscription money! :)

    @ Thirdeye
    I wouldn’t liken pirating a £40 game to stealing an £8000 car… thats like saying eating a penny sweet in tesco’s without paying is the same as stealing everything in the store!! Same crime… sorta… just on massively different scales! :)

  • SPARKY PHIL

    violator this is not true
    got banned played nfs pro street off line butwhen i connected back online even though disc was not in IE copied one igot banned

  • umfo

    my xbox was not modded. still got banned. will this ban be temporary? can someone please tell me, cheers

  • JustSomeGuy

    My 360 is modded. I havent connected to live in many months. If I connect to live to perform an update to get latest codecs and what not will I get banned? Or is it just for playing online?

  • the one

    if u hav a modded xbox 360 and go online like me all u need 2 do is find a m8 who doesnt go online with his xbox and swap him.. iv done this twice now and iv never had 2 spend any other money on a new 1

  • the one

    Justsomeguy

    you sudnt get banned unless u play a burned xbox game online..and with a flashed 360 i wud w8 until after the update b4 getting it flashed again

  • the one

    umfo – if your xbox360 is banned you will never get unbanned again m8.. thr is only one way of getting a 360 unbanned and that is by changing the serial number. but only a few modders hav tried it so its not enitrly safe atm.

  • tupac

    I have an XBOX 360 Elite. My mate said he can get it chipped for me. I don’t really play online. Im just wondering if i did get it chipped. Could i play my copies off line and play my originals online or would i get barred somehow? And would you say it was worth getting done?

    • Ant

      Hi there , Tupac , My Xbox 360 Is Modded , And I Play Orignal Games Online , And My Copied Games Offline , So It Dosnt Really
      Matter And Im Still Not Banned :D

      • Jamie

        FINALY!!! thats what i was looking for. Thnx mate. im gonna go get ma xbox chipped soon. YAY 4 U!

  • Tickles Mcgee

    So why would microsoft put up a big stink about people wanting to play burned games on live? Aren’t we already getting hosed with a chare for usage every year not to mention the charges for live arcade and other downloadables.. sounds to me like the consumer is the one catching it in the butt on this one… Why shouldn’t we be allowed to do what we want when they are obivously doing what they want and in the end making a profit from it? From what I have gathered Microsoft is still the only platform charging people to game online. Thanks microsoft!

  • james delaney

    Yeah i bought an xbox 360 online but the guy never told me it was modded. I was on live for 6 month then one day i get booted and i cant afford a new console. Is there a way to get back on live with the same console?

    • I$h

      I think you may have to move because sumtimes they bann your IP adress..

  • Apaca

    That’s a good question. I just got banned because I played NFS Pro Street online. I should not have because it is not a good game at all. I regret I have ever played. So, anybody got any idea how to get back on live again without having to buy a new console?

  • Luka

    I got my xbox 360 modded and i was playing call of duty 4 modern warfare today and later on that day i got banned! I was so ashamed that i could not get back online. my mom wants to buy me a new xbox 360 which is really good and i REALLY appreciate it. im now gonna transfer my HDD on my new xbox 360 because they ban u on the console not the hardrive. so i can still play online.
    u transfer your HDD to new xbox 360 and you can play online again with all youre friends and achievements and everything on that hardrive. but its worth it. my suggestion to everyone is to not play online with your back up games or you will definetley get banned dont take any chances. Hope i helped you guys. Cheers!

  • Neo Cloud

    i heard some ppl here in Puerto Rico have acomplisshed to disbann the consoles if i find out sumthing ill post ,
    yours truly
    “Neo

  • scatterbox

    hey,,, i jus got banned last wk,,,, wasnt online 4 bout 2months, tryed 2 connect n wouldn,t….. my console is flashed and im not ashamed 2 say so but ive never played copys online or even while the cable was in,,, only ever original discs!
    Opinion is split weather its discs or firmware microsoft r detecting but i no were my opinion is,,, its the FIRMWARE.

    i totally aggre with 360′s comment btw.

    Also, i dunno how it is for other banned users but microsoft have shot themselves in the foot with this customer cuz i spent about £50-£60 some months on marketplace but ill never b on there again because unless my 360 is fucked beond repair ( have 2 b something worse than the ring of death, cuz that can b fixed ) ill never buy another 360 from them again….. so say id spend £500 a yr on marketplace, thats 500 microsoft r lossin out on 4 every yr my 360 lives, hope ur smilling bill gates lol (n i know u r)

  • maddog

    just because my xbox 360 play chipped games does not make me a cheat if mircosoft dont want people hacking there xboxs drive why is there software on the market that lets u do this on a MS system which ever way u look at it there making money once ive brought my xbox its mine to do wot i want to to it and i no il be flashing it again when the new SW comes out b

  • Adam

    MS is gay i have a modded 360 and i didnt do the update yet but there is a new modchip update so u can still play on live with burned games. Also to ppl saying buy the original games u ppl r dumb u can go spend $60 on a game that cost $5 to make

    • Assassin

      Hey where do you get that chip. Want to play live and still play copy games :P

  • M$cuicides

    it’s simply: microsoft wants your money, and only this, and they dont’t care for you.
    First of all, they charge you to play online for a game that you all ready bought!If this is not stealing, i dont know what is.
    Second, if you buy a game and the company that developped it wants to give you freely a new map, THEY CANNOT,it’s forbidden, M$ charges for the maps/updates.
    3rd, If your live subscription ends, they charge you every month for a new monthly subscription WITHOUT asking you!!!!!!I saw my credit card bill when i was for 3 months in the army when i came back and M$ charged me whitout having my console turned on!
    4h the moment that ps3 gave Divx support , my xbox360 did it also, with an update for media player that i downloaded.So it was not a problem all this time with linceses that they where telling but simply M$ DONT WANTED to give support to his paying customers.
    5th, when my internet connection was down, my wireless card broked down and i was sended it to service all my Arcade games THAT I PAYED turned imiidietly into trials!!!!!M$ by the phone said that i can pley them only when i am online …. :O
    This was the last drop !
    When i complained to customer care about all this you know what was the response?”ok,ok but you shouln’t be UNGREITFULL, Xbox live is not supported in your country so M$ let’s you play and you should complain, M$ considers ban all the consols from live except UK in Europe” … :O … I asked the gametags also?and they said NO, only consoles, simply becouse from gametags they get my money!!!!!!!
    I have no backup games and i am not banned, but i will not tolerate M$ to deal me like a pocket, i am a paying customer and i have rights, i am so angry that yesterday i trowed in the GARBAGE my XBOX 360 the hell with the money, i am 38 yrs old and i dont care, i get my own money, i went stright and i bought a PS3 simply becouse the on line multiplaying is FREE,and i pay 60€ for a game that is written in Blue Ray that cost 20€ empty not a DVD-DL for 1,5 €.
    So f..k of M$. Long live PS3 for now on!!!My money to japan!
    Sorry about my language but i am soooo angry right now … :(

  • Jack

    Well ppl I’m all for chipping. I just go a X box and I’ll never fucking play Live it is a fuking rip. Ps3 gives it 2 u for free. I’m going to buy 1 next year so for then next 6 months I’m going 2 use my x box.

  • Apaca

    I’m also considering buying a PS3 although I’ve never thought I would ever do that. Ps network is free of charge, BR player, internet browser… That’s right. I don’t like to be charged over and over again for the same thing. Just to clarify I’ve got a lot of original games but the back up ones are the ones I don’t play too often. In other word the budget quality.

  • who cares

    I just renewed my live account 2 weeks ago and 1 week ago i was banned for modded xbox. :-( First reaction was i should just buy another but the more i think about it i think i will just go for the ps3 and the kids can keep the modded one offline. MS are definitely ripping us off and if they priced games reasonably i would not need to have a modded box. It just doesnt sink in though does it? 40 pounds for 1 game is just ridiculous. Unfortunately i dont have the pleasure of having more money than sense like Bill!

  • Podo

    I have a somewhat unique problem……. I am in China and I will be for 6 months. I want to buy games, but authentic games are simply not available here. I have been all over the city of Tianjin (7 Million People) trying to find authentic games. All I can find are pirated ones…. Less than $1.00 each. I only want to play the pirated games while I am here and only because that is all that is available. Is there a way to “mod” my xbox so that I can play these games and then change back when I come back home to the US so I do not get banned on xBox live? The only game I REALLY play is Halo 3 online, but it is very important to me to be able to play it online…. Any answers are appreciated.

  • simon

    try buying a genuine xbox 360 in china and see how difficult it is. even official shops sell them all modded, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

    their whole economy is “piracy is better logic!”

    so fuk microsoft, im stuck

    • minty

      like you said official shops sell them modded

      so what do microsoft do??

      are they racial discriminating against asian people??

      because they are if they have banned all the people who use a modded 360 in china???

      its like that shit if B.G (bill gates) put all his wealth on his bed, lay on it then fell off (ok, we would fucking piss ourselves laughing), it would take him 8 minutes to hit the ground.

      THAT FUCKING SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF MONEY HE HAS GOT

      BASICALLY, STOP CHARGING PEOPLE TO GET ABUSED BY STUPID, LTTLE, FAT 9 YEAR OLD AMERICAN KIDS WHO THINK THEY OWN THE WORLD, BECAUSE THEY WILL GET A SHOCK OF THEIR LIVES WHEN THEY REALISE BRITAIN (Whoo!!) IS BETTER THAN THEM COMPLETELY WHOS GOT THE BEST ARMY IN THE WORLD??(BRITAIN) WHOS GOT THE BIGGEST ARMY BUDGET IN THE WORLD??(BRITAIN)

  • Whatever

    I love when people start with the crap they charged me $50 for a $5 game … get a clue you idiots it costs 100,000′s of thousands even millions to make some titles then you have the ones that cost less using the game engines that all ready are developed but there is no game in the world that cost them 5$ to make … MS and SONY take a loss on the hardware for a good time before they ever make a profit and when they do it is on titles that sell over 250,000 copies or whatever so when you grow up and get a job, and your boss say’s hey asshole work for free we will see you change your tune.

  • wassup

    my account just got hacked i called microsoft and they are closing everything and they are going to find who did it

  • charles

    i got my 360 modded. if i use my MODDED CONSOLE with ORIGINAL GAMES in xbox live, will i get banned?

  • me

    yes, even if you have not played a single game on line !!!

  • http://lafiebre.ws CRO

    holy shit! my xbox has the 3 red lights and its banned

  • psycho

    I just got my xbox drive flashed. Is it same as modding? The guy said its fine to play online as he does it as well. I hv 2 360s so i can afford not to go online this one and use the other to go online with original games. But still if i’m playing the flashed one with original game like COD4 will it get banned?

  • tupac

    Simple. You get your 360 modden/ flashed and play games online there is a chance that you will get thrown off and theres a chance that you will not get caught? Its the chance you take and for me it is not worth taking that chance. You are more likely to be caught playing games that are not out over here yet and are out in America but you still get caught playing games such as COD4 and Halo.

  • chad

    does anybody know where i can get my xbox 360 chipped around the manchester area. ive bin lookin round internet for days and cant find anythin plz help

  • ed

    If I just flashed my 360 so I could play copied games offline, can I still get caught and banned? Thanks.

  • bone

    Can i play burned coppies of xbox 360 games on a xbox 360 consle that isnt modded?
    can i mod my consle so that it will play burned coppies without taking it apart?
    thanks.

  • XboxModified

    Look, if you got banned for playing your xbox360 rips online you didn’t rip and burn them the right way. They detect the games DVD security layer. If all the security layer isn’t present they BAN your console. Thats why non modified consoles can also get banned by accident also. ( a bad burn, yes microsoft makes mistakes, like the halo 3 messed up discs ) If you make sure all the following info is present in the security layer, you will not get banned when you play online. They are PFI, DMI, SS bin, files. Also, microsoft can not scan your hardware every time you play a game. Thats illegal for them to do in the USA. Its called Intrusion of privacy. Ever had a PSP. If you did. You did have to update it to play that new game right. Well, you were asked if you wanted to update it or not. Sony didn’t do automatic. They had to ask you to wave your right. <–( Basically ) Thats because they changed your PSPs firmware. Oh, did I say firmware. Optical disc firmware or PSP firmware, firmware is firmware. I could kepp going on and on, but you get the point Right.

  • Hmmm Mod or No

    Well all I can say is if your gonna flash or mod your xbox 360 in anyway then bitch about it because it got banned then do bloody well do it lol

    If you did get banned just go out buy a new console from Walmart or another store simply swap the insides then you have a new xbox 360 console in your old case. I know people are gonna ask ” What about the warranty sticker” this sticker is so so easy to take off and put back on you just got to be a little careful with a hairdryer and blow the heat on it use a thin blade and slowly glide it under the sticker EASY!

    Leaving this comment for the ones who bought second hand consoles from ebay or wherever not knowing it was modded and got banned.

    Read the post above mine too this guy is spot on!

  • mike

    Is there a program to let ms think you have a original disc??!!
    PLS comment

  • xeroer

    @mike; No program for it. The latest firmware and disc burning procedures do this for you. If Microsoft can still detect them being copies is debatable and probably not worth the risk for you.

    I like how this article’s comments turned into a modding FAQ.

  • Sarang

    urgent help required…
    i m gonna buy a 360 elite…. nd not going 2 connect 2 live…
    no going online…
    i m thinking 2 chip it.. is der ne danger in using copied discs?
    nd will dis affect d ring of death? im new 2 xbox..
    plz. help,,..

  • Sarang

    Im gonna buy a new 360 elite…
    im thinking to chip,modd. it…
    i wud nt be connecting xbox with live…i.e. no going online….
    so is der ne danger 4 me if i used pirated discs?
    and wen does d ring of death glows? will my xbox be affected by it?

    plz. help…
    answers r appreciated…lol…

  • darren

    i have a 360 and its chipped!!
    if i go on live, playing copied games, will i get banned? can i use my 360 offline once i get banned??

    Pls answer me!

    • blobla

      yes, it would be physically impossible for them to block offline use
      but u r retarted for doing it to begin with because my friend realized that copied games cost you more after buying all the blank cds and countless tests to get them running

      • AROAH

        As long as you’re not a complete idiot, it’s cheaper because you don’t have to pay for a bunch of discs and don’t do countless tests.

  • Drayk

    Hi,
    Iam from Pakistan and here i cant find original 360 games anywhere and modified 360′s are in abundance. I have recently bought my first 360, and the shop keeper called Xbox 360 Go-Pro, claiming it has a Falcon board and whatnot which will prevent red lights. My question is can i play on xbox-live with that? if not can i atleast spend my achievements on downloads atleast on a modified system? Thanks

    • RehanB

      from where u bought xbox is it still working??? me from pak tooo i wanna buy xbox 360 too.

  • Opus

    I say all hail those who pirate X-Box 360. First, Microsoft sold defective hardware to many purchasers of the X-Box 360. If you were unfortunate enough to have your un-modded system fry on you prior to MS admitting to their habit of selling betas under the guise of being production quality, (and standard Microsoft protocols for selling OS’s do not apply to $500 hardware), only to have to decide between losing hundreds of dollars on unusable games and accessories or spend another load on a replacement system, as both myself and a firend had to do, you will not shed one tear for MS.

    Second, MS’s attitude of “tough luck” sorry you decided to replace your system before we opted to fix the problems and replace systems… ha ha just screwed you out of $500, deserves the mod community.

    Third, $60 per a game is overcharging to say the least. Like the music industy, the gaming industry is trying to recoup for bad descisions by factoring in those losses in price hoping one victory pays for their thousands of crap games. Only the entertainment industry ever thought this business model worked. [We will not even get into the mess that in the licensing system and how these titles come to release] Rip off artists desrve pirates just has the spaniards deserved them when they looted the americas.

    Fourth, HD-DVD…. how dare they pull this scam again, its as bad as forcing people to 720/1080 TV knowing that the next generation HD standard is no more than 5 years away.

    For all of its hemming and hawing, piracy has not been proven to kill these systems, only obselecence and selling crap has. But in spite of their past, people still spend their money with MS, millions will never mod, just as millions will pay to be forced onto Vista and use MS Office and Outlook. So, I say modders .. please mod away, hell I own quite a bit of MS stock, the company is doing just fine, I am not worried about your chips or firmwares, heck I might just mod myself, there are alot of games I might want to play once or twice jsut to confirm they are crap without the $60 price tag.

  • Steve Re

    Hi,

    ive jus bourght a 3 mounth gold membership for xbox live and after 3 minutes of playin on call of duty 4 i got banned and i am absolutly deverstated about it and want to find out if i can get it back. if its my xbox that is banned and not my account even though my account has diserpeared :’( could i take out the hard drive were my account was saved onto and place it onto another xbox an origanal one because my xbox was chipped ( i got it for free of a friend ) would i be able to play online on my account ?? any help on getting my account back please ??

    thanks

    • tupac

      Your X-box is banned not your account. You will be able to access your account from another xbox.

  • karl!

    Hold up. Just to clearly check I have a modded xbox 360, I go and BUY call of duty 4, Will I get banned even though game is original? Any advice?

  • tupac

    You can’t say no, because i know people who it has happened to, theres always that slight chance. Read some of the comments i think people have been on here.

  • Xcent

    y dont u just use the console the way it was meant to be used???

  • I$h

    The console was made to have fun not to waste money on buying games that could just be downloaded and played via a flashed hard drive, plus i plan on flashing mine but not until my xbox live almost expires, so if i play originals on a flashed hdd will it get detected or does that only apply if i play burned games on there like a dumbass>????

  • Karl again

    Just a thought, Imagine this entire site/blog was completely made up by microsoft for making people think twice about modding? Maybe half the comments of people who got banned are just people from MS. Think about it. :D

    • sneeky ms

      danm, “bill there on to us now what do i do” “just give em the blue screen”

  • swws_2007

    As long as backups are stealth patched then it should be ok to play backups via live.

    If not, so what, I buy another xbox manufactured from time period August 2007 to March 2008 (so more likely revised chipset with HDMI and still BENQ Drive) for around £80.00 off ebay without accessories, get it modded for another £20.00 and then start again. £100.00 would get me 3 (maybe 4) games at the most.

    Then I would just have to be more careful to check the games are patched this time, besides anyway I think the latest mod software wont allow anything other …

    If I pay for something I can get for free I must have a four letter swear word which women hate tattoed on my forehead.

    It makes sense people.

  • 360stealth informer

    RIGHT!!!!!!!
    to all those dodgey 360 gamers, especially the noooobs!!!!!
    IF ur banned…..
    easy way 2 find out what type of ban u have ie:- console or account, its simple… create a new silver account , if it lets u sign in then its ur account, if it does not then its yep uve got it………………………………………..
    tips to keep ya alive….THEN the sort of good news…. just have to b patient…u will c y…..when i’ll tell ya in a min..

    tips……….
    if you hav a flashed drive then i hope to god u no which firmware u are using….and a back up of the original firmware. if u got some 1 to do it 4 u then ask them…. i will go by the most popular people have, this is a drive flash mod not a mod chip, say u got it modded last year and have the 1.4 extreme then i’m quite supprised ur on live, u need not only the 1.4i extreme… that has the stealth add on, u will also need a stealth checker to check round shiney things have the stealth patch on it….
    any mod chips owners….. u will have to go by the make of chip as u should know this and every mod chip maker has a website with latest info for it, i’ll b quite happy to give out info to sites of interest.. not the one i’m on (dont even ask)respect!!!!)
    things to remember…………………………
    right… lets say u’ve got stealth 1.4i extreme sorted, a new backup wiv stealth patch………. go live till a day b4 the new dashboard… but remember u may have the 1.4i on ya box but ur older backups will not have the patch in it.. u will get caught sooner or later, this is how they FIND U OUT… u can play backups online/or off with stealth… till dashboard change.. non stealth backups…..ONLY offline…
    u can still play originals online…..
    when u r online what they do is check the dvd to c if its the real deal, the letter (i) in 1.4i is the addon which works wiv the stealth patch on ya shiney round thing sending a nice message to “b1ll gits saying fuck off i’m the real deal” ha ha..hopefully u have got it & know what u can & can’t do!!!!
    when leaving me a comment, it may take a little time as i have hundreds of sites to visit, my favorites is packed so be patient, ask anything on the above but dont ask 4 more info on what i’m about to say because u wont get an answer… thanks would b welcome as i will only update forums with respect 4 what we do and why we do it……………………..

    Down to the good stuff…
    as we all know that a certain dashboard update is gonna happen in november, we advise any modded boxes to stay offline or go on at own risk……..
    there will be some online…….. testing e.t.c
    the process………..
    remember the original xbox??? 1st the mod chip then the soft mod……. thats what we are hoping for, yep the soft mod….
    the reason y the 360 hasn’t been soft modded…. because the mod was the dashboard but it was stored on the hard drive on the original xbox so soft modding was easiley done installing via memory card…………………………
    now if u have been nosey and had a look in ur 360, if u look towards the back just a little to the left on the main board is a square chip with 360 on it and 1 of the corners has a gold mark ……….. thats where the dashboard is, not the hard drive damn…… but we knew when our m8 b1ll was gonna bring a new 1 he was gonna make it harder 4 us to crack, but this new dash will bring a whole new opening,
    lets say its the big day………………
    downloading update, the box uses what b1ll calls a xex file which does the same as a exe file on a pc, is unpacks software and installs/runs….
    now as the software is on the chip.. depending on the file of the new dash it might b installed on the hard drive which will have to run with the chip… c what i’m gettin at… yep there would b a cracked version, soft modded, now ur gonna say “but what if the file is smaller enough to be in the chip” damn!!! not….. this 1 should b better 4 us in long term because when upgrade is being ripped….. oops i meen updating it will tell us how 2 not only to do a better version of upgrade it will also show us to change a few numbers so if u get banned ur not really, only 4 a little while, so as u’ve guessed i hope, its a downside 4 modders when it comes next month but the brains on our side cant wait 4 the challenge… u know who u are.. hint(xbox1) B1ll luvs u really, i’ll keep an eye on ya while i’m havin my 100th coffee and a long j.. been up 4 nearley 3 days….we do work hard so be patient and be cool!!!!!!!!!!

  • critic

    this happens cuz games are way too expensive, AND people dont wanna get their disks scratched. now any1 saying that dvd’s scratch of bad use is talking crap. dvd’s are pieces of shit. why is it that i have games on cd for the pc that are over 10 years old and which i’ve played for yeaaaarrrssss, are scratched like hell, but still work?? seems to me that dvd’s were rushed into the market without ever been tested for durability. what baffles me is why do i have to pay 60 euro’s (around 100 USD) for a piece of shit (dvd), while back in the time when cd games were the standard, they werent more than 30 euro. seriously dvd’s are an embarrassment.

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  • James Norman

    Microsoft Rules!!!!!!

    • minty

      mate microsoft sucks donkey balls

  • Tod

    Maybe when the economy gets better I’ll start paying for games! lol

  • dino

    wow all these thieves making excuses.. if I went out to the streets and sold some chocolate candies for $50 each, would you call me a rip off and just walk away or steal my chocolate candies? stealing is stealing you got absolutely no excuse for it. It’s funny how so many of you try to justify it by making all these excuses. “they charge too much for it so therefore I’m going to steal them!..just cause I can”.

    • John Doe

      i dont make excuses…….fuck paying 60 dollars (US) for a game i can get for free… stop being a retard and save money. I have many other things i can do with that money while i enjoy playing free games. So ill just stick to having my cake and eating it too!

  • Commander

    Guys i bought my 360 flashed 1 year before(i duno what is my flashed firmware version !!)..it is never connected to Live, I want to connect to live now and play back-up games which is Stealth patches and fully loaded with secuirity stuff !!
    Will i get banned…since my flashed 360 is 1 year old ?!?

    plz help,thanks

  • Robert

    It doesn’t matter if you play genuine or burned games, Microsoft find flashed/hacked consoles not the games.

  • 360 Player

    “It doesn’t matter if you play genuine or burned games, Microsoft find flashed/hacked consoles not the games.”

    That is absolutely boll@cks. My 360 hacked over 18 months ago plays fine om live

    • emesh

      What version of the firmware hack do you have then? I’m just looking to buy a new console, hacked.

  • bobby

    i have 2 360s 1 is modded the other isnt,was wondering would it detect a modded 360 if you have your ethernet cable plugged in,coz on dead space it searches for downloadable content.

  • John Doe

    Free games and still have money to save to do something else or go to store and waste money for a game u might not like even though demo made it seem great?…..hmmmmm hard question….. UGH FREE GAMES!!! You have to be a fukin moron not to realize how much money these developers make.. they can sell these games for a quarter of wut they go for in stores and still make a killing. I dont wanna hear ur stealing or any of that bullsht cuz most people who say that still download music or even porn for free everyday…So stfu ,ill enjoy all my free games while u morons waste time and money going to the store.

    By the way i have 2 xbox’s. One is for online play with the legit games i have and one is for all the free games. Since i have no way around getting banned if going online i just play all free games on 1 xbox and if i wanna go online with the game that bad i just go buy it. But most likely most games r better offline neways…

    Modded xbox is definitely the way to go….( i have 45 burnt games and at 60 bucks a pop here in the US it $2,700) No thanx ill go party with that extra cash..

    • Brad

      Wow, doubt you’d be partying yes?

      Developers are probably getting heaps of money, BUT WHO GIVES A FUCK! IT MAKES IT HARDER FOR 13 YEAR OLDS TO GET HOLD OF THEM AND WRECK YOUR FUN BY SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF THEIR HIGH-PITCHED VOICES!

  • a bag of purp

    hey im “a bag of purp” my xbox gamer tag and i hav not been banned and i play modded games all day and im nerver going 2 get banned just showing off bcuz u guys are to dumb 2 mod an xbox hahaahahhahahahhahahha

  • zakspeed

    So sad there are so many poor people out there. NOT. get a damn job or 2 and buy your games.

  • Tomwantsrez

    “MS is gay i have a modded 360 and i didnt do the update yet but there is a new modchip update so u can still play on live with burned games. Also to ppl saying buy the original games u ppl r dumb u can go spend $60 on a game that cost $5 to make”

    yes. and what about the cost of DEVELOPING THE GAME!!!!!!!!!! thats where the money is gone the profit from disk sales goes to cover the cost of the 10 months they spent making the game!

  • the g man

    Firstly i do not have a modded x box nor am i getting one, i do not play back up games and agree that backing up your games is fine, but the problem is that a lot of people don’t back up there games, the buy illegal copies.

    just to let you know halo 3 cos 7.4 million to make, advertise and distribute..

    with in the first week the sales hit over 300 million dollars,

    these games could be sold at 20 dollars each and the company would have still made some fat games development company owner and the share holders very very very rich indeed…

    at $20.00 each the company would have made 46 million dollars, thats still alot of profit..

    the way forward is for microsoft and xbox live to dump the subscription to the live service and just run off the content within the live dashboard, movies, ms points etc etc etc

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  • nando

    Look, I just bought myself a new Xbox 360 Elite system, the 120 gig hard drive and all, and i want to mod it. What do you suggest would be the best modding method? Flashed? chipped? etc. Also, I want to mod it to get the games, play the story, if a couple friends come over, play multiplayer (not online), but I want to get an xbox live account to access the marketplace, netflix, etc. Would my xbox get banned? I’m pretty tech-savy, so most things you say i can understand. ;) thanks for the help.

  • i has buket

    what if i made a copy of a singleplayer game like fallout 3 would i still be able to play on xbox live and party chat with friends?

  • ApacaHun

    Hi Guys, I just sold my modded x360 and bought a ps3. It!s a lot better belive me! Forget about MS for good!

  • http://www.google.com SpongeBob

    I flashed my 360 a while back and then went online and recieved the newest update. It never detected the mod, now i never buy original games no more i play online and offline. Microsoft should be wearing striped jumpers with masks on for the prices they charge for games and there live subscription the robbing bastards. Con them for every penny they have conned you out of!!!

    • ragel

      haha hell yeah…same here.

  • understand

    Here is the bottom line, if you can get away with it who give a s**t about the morality. It’s just a constant game of cat and mouse between us, the “bad guy”, a quote made by those who think paying for it actually changes something, and the HUGE SOFTWARE COMPANIES. The companies have accumulated vast amounts of currency to battle us by RAPING you idiots. The point is, if you pay for a game, have fun, we’ll a better way to entertain ourselves and screw them.

  • minchn son

    I reckon u r a retard for not buying a chip if u live in australia, it is $120 to buy a brand new game if u get your xbox chipped it will save u so much money if u have a guy who does it for u then u can get it chipped for $100, unless he is trying to rip u of then just bargain, and at least he isnt trying to rip u of as much as these componeys, and then a chip is cheaper then a game and then u can go and get games from overseas and u can also buy games of him like thee newest games out for only $20 and my guy does a deal 6 of any games i want for $100, u r stupid not to do it (ps just to brief u, 1 aus dollar is 63 us cents

  • COTW

    the MS detect if your 360′s chip is modded(anything including the DIY cooling system). once you are banned the MS will close your 360′s ID and you cannot use LIVE.

    PS, only modded system can run a pirate disk.

  • bob

    hi, if u get banned online with ur modded 360, can u still play burnt games offline? just a question :D

    • Dean

      yeah you can still play them offline. this ban onlystops you from connecting to xboxlive, not turning it on to use it lol

  • tyrone

    hey i’ve got my system banned from live. i have a arcade one and i was wondering if i can but my hdd from the banned one and be able to get online with the arcade one….thanks.

  • http://www.firetext.tv text-to-tv

    I want to mod my xbox360 but I’m just so afraid of being banned from the xboxlive, I wonder if there’s still some sort of stealth or blocker to prevent me from being caught

  • Nate

    I have a Modded Xbox, I Just play my burned games offline and my Bought games online… I buy the games I want to play online and the games I want to try offline (Burned)… I have not been banned for playing online with a Modded system and have not had any problems… Is this just luck or?

  • AMURILLO

    Hi all just to clear a few things up, first thing is when you have your xbox 360 modded every time you turn your xbox 360 on and it being connected to the internet it sends a signal from your xbox 360 to ms and after a while (took them about 1 year to clock on to me) they will ban you,it is just a matter of time,it could be a very long time or very quick so its down to luck,so the best thing to do is dont connect your xbox 360 to the internet and only connect it to get the updates of games then disconnect it,secondly like i said above ms scans your xbox 360`s console serial on the there so when you mod it that number changes and ms know the its been modded and thats why you get banned so it has nothing to do with if you play a copied game or an original game,so once you are banned that console that is banned you cant go back online with it and the only way around it is to buy a new xbox 360 console but the good news is you can still use your gamer tag with all your points on as it doesnt ban them

  • Coors

    Haha this makes funny reading. Who the hell chips their xbox nowdays? I’d have to say thats the dumbest way to do it. The majoriy of piracy on the xbox is through the flashing of the dvd drive with ixtreme. This has been pretty much undetectable for at least the last two versions and is getting more secure with each release.

    Seriously people that think ‘chipping’ consoles are the norm are mistaken, and people that think microsoft are on top of piracy are even more mistaken.

  • Undefined Gangsta

    Ok Dudes, to clear things up for noobs YOU CAN’T PLAY BURNT GAMES ON YOUR UNMODDED CONSOLES DAMN IT! ITS UNHUMAN! Anyways flashing xbox 360 with various stealth options and steal patching your files BEFORE BURNING will reduce the chance. ;) Have fun yah cheap bastards

  • ryan

    if u want your xbox 360 chipped go bowlers in machester it has wii chipped ds lots!!! go there

  • CZAR

    im just thinkin out loud, if i were to buy original games and only original with each costing about 60 (US) by the time i bought ten games more or less i could have easily own another xbox console.. but its really up to u, if u wanna make the games developer rich coz ure rich aswell go on ahead and be my guest fellas but some of us cant afford to waste that amount of money for things that they already know is cheap in the first place.
    Mainly young gamers such as teens will suffer much more unless their parents are rich..LOL.. Not to mention that they ripped ppl off with the online stuff like subscriptions, update and etc..

  • mike

    by time they catch me i’ll have more than my moneys worth of games.

  • tom999

    i have a moded xbox for 1 year

    and for the people who asks about banned xbox or things like this look and read carefuly

    when u run any original or copied CD they asks u to update if ur xbox is linked to the internet

    so if u have copy CD’s “dont update” ……why ?
    -original CD’s have the ability to save some files that the copy cd’s cant do it and if u put copy cd
    into ur xbox like 100 times this means u will update ur game 100 times and thats why u get banned.
    In original cd’s if u update 1 time this will update ur game 1 time and ur xbox will not ask u to update again because ur cd’s has save the files that you download it.

    after all this foooor all people who ask dooont connect to internet with copy cd’s :) and u can play savely

    • matt

      U R wrong….nothing can be saved onto the disc…u r an idiot

  • daniel

    so you will get caught if u use copied games (burned games)?

  • Antony Murillo

    Just a thing to put tom999 into place,it doesnt matter if you play a copied game offline itll still leave the protection on the SVRAM on your xbox,so when ms start the banning wave,it scans the consoles SVRAM and thats where it bans you,so the way to get around of ms from banning you is to keep your firmware upto date with the latest firmware,also youll need the right programs to copy original games,also if you download an xbox game use a program called ABGX 1.01,what that program does is it downloads the file needed from there website so the game is stealthed,the in conjunction with using the latest firmware should keep you xbox safe for going online,
    i know this works as ive had mine now for over 5 months and got over 100 games with alot of those games been updated online and now im still able to go online,
    also if interested i have link for all the things you need to be able to copy and play games online the safe way

    http://rapidshare.com/files/259588178/_APP____Xbox_360_Flash_Programs.7z

    • Alex

      What happens when i sign into xbox live with my chipped xbox 360 and play a ORIGINAL GAME? Would i still get banned from xbox live?

      • Jericho

        Yep. It isn’t the games that are the issue, it’s the console. The system doesn’t detect what kind of game you’re playing, it detects changes to your hardware.

        Also, you didn’t capitalize “I” and it should be “an original”.

  • paolo

    what is the new chip called that u can play a chipped xboxonline

  • Stewart

    maybe but i got 1 but i couldn’t connect even with the internet and that on i rekon it should connect and play burn dvd/games i meen we payed for it its bullshit PLAZ WHY DOSENT IT WORK

  • RYAN

    Could u just play with no internet connected, they couldnt can it then could They??

  • BRAD

    ya but wut if u only play a real games online and just sign out of live to play the burnt games

  • FLAMINGFLAMINGO

    U cant get banned for adding light and liquid cooling your 360 u can how ever get banned for flashing your 360 and using pirated games !

  • Shangri La 801

    i have had a modded xbox for ever i got my xbox modded the 1st day i got my xbox and i have had my xbox since they came out pretty much and today i was playin Gears2 and i went to go the store and got my H1N1 shot and i get home ready to play Gears2 and i get that message sayin my xbox has been banned. i think its bs i have over 70 games and shit i think they shouldnt care couse the stores by my house sell the parts to mod ur xbox 360, they sell the tools and shiit and they sell the computer program to get burned games so im done with microsofts bullshit about were the best but we have so many errors.

  • Twiddler

    Wow… a lot of bad information. (usually full of typos and poor english)

    The truth is that there is no truly “stealth” firmware. There is no requirement to buy a chip, all you have to do is flash the firmware on your DVDrom in your 360. Anyone who has a flashed 360 drive runs the risk of being detected by Microsoft. That is the risk that you run by flashing your drive.

    They never ban 100% of the known cracked systems because they like the recurring revenue from Xbox live subscriptions and they carefully only ban enough to “put the fear of God” into people and give people who don’t have all of the facts second thoughts. The truth is that it doesn’t take many backups to equal the cost of a console. Do the math and determine for yourself if it’s worth it to you.

    …and for God’s sake, do a little research on reputable sites that have knowledgeable people who can put together a complete sentence!

  • Twiddler

    Oh, and “Shangri La 801″, you just got caught in the latest banning wave that hit yesterday (just in time for Mommy and Daddy to buy little brat a new console for Christmas). The last one was last year at the same time.

    It’s all a game with massive profit for Microsoft.

    Pay Microsoft now, or pay Microsoft later!

    • Shangri La 801

      hey Twiddler, wait ur comment on mommy and daddy to buy a new console. ok dont make me laugh. i dont even live with them at all havent seen my dad in years, and my mom dies when i was 14. i lived with my uncle till i got a job at 16. then i finished high school when i was 18 and i have lived on my own for 2 years now. and i buy all my shit. pay for my house, car, phone, college. unlike ur sorry ass probably still live at home. but thanks for guessing i still live with them.

      • cha

        Too bad you were never taught English in college.

  • James

    I agree wholeheartedly with Twiddler, from what I’ve read 90% of these comments are “4 fuks sake y cnt i get free gmaes nemor! FUK MICROGAY!” or something along those lines. Listen up kids and listen good. If you want free games with no repercussions get a PC and stop complaining that your Xbox games are too expensive. And on the subject of modded systems with cheats, those who do it CLEARLY aren’t able to put in the effort to actually win a game legit so I’m pretty glad Microsoft are banning you guys, although a lifetime console ban is a bit much. Six months perhaps.

  • shitting bricks

    I have my xbox360 3 years , the warrenty run out and the xbox was broke , i was able to get it fixed and flashed for £50 , microsoft wanted £76 just to repair it , so after dodging getting my xbox flashed for 3 years i finally gave in and got it done , that was about 3 months ago , last nite my mate just got banned , we both got our xboxs done at the same time , but after going to his house to see if there was anything i could do i realised , he has an internal mermory unit , meaning even if he dont have his hard drive connected , his gamer profiles still show up , so im thinking his xbox (being almost brand new ) with this mu is in some way using the mu to register the xbox as chipped (my xbox is still working ) even tho we play the same games at the same time , i have updated many games and went online without any problems (altho i take a deep breath each time ) so what im suggesting is that older xboxs while not having the internal mermory unit should be fine , if xbox really wanted to ban every xbox all they would have to do is check your acheivements , my gamer profile score shows the dates of when i got each achievment and i know i got some before the games were released , like fifa 10 , i play all my games offline until the release dates then go online as normal and i know people who have chipped xboxes upto 3 years and still dont have any trouble going online aslong as they stick to that rule (DONT GO ONLINE WITH YOUR GAME UNTIL ITS RELEASED)..

    I have one question myself tho
    if banned , your consold wont work again , but will your gamer profile still work ? ie can you recover it too another xbox and still play ?

    i have a 40k gamerscore i wouldnt want to lose and thats my only fear :S

    • tman

      No mate.You keep your gamng profile. You just have to swap the hard drive over. I was stupid enough to put MW2 copy in my sons 360 just to see if it worked. Didnt start the game and then got banned as it showed up on games being played. Luckily I have another box not used for live which I changed over and he is back on live with the same achievements. I quickly deleted his history as soon as connected and all seems ok for now.

      its the risk we all take. I will buy MW2 as it will be well worth the money and looks like a load of $ went into making it.

  • G

    So do i have to get a new console, and a new live account????

  • ron

    James,
    Not all Modders are Haxorz. I have a gaming rig i built myself that will play any new game with highest settings. I would prefer to play all games on my pc, but I have friends that play xbox live all the time, and we game together. I buy all my PC games. I used to buy all my xbox games. But I got tired of spending 50 dollars for each version, and 60 dollars a year for xbox live for the minimal amount of time spent on live and or the xbox. While I agree that people should pay for games, I think manufacturers should pay attention to the fact that lots of gamers play on separate platforms and offer a “multi-platform” pack at a discounted rate. I’d be willing to even pay 150% of a game for that benefit. There has to be a way to please the consumer that feels they are getting raked over the coals, and the developers that deserve to get payed for their hard work on making amazing games! **Infinity Ward Rocks**
    I guess it might sound stupid to someone who doesn’t multiplatform, but makes sense to me!
    Also PS3 network is free. I buy all my ps3 games! if LIVE was free I probably would do the same for xbox. I’m sick of companies like MS making money in the front and the back.. for an inferior product at that! XBOX graphics suck! but for those that can’t afford a PC it is a good alternative. enough rambling. Just sick of all the modder haters that think a modded xbox = haxors. Good night. Off to play MW2.. LoL

  • cigf

    okay guys listen every1 is starting to get banned i know 4 of my mates have got banned i nt know wtf they have done but microshit are figureing how to crack this

  • Tupac

    Gents, this has already been stressed. MS are this week in the process of banning everyone who has flashed boxes. I was unfortunate and have eventually been caught with at least 10 of my mates. Take care!!

  • MikoToko

    To burn games you re-flash the drive to read from the beginning of the disc, where as normally the xbox will start in the midle for games etc. When you do this you can burn games.

    Its still ridiculous that they are banning all software moddifications. A lot of people didn’t have pirating software loaded onto the xbox, some people have even loaded Linux onto the xbox and they were banned too.

    Its just any software change detected on the xbox will get you banned, regardless of what change it was. It definetly was not just hackers pirating games.

  • Flash

    I just got ban =/ , can i still use my account in another console???

    • G

      That is what i want to know as well. But might just Get a Ps3 as this is obviously what Xbox wants everyone to do. They are a joke and in this economically poor time in my life their is no way I’m going to get dicked around by MS any more. LOL. There are still so many ways to screw Microsoft in the a$$ so keep working MS, you will never exceed the brain wave of passion that us hackers can achieve.

    • KabeI (from xbox live)

      not on that 360 if you unlock any achivments and then try to play on a new 360 it will say profile corrupt

      • G

        elaborate for me please… I just dont want to be banned AGAIN after i just paid another 300 for an Xbox… Im not going to switch hard drives or anything not even close… i just want to use my xbox live name on my new console… and i dont want to get banned again

        • Flash

          Yes, you can use your account, they ban your console not your live account, already confirmed by official means. Keep in mind that all the achivments that you do after your console got ban dont gonna be updated and gonna be lost, but all the achivments that you already have been done before the console banning are safe and good to go.

  • KabeI (from xbox live)

    When you get ur console banned like many of us you sould stop playing on it because when you go to put ur hard drive on a new one ur account wont be on the hard drive and when u go check ur memory it says “profile courrpt” so any achivement you unlocked you will have to work for again the only way to get ur account from being courrpted you delete just the account and not the iteams then you recover it with the new 360 but if you put ur old hard drive back on the old 360 it will say profile corrupt again just me but i suggest just getting a Ps3 thats what i did 2/5 of my modded 360 got banned so im just gonna not play backups or my 360s period im still rich and i can still buy a Legit copy of a game but for all you people who dont want to wait i allso strongly suggest you dont back up games and just wait till the new firmware to come out

  • Eddiedontcare

    stupid microsoft, thier sooooo dumb. hackers are the gods of the internets, we are going to beat this.

  • Tupac

    Just to clarify for all you gamers out there that have been banned.

    1) Your on-line account is NOT banned and if you buy a new console you can recover your gamertag account on that box and continue playing as normal.

    2)If you buy a new xbox and put your old hard drive onto it there is a chance that you WILL be banned. Remember MS do not have to offer any explanation so if this did happen your screwed. I know this has happened.

    3) There is no way at this present time to get your xbox back online.

  • G

    K thanks Pac i didn’t want to waste money on a new Xbox if they would ban me because of my last one being modded.

    And why would one put their old hard drive onto a new Xbox… what does that do

  • Tupac

    Just because you modded your last box you will not get banned from your new one even using your old gamertag.
    Some people buy a new xbox, sell the hard drive on ebay etc making the new xbox cheaper and continue using the old hard drive. Not worth it!..

  • MadP

    ok a theoretic question , if i were to have two xbox 360s one’s DVD drive is flashed and the other one isn’t.
    And i used the flashed xbox for offline only, and the non-flashed 360 for online only. If i where to change the hard drive from the offline one after playing a few copied backups adding points to my gamescore.. then online one ..because i want to build my gamer score up!. What would i have to do?!

  • Tupac

    Exactly what i wanted to do!!.. did some research and people have been kicked off for doing it. The hard drive records the gamerscore as corrupt and as such MS kick you off. Remember MS do not need to offer an explanation and as such you would have another xbox unable to go online.. I was gutted when i found this out…sorry

  • nick

    - What does this mean for you and what can you do about it?
    Firstly, and most obviously, you cannot connect to Xbox Live on this console any more. This means no more game updates (aka title updates), XBLA games, marketplace content, netflix/sky player and so on. There is no way around this, all online capabilities are now disabled PERMANENTLY.

    In all likelihood, your gamertag has NOT BEEN BANNED. When your gamertag gets banned, Microsoft sends you an email detailing why, if you have not recieved this email then your profile should be ok, to a certain extent.

    Hard Drive installs are now disabled on the banned console. This means any disk-based games you have will no longer play off of the hard drive. If you attempt to play a game, it will tell you that it was installed on a different 360 and needs to be deleted/installed again. When you delete the game and attempt to install it, you are given a message telling you that it is not supported. There is no way to fix this, that functionality is simply gone from the banned 360.

    The hard drive itself is left untouched – you can place it in another 360, even an unbanned one, and it will still work just fine. You do NOT need to reformat it to regain any kind of functionality. Any installed games will need to be reinstalled for the console you want to play them on. This is normal behaviour and happens when swapping HDDs on unbanned/legit 360′s.

    Windows Media Centre functionality is disabled. It is still possible to stream video/music content via the video library.

    Your Gamertag may be corrupted. This does not mean your gamertag has been banned, you can recover it using any live-capable 360, however ANY ACHIVEMENTS YOU HAVE EARNED SINCE BEING BANNED WILL BE LOST. Your gamertag will be corrupted EVERY SINGLE TIME it is used on a banned console. This means you cannot use your banned console to play backups offline just to get achievements – it wont work, the second you put your profile back on a good 360, it will be corrupted and all progress lost.
    There is no way around this

    The same applies to game saves – if you access a game save on a banned 360, it too will be corrupted when accessed on a legit/unbanned 360! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! There is no way around this, either.

    Your XBLA games and DLC will still be valid, however to play them on a different 360 you will need to be signed into Xbox Live. This is normal behaviour on unbanned/legit 360′s as well. They may be corrupted and have to be re-downloaded if you attempt to access them on a banned 360. You can transfer all of your downloaded content to a new 360 here: however note that you can only do it once every 12 months.

    So, in summary:
    Your Banned 360:
    * Cannot go on Xbox Live
    * Cannot install games to the HDD
    * Cannot use Windows Media Centre extender
    * Cannot be used to get achievements from backups without corrupting your profile

    You cannot do anything about this, short of buying a new 360.

    There may be more functionality disabled than mentioned here, things are still being discovered.

    - So what caused my ban?
    There are MANY theories as to what is causing so many consoles to get banned this time, however as of yet there is nothing concrete, just a lot of circumstantial evidence and speculation. Please do not add to this, a full investigation is under-way.

    c4eva, the main guy behind iXtreme, had this to say:
    fw itself not detectable
    suspect they are going hard on warez releases and incorrect use of abgx!

    He also added the following:
    just to let you know that im looking into the current ban wave. I am currently running several brand new xboxs on live! These xboxs are in various configs. All are running ixtreme 1.61
    One is running original discs, another is running on xbl (no discs) , another is running a backup from my region!
    until tests are completed, no eta on liteon fw!

    When we know more, YOU’LL no more, so please do not ask for updates!
    A full transcript is available here –

    Remember, if you really want to blame someone, blame the person that decided to modify your 360 in the first place – most likey, that would be you ;

    If you are one of the foolish like myself then simply stay offline temporarily til those who know best can work around it as im sure they will.Bring on J-Tag,that all im sayin!
    __________________
    ALL comments are MY OPINION and are not used as a personal attack,i am just very cynical,each to there own,no offensive intentions,etc,etc!!!
    I wish everything i wrote was fictitous…then id not be crap!

  • Pop

    What should I do if I have a modded 360 but I haven’t been banned yet since I haven’t been playing online? Am I safe?

    • Flash

      You should wait till the new safe firmware is done, a then make the actualization; but this is not sure because they make the ban even if you are offline, so is posible that your console is already banned. But we never know, so my advise is wait the new firmware

  • G

    So when i get my current account back onto a new clean Xbox, the achievements will be corrupted…? Ive been playing NHL 10, (the real disc i payed for) on my Banned Xbox, off line just playing season modes and stuff. So those achievements, along with all my Skate 2 ones and stuff will be gone or what? Also all the DLC’s that ive downloaded for Skate 2 and Call of Duty what happens to them when i go out and actually buy the game. Will those scores be corrupted.

  • Mike Tyson

    I just purchased a used 360 off some guy who hooked me up because I fried my previous motherboard due to 2many leds. ((flow light)) The story behind it sounds innocent according to him… something like… it was clean and all original with the warranty sticker still attached and untouched. Of course, I didn’t see that cause all I bought off the dude was the motherboard and Benq drive. I asked him to be honest and tell me if he knew the 360 was or has ever been flashed to play burned games (BECAUSE I DON’T WANT THAT $HIT) or banned before. I’m planning to get Xbox Live. He said no… So today I hooked it up online and without an XBL account, got an update. Keeping my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t get banned or find out that It was already banned, I was in luck. I got my update with no problems, but I still have the question on my mind… Is that it??? Would I have found out with that update if my 360 was flashed, or can it still possibly happen when I actually purchase a year subscription? Is there a way to tell if it has been hacked? Also, could you be banned for an addition fan mod? I added a whisper max and some xcm v2 coolers. Please help… This is my first Xbox 360, I’m a PS3 guy.

    • FLAMINGFLAMINGO

      NO ms cannot detect fan mods or add ons its a lie ! They said back in 2007 that they have voltage monitoring ( complete bullshit ) they dont monitor voltage and i asked 50 plus reps at ms can you tell me how hot my 360 is they said no we can not as that would be a waste of our money and company time ! you can not be banned for adding windows , lights fan mods, fan up grades, case mods ! I have a liquid cooled 360 and its always on and always at 86 F verusus the 140-150 F with the stock fan and stock heat sinks ! ! NO MS CAN NOT BAN YOUR 360 for fan mods, Fan upgrade or lights or window mods ! flashing your 360 is another thing but taking a stock 360 and adding fan for more airflow is not going to get you banned !

      • Mike Tyson

        Thanks, thats a great relief… but what about the updated firmare through Xbox Live and so far, not showing any signs of getting banned – yet -. ($hit I hope not). I don’t have a subscription yet, but I soon will. I just pluged my 360 online and got the update with no problem… am I good? Can I still recieve a message from M$ for a flashed drive (((if it’s been flashed before)))… See, I don’t know where my used 360 came from, if its been flashed to play burned games. I just want it all to be legit. I much more prefer to buy my games @ gamestop.

        • FLAMINGFLAMINGO

          you would have gotten the message already from M$ when you connected your 360 to the internet ( if it was flashed ) Yeah your good for now the next update isnt not till the end of
          december for the new dashboard ! If its not flashed they wont ban you ! IF its flashed to play burned game you would have already been banned when you hooked up your 360 to
          XBOXLIVE ! the so called stealth mod for burned games does not work any more ms has been on a banning spree for the past 2 weeks banning users who had a flashed 360 or hacked firmware ! Your 360 is safe !

          • Mike Tyson

            Wow, thanks F.F! Thats really helpfull!

  • Flash

    Thats what i heard, everything you do in a banned console is lost, everything that you have done before the ban is safe. My advice is, if you gonna play in your banned console, dont play for the achievements.

    • G

      Ok thanks, i don’t really care about the achievements, but more importantly are the things that i have downloaded, like game add ons. And also game save files… anyone know anything?

  • Bryan

    aahh oh no i got banned today and who know what yesi did have a modded 360 and pirated games and cant belive it microsoft is gay omg its gonna be like 2 years before i get a new one

  • Mike Tyson

    another question on 360 mods… Planning on doing the fan shroud mod, I’m not entirely sure on what material is best to use to cover over my heat sinks. I read from a few web sites that “high temp duct (metal) tape” is best to use as it would provide the best performance possible when absorbing and releasing heat, as well as insulation. On the other hand, most mods I’ve seen online have the “card paper” (or cereal box) method… I’m not sure what is actually best; paper frightens me due to the fact it could actually catch on fire ((I’m not sure if that can actually happen)). Metal I feel more safe with due to the fact its tested @ high a temp, but metal traps heat, which would only create more heat under my DVD drive – “and that’s bad no no” – So what’s best??? I was thinking both – using the metal tape over the sinks and apply the card paper over the metal (duct) tape. What do you think? I need your feedback.

  • MongoBongo

    I had a flashed 360, but i brought a new xbox 360 because the old one died. the new one isn’t flashed its 100% stock standard. Will i get banned if i recover the profile i was using with the flashed one? i only got about 200 GP points….Or should i start up a new profile ??!

  • Haha MS

    Haha stupid MS… Makes me laugh…. A large amount of people have already found a new modded firmware that bypasses MS security router sensory so all I had to do was go get it remodded and got a boot disk and bam! Live works. Me and my cousins including a couple of my freinds have played MW2 online b4 it even came out when the online servers got set up n watched everyone get banned (some people even with the old modded firmware are said to be undetectable so if your one of them lucky you)

  • Tupac

    No you will not get banned. Recover your gamertag 100% safe on a new console. Just the console that gets banned..

  • Tommy

    Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
    Srry for the bad english…..
    1st xbox 360 was broken (ring of dead) 3 tmes in 1 year and when the warrant was over i had to buy a new one..(got 2 games from ms for waiting aprox 6 months) So that year i had a broken xbox with 6 new games (cost aprox 750 euro)
    2nd xbox 360 broke down (ring of dead) fixed and flasshed it and used 1 year then i got banned (had all the games availible aprox 150) (cost aprox 500 euro)
    3nd xbox 360 fixed and flashed and always have all the games (cost 300 euro)
    Now the 3rth is banned and well i will get an ps3 this time arround.
    I will use my banned xbox to play al the games online via another way and finaly gone get a ps3…….
    After the 2nd xbox got banned i wanted a ps3….. and now finaly it gone be mine
    i will give my xbox 360 for operation and will fix this one or buy another
    BUT NO MORE XBOX LIVE FOR ME
    yes you can stay low….take the same profile….pay only with prepaid
    BUT ms has your adres and info and will ban you every year
    Do like ME take a ps3 this time and find alternative mathers to go online and fuck up xbox live

  • Tommy

    and i got banned just now friday 13 november 2009

  • Tommy

    oh yeah and nice to know i only played the games on the day they where in the store
    check everything with abgx and mulleter
    commosore for eva yeah shitless head shitface
    use the one shot boot disk but check everything and only play on the day that its released
    well i did and still got banned
    thnx commodore pfffffff

  • Legit

    This comment is highly important to those who have yet to be banned and have a spare unflashed 360 around. (Its a Beautiful idea)

    One fine Thursday night i was playing dragon age: origins, leveling up and defeated hordes of enemies, just having some fun , everything going good, until one day my friend called saying “Dude!! everbody’s getting banned” and i go…”what!…Wow why?” , he exclaimed “because they flashed thier consoles….there just getting banned for thier consoles being flashed!”, so i added to this intrigueing conversation with the sheer utterence of one word, ” @&$% !” (Colorful Pronoun) …as i thought to myself…”this is it…the end” *sigh* ….then i got an idea!!!!!! what if i took this ordinary non-banned flashed xbox 360 and, never going online with it again, used it just to play games for achievements with my gamertag, then took another 360 ( not flashed) (and it had the rrod, so i did the heat sync fix) and used this xbox as my online 360 for wonderful games such as Modern Warfare 2!!! its beautiful, i did my research on the topic as well and found that the pros heavily outweighed the cons.
    1). can continue to rack up gamerscore for those burnt games such RPG’s, FPSRPG’s( we all know this wonderful game) and various other wonderful games without online multiplayer.
    2).wont, let me rephrase that, CANT get banned because microsoft is checking the drives through a series of challenges, racking up evidence as they go along ( cause they cant ban you for just one burnt game, as stated in the by-laws so convientiently placed in the middle of the term agreement you accept when creating an account) they continue to rack evidence and then they issue ban waves, (they do this every year, around this time) . and since your playing offline on an unbanned one, then pop out your HDD and place it in your Nonflashed 360 to play online games and download content. Its Wonderful…( Doesnt work on banned 360′s due to the simple fact that the data is corrupt).

    • Irish

      Genious… Fookin grreaht man!

    • MongoBongo

      What about the corrupt gameprofile? Can they ban the xbox360 for something like that? i didnt know you can’t be banned for 1 back up game. thats good..:) as i only backed up 1 game . when i had a flashed 360 :)…

  • Gee

    me and about 4 more friends all got banned today around the same time in the morning..
    well it was fun while it lasted..

  • Gee

    ah, and i just got MW2!!! fail!

  • Bill

    I have a modded xbox and have playd online a few times with it but was wondering since I haven’t been caught yet how do I avoid it in the future?

  • HAYDEN

    I GOT BANNED AND I WENT TO FRIENDS HOUSE AND PUT MY HARD DRIVE IN HIS NON-FLASHED XBOX IT SAID CORRUPT WEN I WENT TO SIGN IN I TRIED RECOVERING MY ACCOUNT IT SAID MY HDD WASNT IN PROPLY OR HAD NO SPACE BUT THEN I TRIED MAKING A NEW NON-LIVE ACCOUNT IT WORKED FINE THEN I THOUGHT WHAT THE HECK THEN I TOLD MY FRIEND TO RECOVER ACCOUNT ON MINE AND IT WORKED NOW TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON

  • Me

    Hmmm…interesting. I’m smelling some marketing going on here too. How convenient that they decide to ban all of these consoles so close to the holidays. Are they trying to drive up sales of the 360 just before Christmas? Just some more food for thought.

    I’m not saying they shouldn’t have banned them. I firmly believe that all of these jerks should have been banned from Xbox Live. I’m just questioning the timing from MS in this matter.

  • Dave

    the banning method appears to check your drive’s firmware, so this means if you’ve EVER had a DVD drive replacement on your 360 (with the exception of sending it to MS for repairs) you will likeley be banned also, as you have to alter the firmware to allow a new drive to work in the 360. so in short if you’ve ever had your 360 repaired by anyone other then MS don’t take it on LIVE, it will likeley get banned

    • Irish

      nowu that’s using yur dipstick Dave!

  • Flash

    They send a file that only corrups drive’s can read, if yours read it then your console is ban. Have this any sense?

  • me

    hello
    are xbox360 modded by a chip or a software ??

  • E

    i was banned the other week and i got a new console to play online with, but it kept on sayin my profile was corrupt whenever i tried to recover my gamertag, when i managed to finally get my gamertag back online i was worried to switch hard drives onto my flashed 360 just in case it screws my new one up
    Ive got no respect for MS any more but just to clarify, ive learnt from my mistakes and ill never flash my drive again, i think its a stupid idea if u wanna play copied games with a risk of getin caught
    I also heard that any achievements that i gain would be deleted from my new console if i switched back…..id appreciate it if someone confirm this if its true please? Thanks

    • tony

      you only have to delete your user profile on the banned xbox. put your hard drive in the unmodded xbox and recover your files. all of your achievements are still there with no corruptions. once your user profile has been deleted, your other files will be uncorrupted.

  • nick

    all you have to do is delete your profile only, and recover it again on your unbanned…your profile will be corrupted on every other xbox after you put it on the xbox it got banned on…only the one it got banned on, i have 6 xboxs, 2 banned, and thats how it works. if you get another one and hack it and but your hdd on that one you will be fine :)

  • ICE

    MS….

    Tisk Tisk…

    We’ll be back!

  • vince

    I am glad all of you worthless crooks got screwed in time for xmas. Trying being honest.

    • ButVince!

      Because we all know how honest Microsoft is right?…… fight fire with fire, Vince.

  • Ahwayzcool

    Ah Microsoft…we hackers are like a bad case of herpies…you may have stopped us for now, but we’ll be back.

  • STHellRaiser

    why is it MS that hate piracy more? why cos they lose most money lmao will easy way to solve that make things cheaper ps3 have to right idear, it isnt the acthally game programmers that u see complain its MS as am at college doing games programing i no how long it can take to make a game a hell long time and effort but thing is MS get the profit ok a disc dvd DL cost £2 and how much for program to make xbox 360 game?? oh wait MS give it out free progaming language are free visual studio express is free and that wat used to make games so wait why do MS get so much cos they wont let them publish the game without MS conceit (in other words MS making sure there going to get a nice amount from it) MS get about 50-70% per every 100 copys game sold, games shops that sell the games get 5% ,vat/tax 17% ,4-5%goes to the brand company ie EA games,Ubisoft, etc then wats left 3-4% goes to the programers thats about £5-£10 per 100 games sold that the actually game maker get (the progamers) is this MS stealing from the progammers?? ps3 company sony get 40-60% they give the programmers more, so why are MS so greedy? and i will be getting my xbox modded why cos i hate MS i will never pay for any thing of them unless it will kill me if i dont

    Bill gates take a page out of sonys book

  • curious pac

    my brother bought himself a brand new xbox 360 and gave me his hacked one, i live in another state and he told me that his xbox account got banned because it was modded or w.e so i was wondering if i get a new xbox live account can i get on xbox live? and if not is there anything i can do to get back on xbox live?..

    • You are a dumbass

      You are a dumbass. If he could use another account to connect to xbox live with, then why would he buy another xbox? think you fucking dumb skull.

  • paul

    are they still banding you? 11/21/09,……….when will the banding be over?

  • 801 Juggalo

    I want to know if there goin to stop this banning of xbox who modded them. couse my friend mods xboxs and shit and mine got banned awhile ago. and when there done with this stupid shit im goin to remod another xbox i bought. hopefully they will stop this stupid ban shit.

  • david

    maybe wouldnt have to mod their 360s if games werent fucking $60. dont they understand most of the 360 players are kids that barely have $60 to spend?

    • Stefan

      60 USD?
      Games here are 60 euros. Let’s see what we get:

      60 USD = 86.2813 EURO
      That price is a crime on itself.

  • john barajas

    okay i got a question i bought an xbox 360 elite from a guy and he said it playes burned games ! does this mean that its modded ? and that i cant play online? if so the little fucker ripped me off !

    • JB

      Yes it is modded and u can play online but ur going to banned if its not already banned. I wouldnt say that he ripped u off u can play FREE games.

  • Fran

    Those of you that complain about the price of games, try renting them. I am pleased that MS have banned those that hacked their Xbox’s. I bet there were a few parents who was not best pleased lol. Just need MS to ban these kids under 17 that play Gow2 now. Thank you MS for finally dealing with these cheats.

    • http://simicidaltendencies.wordpress.com Yasmmin

      Seriously, all of you who mod your xboxs’ should just stop whining about being banned. You’re banned for basically STEALING games and playing them. It’s illegal to pirate games and it will always be ILLEGAL. The games are expensive, ever heard of gamestop? They have some cheap games. Only new games are $60 and if you can’t afford the games then stop gaming.

      • Minty

        Hahaha it’s only illegal in the UK if you haven’t got the original game to backup and if you don’t believe me just search the UK laws on piracy and protection

        microsoft are a big-headed company so they think they are above the law of any country

  • A

    got banned today 11/26/09

    • SatansChild 69R

      hi when you get banned from live can you still play the 360 off-line or is it a expensive paper weight

  • pirate

    if you know how too hack them you also know how to fix them getting another one is not that expensive or difficult.

  • Stan’zaNinja

    Well put it like this guys….

    The more time Microsoft wait =
    More people flash their XBOX =
    More people get banned =
    More people buy new XBOX’s =
    More money for Mr. Bill =
    Everyone hating on Microsoft

    ….I have a flashed 360 but got warned before i got banned so i have a flashed xbox with all the best online games but… no LIVE when can i get back on LIVE?. has anyone seen any Ixtreme 1.7 / Ixtreme 1.6.1 ?.

    Thanks peeps,

    Comment :)

  • CookiesandMilk

    There saying the new ixtreme will not be detectable. For people who complain that People who mod there Xbox360 are cheaters, they arnt necessarily (unless you have a modded controller) – People are poor, and thats why they mod there xbox to get free Games.– I Don’t have a modded xbox 360 but i do have friends with one. I take my bought disks of over priced video games and burn it for them then they do stuff for me (Like homework) I Respect Microsoft, in a way that i wont get my xbox modded; but i couldent care. So what; Its a disk.. Its not like its stealing a car. We do pay for live monthly, why does microsoft have to make it so expensive? We pay around $8-59 for live Each Year (Depending on your Subscription) Does games need to be $60? Makes no since to over price the games, but thats them.

    - My Rant

  • Boxerman

    Microsoft banned them not for piracy, but to boost the numbers of systems sold during the holidays. They were slipping behind the PS3. Besides, lots of people don’t play online with modded systems, they just don’t want to fork out the crazy 60 bucks for what may be a crap game.

  • http://www.frozencpu.com flamingo

    No their banning xbox 360 with hacked firm ware and flashed dvd drives that read back up discs ! I see why u said people burn games too . Ms is still selling Hd dvd formated games while ps3 is selling blue ray formated games . ill gladly pay 60 for a ps3 game but not 360 . Ms should be lowering their prices on their games cause they are using hd dvd a tech piece of the past ! Seriously ms needs to step it up with their discs ! Ps3 is blue ray and most people want blue ray for home theater but most wont pay 1000 $ for a blue ray player ! so most people who cant afford the ps3 or blue ray stick with the 360 or they just like ms products better . I own both but xbox is better , online , and theres more to do ! on the other hand i like ps3 for surfing the web and making movies with eye joy cam & cuz most of my bros and friends own the ps3 i play the ps3 online but for the xbox how ever i do the same but its 8-10 hrs xbox vs the 2 hrs on ps3 . Yes ms banned hacked consoles to boost their profits but also to keep hackers off xbox live . Although ms cant keep up with the number of hacked 360s . Ms is cheap but they just want their money thats all they care about . Profit profit .. dont for get many people have done cooling mods cause ms has failed to perminately fix RROD !

  • Sniper

    Hi people, I have a question. I got banned from xboxlive and now I have a new xbox360 console. I want to recover my old profile on my new xbox360 but I am scared to get banned again. Can someone help me? Thanks….
    p.s. Can you explain it very clearly because I got confused earlier because of someone else…

    • Flash

      You can recover your i.d. only your console is ban. Thats verificated 100% good info.

  • Thomas

    Just let every on mo that when u get banned ur oy banned from live ur xbox still works it would be illegal in many countrys (uk for one) for micorsoft to ban every console and stop them working they can only ban u from live, but u can recover ur gammer tag and still have all ur gamer score if u have been banned u will first need to a recover of ur gamer tag better to that on a none band console first the put in on mem card or recover it again on ur banned xbox after, cos microst ban curups gMer profile so they need to be recovered,

  • jean-jacques de la rue

    So I got 2 xbox, one hacked, the other no. Before getting banned i stopped playing online and i decided to wait for the new hacked technology to come out (wich will be soon :)
    Also hate people saying we are crooks, f*ck them! Microsoft are a bunch of motherfuc*ing thieves and Bill Gates should be scr*wed by the as*hole before being executed!!! I was not modding my COD games when playing online, like some idiots do, I was just saving money!!!

    Anyway, like the other gay said we’ll be back!

  • ky

    you are friken crazy xbox lives main ausdiance is teens ages 14-17 the only pepole who need to be banned are pepole who get to mean and littel freakin kids with mics

  • 801 Juggalo

    does anyone know when there taking of the ban. couse im going to go buy another xbox 360 this weekend and my friends does mads and sh*t and i dont wanna get it modded again and have it banned.
    ms should just take of the ban bullsh*t

    • CookiesAndMilk

      Well it depends, if you can keep track of all the Firmwares for the mods; then Yes. If not; then dont bother.

  • 801 Juggalo

    ky i hope your not talking about me, couse sh*t im not in that age group, you might think i am but i pay rent, phone, car, internet. but you might be in that age group.

    but i do agree when you get on and in a game theres little kids yelling and sh*t. but if you got friends on xbo live then you could go into a party chat.

  • Mebby

    haha
    all the people saying that they are glad for the ban is funny
    they were just jelouse that every one else got free games and they didnt
    and they are too noobish and lazy to flash their drives

    also i have a question:
    if you play on xbox live with a modded console but officail purchased game, can you still get banned?

    do you get banned because of the flashed drive or because of the illeagally burnt game?

    • CookiesAndMilk

      Agreed.

      And to Answer your questions, Yes you can (Apparently) still get banned because its due to your flashed drives firmware . Its the Firmware that gets you banned.

  • ghoshy2009

    ive been reading some of the comments on this site. wise up if you get your xbox banned then u will be letting MS win. because you have to go and buy a new xbox. thus filling this guys pockets.
    also to add to the blue ray subject. were i am to buy a blue ray player costs less then $60 i am not in american thats just the american equivalent in my money. so no idea were your getting $1000 dollars for one. if you have to pay that amount move countrys your being ripped of.
    i have an xbox 360 elite and a ps3 full backwards compatability. that means every single ps1/ps2/ps3 game will play on my ps3 console. none of my consoles are modified /chipped/flashed or anything.
    if you can beat a game without cheats then you need to get better at playing the game you cant win at. all games have a way to win. you just have to find the right combination to win.

  • ghoshy2009

    to my last message i made a spelling mistake it should read
    (if you CANT beat a game without cheats then you need to get better at playing the game)

  • MongoBongo

    LOL the really funny thing is the gamers that have been banned can still play games offline.at least they still have entertainment… i bet they would of been really pissed off if they could disable the entire xbox360, .like RROD or some bullsht error
    so all the gamers who have been banned …you really got off lightly…….

  • valueape

    i only buy used games and the developers don’t see any part of the money when i buy a used game (i wish they did). so what’s up?

  • yo

    yo umm please reply backk…. if i have a banned xbox can i get a new hard drive..to go back to xbox live ?

    • Bird

      No. Its the Xbox itself that is banned. You need a new xbox. You can buy aconsole by it self on ebay for about the same as a new hard drive.

  • zero369

    i have two xbox 360 one is flashed can i use my good xbox live acount on my flashed xbox off line and then put my hard drive back on my xbox 360 that is not flashed and get back on xbox live and not get banned

  • nate

    so a bit off-topic but is there a way to tell if your xbox has been flashed or no? cuz i got a used one on line for my bday yesterday and its disk drive isnt working so i need a new one but i havent been able to use it yet..so is there a way to find out if its been flashed without using a burned disk?

  • Mo

    you guys are all dumb as sh*t modding your xbox if your too dam cheap to buy a game or even a used one at that sell the dam thing and go buy a gamecube idiots im glad you get banned and you dumb juggalo goof get a life if you have rent to pay quit spending it on xboxs and quit going and buying new ones to waste your time on to get banned stupid fu*ks

  • Mo

    and sorry to hear about your family juggalo

  • 801 Juggalo

    fuck of Mo. im not poor to buy games im an assistant manager at a gamestop so i get games but my friend modded my xbox so i keeped it.
    how come ur callin me a dumb juggalo. i hate ppl who hate them and shit the gamestop i work at me and the manager r juggalos and we wear hatectman shirts and when someone says fuck juggalos we kick there asses out. glade u dont come to our store or u would get banned so fast.

  • 801 Juggalo

    Mo wat do u mean sorry about ur family?

  • Mo

    well it is a dumb statement to think that they will stop the ban its fuckin microsoft dude and my comment wasnt directed to anyone specific but its the fact im sick of seeing these kids post shit about how do i do this or that if your gonna buy a modded xbox or mod your own make sure you know what the fuck you are doing before you waste the money on it and then you cant even use it dont buy shit you cant understand just because its cool its like trying to build a house and you cant use the fuckin saw its ridiculous thats why so many people get caught because they are fuckin stupid about it i dont disagree with it totally the questions asked on here are fuckin no common sense “if i have a modded xbox will i get banned” like wtf is that seeming that most the people on here have said theyve been banned so why in the hell would you even ask that and i got you confused seeming that i read a dudes post was shangri la 801 i thought that might have been you seeming thats icp related so its no stab to your family just got the post mixed up

  • Mo

    and the dude said he basically doesnt have a dad and his mom died at 14 it was a post kinda far back though

  • Mo

    so i dont choose to do it because its not worth me buying a new xbox everytime i get caught and im not trying to get a fine with my luck id be the one that would so i keep my shit legit lol but ill shut up you guys have fun dont get caught

  • Puppy Wehtam

    Well… First I just want to say I don’t have a modded or flashed Xbox 360 and I don’t really plan on it though it would be nice. Second I find the majority of people who say “If you can’t afford playing games then don’t buy them.” are major idiots. Why? Well plenty of reasons. One is that games have been getting more expensive with each new generation that comes out so there was a time when video games were cheap and we all enjoyed them. Two is that some of us use games as a way to get our mind off wanting to kill the people that drive us crazy with their complaining… Oh and three… Pay attention to stuff… A lot of the stuff can be way cheaper because there are other sources of income. For example haven’t anyone noticed the ads in video games on Live. Like Telus is everywhere… I’ve seen piles of movie ads that actually get updated to show to movies in games like Skate. To have these ads up on Live obviously someone pays Microsoft. That should mean prices should be lowered for games since we are getting hit with ads in them but no… Then there’s all these movies, music, arcade games, game add-ons, etc… Then we buy a points card to spend points to get and Microsoft makes a profit there.

    Anyways I’m beginning to feel that I’m rambling. My point is that Microsoft is only increasing sources of income and the expense of the gamer while giving nothing in return… They clearly don’t need the extra dough but they are worse than politics when it comes to robbing the people.

    Now I’m not saying lift the ban I’m just saying that those who tell the hackers that they deserved it and that they are scum are not very bright because Microsoft is robbing the you and me. It’s a bit like it’s the rich robbing from the poor and the poor robbing from the rich. No one is going to win…

    Anyways in my opinion Microsoft is never going to win how hard they try but they did find a way for you hackers to pay up the money they’ve been losing from you guys modding games.

    P.S. Renting is alright and cheap but when the 360 becomes like the ps1 and N64 you’ll be wishing you had bought those games and have them to play. That is why I buy games even though they cost quite a bit. Oh also old games though cheaper tend to not have many people online if any at all like F.E.A.R or Outfit or even Guitar Hero III. So you lose out on achievements and some parts of the game while new games have players online and larger amounts allowing for the full experience of the game.

    If any of you disagree with what I’m saying then I understand and am alright with that but insulting people with comments like “If you can’t afford to play games then don’t buy them” are stupid insults that have no actually source for the comment other than the fact that the person who said the comment might be a snot nose rich brat that gets whatever he wants and doesn’t know the value of a freaking dollar. No I’m not saying it with someone in here in mind because truthfully I don’t know anyone of you which is alright.

    Also I don’t find the little kids’ voices too annoying though they are girly and squeaky which tends to hurt the ears with their loud voices. It is more the little kids’ playing skills in games they shouldn’t be playing like Battlefield Bad Company where if you got two team members hopping up and down at spawn and not actually playing it affects the team as a whole though this isn’t always the case it tends to be the case a lot with little kids. Their voices are easily solved with mute.

    This message may be quite long but I did read every comment before posting.

    • DeJebus

      puppy Whetham. Back in the day Super Nintendo games use to be 80-100$, panasonic 3do games were around 150$. So basically you don’t know what your talking about. If you download a game illegally you should be prepared to suffer the consequences. All you little whinning kids are crying because you finally got caught. You actually are lucky, you can go to jail for the kind of crap you have been pulling.Downloading and modding games and consoles is illegal. If you CAN’T AFFORD TO BUY A GAME DONT GET INTO GAMING.

  • WTF?

    “Gaming on Xbox Live is about to get much easier (and I think I will try turning on voice chat again).”

    What is that about? What does that have to do with banned xbox’s and whatnot? I mean, yeah there are tonnes of retards on LIVE (try listening to about 5 seconds of the voice chat in MW2), but the same retards are on the PSN playing MW2, which is totally legit…?

    And by the way, modchips are SOOOO last year – firmware hacking is the way to go about it.

    I think this banwave has done some good though – the 360 homebrew scene is growing, and anybody who ever had the original ol’ xbox would know that the homebrew machines with built-in FTP, xlink, changable harddrives, the ability to run games straight off the harddrive, xvid/divx support and more were totally awesome compared to the legit xbox or the ps2 for that matter. Let’s hope that homebrew will grow, so they can make the 360 the way M$ ought to have done it…

  • WTF?

    And for the people who are into the totally legit thing (I have a modded xbox, but the few games I play I buy when they are priced reasonably, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that), go buy a PS3 slim. You get a whole lot more bang for the buck. Build quality is miles beyond what the 360 offers, there are no RROD’s, no crappy NXE menus, no overly loud hissing from the fans, no humming from the disc drive.

    And its got blu-ray, a slot-in drive, built-in wireless network adapter, an internet browser and FREE online gaming! I rest my case…

  • Joker

    I can understand why you guys get so upset when your modded xbox gets banned from xbox live for life. I play around 3-4 hours a week, I work, go to school and go out with friends and hang out with my girlfriend.Point being even though I do like to play games I basically don’t have too much time for gaming. Seeing as it took you a lot of time to mod an xbox and figure everything out,it must be like your girlfriend. You put a lot of heart into that relationship and now you have to come to the realization that its no longer going to be there anymore,so you get into denial,you cry and complain, but it still isn’t coming back. The solution really is to not mod another xbox and go out and do other things..I.e get a life and stop crying over your girlfriend,the xbox. :P

  • WTF?

    Lol, where does this come from? U live in the dark ages or some country where the digital revolution hasn’t hit both sexes and society in general?

    The notion that guys playing games don’t have girlfriends is kinda out-dated. It’s like saying guys with a laptop or an internet connection can’t have a girlfriend because they spend all day watching porn. Lol, simply just RETARDED!

    That being said, this topic (to me at least) has more to do with corporate politics, IPR and the beauty of independency than gaming per se, and as such I think it is kind of interesting as it has to do with regulation and pricing of a product that (theoretically) is infinite in amount and has a very low production cost pr. unit, but on the other hand has a very high retail price (the above mentioned regulation/pricing leads to what I see as an anomaly in a basic market system built on supply/demand). Seriously, if you ever pay full price for a game, an album, movies or whatnot, you are a fool (or desperately addicted for one reason or another to whatever cultural item we are talking about) because the price is simply not equivalent to what you get…

    And another useful piece of information: Firmware hacking for a total noob takes all in all like 5 minutes (if u r meticulously following a guide on the net) and on top of that I am very clever, so it doesn’t take me long to figure out things – it might take longer for “Joker” though…

    One more point: I think it is interesting that some people obviously have a stick up their butt when it comes to other people hacking, pirating and whatnot – I just can’t see why it should be anybody’s business or problem for that matter? If u feel cheated or robbed or have some other petty feeling along those lines, then get it over with and mod your own xbox:-)

    NB: As I mentioned before, I condone piracy to about the same extent as I condone the pricing of music, movies and games.

  • WTF?

    —-> DeJebus: It wasn’t like that for AMIGA or early PC games. How come?

    And something else: I am not banned, so I am not whining due to that; I am whining because I think people that react like you are really petty, and that makes me kind of sad. Like listening to the wasted youth bickering on LIVE or PSN while playing MW2. I just don’t get people like that…

  • FTW

    Post?

  • jason

    MS Sucks They are greedy assholes they steel like 95% of all profit from companies that make games but the new firmware is coming out and it is virtually UNDATECTABLE Everybody should hate MS

  • Question

    The Question is, when will the New Firmware come out?

  • EcLiPsE GT21

    Ok all these kids that claim there poor I have one question for you. If you are so poor why do you have an xbox 360, a flash drive, and a computer. Stealing is stealing. I work hard for my money as do other people. When i was little i raked leaves, mowed lawns, and made things to sell. You all are just too lazy to get off your butts, stop playing the game, and work. I dont blame them, i would ban all of you. How can you get mad at a company who makes you accept an agreement which blatantly states that you cannot do the things you are doing. If you want a company that allows these things why dont you go to school for it and make one? Oh wait, because the company would go bankrupt because everyone would be stealing their games. You need to think about things before you say them. Is this what the world is going to end up like. A bunch of people stealing because they are too poor. If your too poor get off the damn computer and work, not sit on sites like this and complain about being poor

  • AnonMac

    All right, I want an Xbox 360 Elite, but I’m thinking of opening its to fix it if it gets an RROD. I know about warranty, but anyway, will I get banned if I open it. What if I make it water-cooled. Also, I read about the Xbox 360 Laptop/Portable. Will I get banned if I do that. And what about a case mod?

    Thanks.

  • Puppy Wehtam

    DeJebus : – Obviously you don’t know what I was talking about so maybe you should just leave the comments to people who are actually giving an opinion and are not here to insult others. I said games are getting more expensive and I don’t know where you were shopping but my Super Nintendo games were 10-20$ where I shopped. The only whining kids here are the ones like you who are jealous of these hackers and modders. You whine saying they deserved it and that they shouldn’t be playing games but in real truth it is people like you who shouldn’t be playing games. I rather play a game with someone who modded their 360 and has games for free but is nice than with someone who is totally legal but a total jerk. IF YOU ARE NOT A NICE GAMER THEN DO NOT BE A GAMER.

    ——————————————————————————

    I am beginning to think I should mess around with modding my PS2. I am still giving Microsoft credit for the idea though. You guys thought you wouldn’t have to pay to play but Microsoft found a way even into your pockets.

    AnonMac- I believe it has to only do with modding your system to play burnt games. Those mods should be alright.

  • ohmyjesus

    Ok it’s like this to me anyway Whether your poor rich whatever you need a good reason to buy things i have both 360 and mod360 and im very pleased that i can play games and if they seem good i will go ahead and buy them. Same with music if you have a shitty cd with two cuts on it im gonna download it, if you got 24 bad ass cuts and good artwork or bonus songs or whatever… i will buy it! i got more important thing to spend my money on than a bunch of games i might or might not like so i will jack em, play em, and if i like em i will buy em or if i want to play em online but as far as playing my modded games online i dont cause i dont want to risk ruining anyone elses online gaming ex.

  • WTF?

    If you want to do anything remotely interesting with your console, plan on getting banned. If you want to buy and play games online, get a ps3 slim…

    Not that i condone piracy, but people should get their facts straight. Pirating software is NOT stealing, because when you steal a car for instance, you take away the possibility of someone else driving or buying that car. Software piracy deals in duplicates, and hence it can’t be stealing. It’s something else – and probably something illegal – but it is definitely not stealing.

    However “the industry” believes it is loosing out on profits from the people who choose to pirate, but truth be told, most pirates probably wouldn’t have bought whichever item they have copied if they didn’t have the option of pirating – simply because prices have rocketed and quality plummeted… It would be interesting to see how much the market would change if the pricing was different

  • WTF?

    Let’s hear an Amen for ohmyjesus

  • BrooD

    things being expensive does not give you the right to just take them
    if so id shoplioft all kinds of shit
    you broke rules
    you got punished
    try not to be a douchbag next tiem
    and if your gonna mod your xbox
    dont go give microsoft a direct line to it like a dumbass

  • BrooD

    my grammar is bad
    i know this

  • stevo

    i think it isnt fair because people are trying to save money on games

  • Josh

    i have a question. if i have a modded xbox 360 and i’ve played a lot of hacked games, will i still get banned if one day, i’ll play an original game on the same console on xbox live?

  • WTF?

    yup. as long as your firmware has been modified you can be fairly sure that u will feel the hammer. its the modification that gets you banned, not the backed up software.

    And seriously, pirating isn’t stealing in any way. It’s something else, it’s illegal and u shouldn’t do it; but it is not stealing.

    And seriously, the movie/gaming/music industry really should come up with another business plan. They have to realize that with the bloom of the internet, the rules have changed. They can’t keep holding on to all the power – they have to give some up (make it more democratic if you will) otherwise they will be on the losing side in the long run. In the music industry, for instance, they keep pulling dusty old has-beens like Bono and Metallica out of the closet to agitate against piracy (as if U2 and Metallica hasn’t already made and spent more money than most people could ever hope to see in a lifetime), whereas a more progressive band like Radiohead give away their stuff for the price people see fit (and had quite a bit of success with that). I’m not saying that Radioheads business plan would be possible for everybody; but the media industry should give up their tight grasp on everything and start thinking in new ways. 21st century ways

  • WTF?

    —> Josh. U can do a search on google and find the ports that xbox live uses, block them on your router and use xlink kai for system link games instead without ever getting banned (although u wont be able to get system or software updates through live so in effect the result would be like u were banned, with your hdd intact and functioning though).

  • SicCMAdE GangSter

    Seriously, lets start this off properly. Xbox 360 sucks. To have to pay to play games online every month on top of your internet service provider is f’ing ridiculous and stupid. Second, with all the problems 360 has and there crappy controllers really made me think why people would by this… and third, if you are going to mod, you SHOULDN’T be allowed to play online! It should be used to allow you to see how the game is operational and that is it. If you get banned for either trying to find a way around paying for live or simply modding games and expecting to play online for free and get mad, maybe you should think before you do something moronic. For those who do this to mearly play the game single player, I say Thumbs up! But to try and play online with hacks and cracked versions of shit I find intolerable and annoying! To all you hackers and shiitty asss modders, I say FCUK YOU!!!

    Oh ya, I forgot to mention that Playstation 3 dominates the 360 easily! For the rest of you who keep complaining about xbox 360′s, just go buy a ps3 or wait til the 720 comes out… but then again look what they are doing with the xbox 720′s, They are hardly changing the way the are putting it together which means over heating and another shitty system! Microsoft wasn’t supposed to make video gaming machines, just computers. As for Sony, there are some problems, but nearly not as many as Microsoft and you don’t have to pay to play online, and PS3 is internet ready so you can google, youtube, or type whatever website you want to go to and it will happen!

    BOO XBOX 360!

    Have a good weekend, – Sicc

    • lemmy

      I just wanted to point something out. Although I agree that PS3 has a better online service… Xbox has the games hands down… and “Microsoft wasn’t supposed to make video gaming machines, just computers.” Microsoft doesn’t make computers u dooch!

    • Pew

      Strange that xbox outsold the ps3 for the whole of 2009 and probaly the whole of 2010. Crappy controller? The ps3 controller is a piece of sh** compared to the xbox controller.

      And microsoft makes software not computers you blithering idiot.

  • WTF?

    The 720 is a rumour. Just a few weeks ago M$ told about their plans with natal and how the 360 will be the platform they invest in strategically for years to come, so any mention of ps4 and xbox720′s is bogus. And yes, the 360 is a crapbox, really.

    That being said, i think modding should be allowed. I can’t see how it harms the “online community” in any ways that couldn’t occur on pc/windows, which by far has the best online community of all platforms. When people say that modders should be banned per se, as they potentially damage xbox live, they are just repeating the words of m$ sales department. It makes no sense – the only kind of “cheaters” I met playing on live has been using a lag switch in modern warfare. And u dont need to mod ur xbox to do that. It wont be long before the 360 homebrew will be at a state, that allows full support for running applications straight off the hard drive, without use of a disc (which is a huge step forward, as the crappy disc drive in the 360 wont be lasting for long). Yes yes, game developers deserve to get paid for their efforts, so I don’t condone piracy (unless it is a really crappy game that u almost bought, but downloaded illegally just to find out it wasn’t worth a cent). With modding comes increased functionality of the crapbox’ hardware, which I kind of like.

  • Tommy Jones

    Look.. Games ARE supposed to be for kids.. BUT What kids can afford to buy a game ever 6 weeks at £40 “THIS IS A STUPID PRICE” And the kids have to have these games. And dont even say were paying for the pirates out there.. if the games a cheaper there would be no need to copy games IN THE FIRST PLACE ..RIGHT!

    DROP THE FCUKING PRICES ON GAMES TO STOP PIRACY

    PS, the original game makers out there only pay 99p per original disc what a huge profit on duplicating there own software. To get this MUCH profit should be against the Law too.

    FACT PIRACY WONT STOP UNTIL PRICES COME DOWN TO ROCK BOTTOM PRICES.
    After all who would want a copy then? to save say 20p when you could have the original.

    .

    • john wenman

      Then games I usually play are certainly not for kids they are firmly adult rated.

    • lemmy

      I want to point out that the reason they raised the prices is because of gamers… They offered special addition game packages for the Xbox for 10$ more than original version to test the market and see if people would pay more for games. Guess what… they did. This is a fact. MS sales department didn’t even try to keep it a secret, they came right out and said it before they launched the 360 when they were announcing the game prices. Word of warning, they are doing it again with these new 10$ more special additions and so is Sony. So the lesson here is DO NOT BUY SPECIAL ADDITIONS if you don’t want game prices to go up that is.

  • http://www.hardcoreware.net/ Carl Nelson

    Price is a really poor excuse for piracy. You can easily buy used games within just a few weeks of release for $10-20 less than the original price. And there are plenty of games on XBLA and PSN to play, if you can’t or don’t want to pay $40 or more for a game. There are even plenty of top-tier 360 games that can be downloaded for $20-30.

    So don’t give that sorry excuse of games costing too much. Not all games cost $60. If you can’t afford to play those ones, there are still many others to play without resorting to stealing.

  • WTF?

    Really, it isn’t. Why do you think the gaming industry has surpassed the music and movie industry when it comes to sales revenue?

    Because they are skinning people, and people accept it mindlessly. In my country, for instance, the normal price of a music cd is $25, a dvd movie about $40 and a game is a bit over $100 (mind you, these are the prices for brand new stuff; it usually drops a bit). But isn’t that ridiculous? And what if the music, movie or game is crap? Total waste, really. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I am quite sure that the average production cost pr. cd/dvd/game is QUITE a bit lower…

    Another funny thing: Two recent surveys show that the ones that download the most pirated music are also the ones that buy the most legal music. Something for people to ponder…

  • WTF?

    And to be frank, anyone who says “pirating is stealing” has got shit for brains. It’s is definitely not stealing; its something else – something illegal. But to say the two are the same is just wrong – I know the music/movie industry has campaigns that try to brand pirating as stealing, but it is not; no matter how you look at it.

    • lemmy

      Another interesting fact… Since the internet and piracy has started in the music industry there have been studies on there profits. Since the surge in piracy there profits have actually gone up. 20%. Why? hmm something to ponder

  • Artis

    I’m agree with it pirating is not stealing, Microsoft doesn’t f*cking care if you are rich or poor they want you buy games at the full price and you know there are so many games which are so stupid and that shit starts from $30 or more for a simple DVD which you can accidently scatch and kill you game because it will not work. So this is bullsh*t, not only flashed consoles are banned but also the not modded. I saw that in some forums. So f*ck Microsoft deep in their as**oles.

  • fcukPS3love360

    for all those who said XBOX 360 is crap..well boohoo to you as*hol*s..to be frank not all people who owned the PS3 and 360 are rich enough to afford 50$ game..so why hate piracy?blame it on china for they are the ones who started it..in most poor countries,piracy is a big miracle for those who want to experience gaming without paying loads of money which is already a living for their family..imagine a 50$ game could be used for their food,transportation,clothes,bills etc..and yes most gamers are children..do you think all children in the world has parents as rich as bill gates??f*ckin* as*hol*s!!M$ should think of that matter too..people are wasting their money buying console and had it modded after it will be banned..

    • Flash

      Well if you put it like that, if they are that poor, then they not mind to be banned just because they cant afford Xbox Live Gold account neither, and they can still play burn games, so everybody wins.

    • lemmy

      2 corrections. Piracy did not start in china. Give me proof that it did if you want me to believe that. 2nd correction recent studies show that the majority of gamers are between 18-28 years old. Seems to coincide with the gaming boom time-frame huh? Please fact check before you introduce your assumptions as fact.

  • SicCMAdE G

    Ok lets start again here, I do not hate piracy for SINGLE PLAYER GAMES!

    As for xbox 360, paying to play on LIVE and my internet connection… F”"K THAT!

    Also with the 360, shitty controller, shitty look, shitty way of putting it together which makes it shitty all together.

    If you pirate something, and get banned, stop crying about it because if you can’t afford to buy games BRAND F”"”KING NEW TRY BUYING SOMETHING USED FOR ONCE! And maybe stop pirating games!

    In my town we have a thing called http://www.usedvictoria.com where we can find almost anything and everything for at least half the price! Aswell as http://www.craigslist.com and http://www.kijiji.com

    Stop all your guys’ crying and bit’ching and save yourself the time of all this madness, and play what you got, and if you care to risk to use piracy for your games, don’t play online if you do not want to risk banning your xbox 360.

    Playstation 3 is obviously a better platform as it is easier to use, slicker looks, and doesn’t fail half as much as xbox 360 does. Plus the controller forms to your hands!

    So keep all your lame comments to yourself because no one wants to hear it anymore!

  • WTF?

    Who is crying because he/she were banned?

  • D

    well before everybody starts the console war i am a huge fan of xbox i se to be til sony started talking shit most dominate and how they arent a computer n shit and turns out they made 1 and biting every other consoles style to get fam but n e ways i think its fucked up you cant play xbox live with burnt games i mean shit we are paying to play right??so we basically bought it its our money we are using to play same thing with playstation nobody is modding etc with it because well it sucks plan and simple but to narrow it all down just go on youtube watch xboxvsps3 console wars and they will show you which is the best there are 12 rounds and i saw 7 so far and sony is only up by 1 but they even said xbox controller was better looking than the playstation do to safety features well basically you cant break the ps3 controller if you dont know how to handle it but shit i was going to mod my xbox but now im just like fuck it is it worth it??idk its probably just a big rumo etc undercover xbox agents trying to scare people well they scared me but i have 2 xboxs so shit ima mod that 1 but dont get me wrong i like the ps3 the graphics and everything is awesome online and everything is fun so dont attack me ps fan boys but xbox…….XBOX is better fuck you haters

  • WTF?

    Well I think you just started the console war right there, lol

  • JRADS

    I don’t think any of you have even a semblance of an idea of what you are talking about. If you download a pirated game or track, or whatever, you have literally robbed the generating parties of the price they are asking for it. Why do you think you have a right to what they have created? Radiohead did indeed allow people to download their album and pay what they thought was right, but that was their prerogative. If there is a game you want, and you want to be legit and honest, you basically have two options…either don’t buy it, or get a job.

    Pirating is at best dishonest and at worst outright stealing…whether you like it or not.

    So, instead of making up little axioms that ease you conscience, like: “Software piracy deals in duplicates, and hence it can’t be stealing,” try exploring other viewpoints. If WTF had taken the time to think through his argument, he may have realized that while pirating does deal in duplicates, that is not what is being stolen. What is being stolen is profit; the money someone is legally entitled to for your use of their product…and that is theft. Whether or not they would have bought it had pirated copies been available does not matter, they have taken something illegally and have not paid the price to have it.

    I loved this little inane comment: “Another funny thing: Two recent surveys show that the ones that download the most pirated music are also the ones that buy the most legal music. Something for people to ponder…” That’s like saying that if I steal a hundred candy bars, I haven’t really stolen them if I buy a hundred more. Or, if I steal three cars, I really haven’t stolen them if I have bought three others.

    Perhaps some of you should spend a little less time pontificating (look it up) online and a little more time reading and thinking. In the world that you envision, where everything is “democratic” which I suspect is a another word for “free”, who would produce anything. Why would crappy bands like Metallica spend the time to release something if everyone was going to have at it without any promise of compensation.

    Oh, and for Puppy Wehtam: Have you ever considered that there are a lot of people who spend 60$ on a game (because they are honest) and don’t hack or mod (because they are honest), but then a lot of rakes, (look it up) like you, hack and mod to the point that that sixty dollars begins to seem more and more like a waste? You talk about being “nice gamers”; but so many little hackers like you mod and hack, and have no problem with it because it gives you an advantage regardless of how it effects someone else. You doubtlessly could care less about being a “nice gamer” if this thought has never entered your more than vacant brain. I mean, there seems to be plenty of space in there, how about you try to squeeze in a little thought. You could start with the realization that other people exist outside of you.

    So, I am sure you will all just keep doing what you are doing, convinced that you have it all figured out, and armed with the rationalization that makes you feel okay about it…but here’s what I want you to consider. It is the honest that make it possible for the dishonest to do what they do. Musicians, video game developers and the like would not produce what you are pirating for those who pay for it. If there were not people paying for it, they would not be making it, and you could not pirate it.

    So, being one who buys his music and games….you are all welcome (and thieves).

  • Gballz

    Random sample’s on this ban btw you can go days or months with out getting your mod xbox360 banned, do the math, xbox 360 arcade is $189.99 online free shipping no tax, 3 xbox 360 games is equal to that price. I’ve had one console banned, sold it on ebay 150$ as is HAHAHA. Second hacked console has been up over 6 months, and I’ve burned well over 30 games for it that work online. Can’t see how microsoft is winning this battle at all?

  • Gballz

    “Carl Nelson
    January 14, 2010 at 10:46 pm | Permalink| Reply

    Price is a really poor excuse for piracy. You can easily buy used games within just a few weeks of release for $10-20 less than the original price. And there are plenty of games on XBLA and PSN to play, if you can’t or don’t want to pay $40 or more for a game. There are even plenty of top-tier 360 games that can be downloaded for $20-30.

    So don’t give that sorry excuse of games costing too much. Not all games cost $60. If you can’t afford to play those ones, there are still many others to play without resorting to stealing.”

    Carl likes going to work all week to give a multi billion dollar corp 1/10 of his weekly pay I guess, whatever makes you feel good, and if this is stealing then stealing feels right.

    I’ve seen articles where the biggest software and video game flops still made 300-400% profit after cost to produce was deducted. A DVD cost around 6 cents America to develop and 95% of the games are produced on graphics engines that already exist. So they are produced for cents on the dollar then sold to consumers for standard price at release… $60.

    So you buy a game that takes you a evening to beat, and everyone agrees it was horrible, it still cost you $60 at release. Now why would someone want to blow $60 on a piece of shit game, when they could just download it and burn it for 1/100th the cost?

    Don’t say morals, because your insane if you think piracy is wrong, When people are split down the middle on the subject. Piracy is karma if anything.

  • JRADS

    It probably comes down to this; I don’t buy very many games. You are probably right about there being a lot of greed in the industry (although even if you use the same engine, you still have a lot of overhead to cover, i.e. programmer salary, etc.), If you want to bring down costs the best way is to stop buying all the crappy little games you can beat in a night. If people stop spending every little penny they earn on video games…and buy, say, one or two games a year, it will force them to lower costs. It is simple mathematics.

    But, it’s still true that the only reason you can download pirated games is because someone else is paying for them, and that’s dishonest. Don’t get me wrong…I don’t think you have committed some kind of travesty that will cause the downfall of civilization, pirating is way down on the list for me, but you still can’t call it honest. It simply is not.

  • WTF?

    Hey JRADS, i have spent time contemplating that viewpoint – piracy is stealing due to loss of expected profit – but the problem is, that this “expected profit” can never be calculated. A lot of pirates wouldn’t have bought the game either way, which this viewpoint don’t take into consideration. So I agree that pirating is in fact stealing (of profit) in situations where the users surely and definitely would have bought the product if that was the only alternative – but I seriously doubt that large parts of this segment would actually do that, even if they had no other ways of accessing the product. Some people only got an xbox in the first place to mod it and play pirated games, and if that wasn’t an option, they wouldn’t have got the machine in the first place.

    And when you commented on my comment regarding the 2 surveys, I think you misunderstood. My purpose was not to justify piracy by saying these people also spend a lot of money, it was to clarify that certain parties – high-end users, cultural elite or what you might like to call them – have a completely different approach. They like to fully know what they will be getting BEFORE buying – which I don’t conceive as a negative. It’s another challenge for “the industry”, but nevertheless one they ought to take very seriously. In other words: The surveys don’t show patterns for pirates’ habits, but rather patterns for evolved consumer habits.

    “Why would crappy bands like Metallica spend the time to release something if everyone was going to have at it without any promise of compensation.” – my point exactly:-) The music industry would be a lot less focused on profit, and more focused on art. History shows that art is a human trait – a desire if you will – that needs to come to expression one way or the other. Some people – maybe even more so in the “art-sector” – are actually driven by other interests than pure profit, and I commend that. For people with talent, there will always be a way of making a living – it was like that 2000 years ago, so why would that change in this day and age where people have more money to spend than ever before?

    And when you say that pirating results in other people paying the price you really haven’t thought it through. You seem intelligent, and truly simple logic might lead to this very direct conclusion, but how can you be sure? How do you know if “the industry” calculates their “expected loses” into the price of each and every product? And furthermore, how would they be able to calculate such an “expected loss” in the first place?

    Anyways, it’s nice with some discussions on this. Lots of people don’t give a rat’s ass, but I see this as one of the focal points for the 21. century. A mastodon of an industry claiming to own art and culture and insisting on using very conservative traditional market-oriented business models. They spend more and more on advertising/record pushing, but the music/movies/games (with some notable exceptions) keep dropping in quality while the prices go up at the same time. And the inherent insisting on branding certain consumer elements as thieves and whatnot instead of trying to adopt to the 21st century way of doing business. Interesting indeed.

  • WTF?

    Hmm on second thought, I am not sure I read your comment correctly (and thus commented wrongly).

    “But, it’s still true that the only reason you can download pirated games is because someone else is paying for them, and that’s dishonest.”

    I now believe that what is meant is that the game only exists in the first place because there was someone there to buy it. Which is probably be true. But I don’t see how it is dishonest, though. I mean, I think a statement like “I pirate games, but I would buy them if the price was half of what it is now” is very honest, whereas the industry’s reply to notions like this is truly dishonest (“We won’t be able to make a living if prices are lower”).

    And btw, piracy would be honest if pirates were free from prosecution:-)

  • JRADS

    Hey WTF, I really probably should apologize for calling you inane…you seem to put a lot more thought into your commentary than I originally gave you credit for. You do have some very valid points, specifically that rather than banging their heads against the wall of the changing economic culture (internet downloads, etc) that companies should adapt, and find more progressive ways to distribute digital media. The overhead that media companies face in generating CDs, DVDs, and video games (aside from the cost of creative production) is very little, and it is absolutely true that media giants such as Microsoft, Sony, Virgin and the like charge far more than they need to in order to turn a profit.

    As to your comment on piracy becoming legal…if it was legal it wouldn’t be piracy which is literally defined as the illegal confiscation of material. Copyright laws have a long track record in American and Western culture and have been sited as a vital part of the social compact…I don’t know if that is true or not. But one thing that is happening that is really interesting is the Gutenberg Project, where books which have no legitimate copyright are being transcribed to the web and to wireless downloading devices by volunteers free of charge. Besides this there have always been various organizations who (like Radiohead) have subsisted through personal “donations” or a subjective charging system. I don’t know if we could get such a system to work in a broader sense…but it would be cool if we could.

    The more I think about it, the more I believe that we are butting up against two solid facts.

    First is that along with the many positive aspects of capitalism, it also has a number of degenerative effects. Namely, it is a system that encourages greed, and very often dishonesty both in the producer and in the consumer. This results in higher prices than is needed and piracy…and then the animosity that exists between both those parties.

    Second is that the relationship between the producer and the consumer boils down to personal choice. Producers could decide to lower costs…but they choose not to. Consumers could decide not to pirate music or games…but they choose not to. I am not saying that anyone will go to hell for pirating digital media. In my book of wrongs, the “piracy” of DVDs, music and games is pretty far down on the list. It is difficult to really find the line between ripping a friends CD and outright theft. But, all I am saying is that if piracy were to run rampant (much more than it is now)…it could collapse the entire media industry, so it is important to be honest with ourselves and with others about what it is we are doing, even if it does seem small and petty.

    And sometimes I like to play devil’s advocate.

  • bla bla bla xbox

    games r too expensive lower the damn prices Microsoft and Sony!!

  • Silver

    I tend to be anti-piracy myself, but people advocating piracy don’t bother me for the following reasons:
    - There are some people who pirate things as a trial and delete them if they’re crap and buy them if they’re good. While illegal, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing, especially when the final product can cost so much.
    - Availability, some games are either not released in a region or are heavily censored. Usually a person can import, but if a game is rarer sometimes it can cost several hundred dollars (particularly older games). I have the money to look for the originals if I’m that interested, but many people do not, and if the game isn’t available at an affordable price, it really isn’t too cool to expect the average person to fork out a small fortune.

    If a game is affordable and a person decides it’s a keeper, then I think they should pay for it, but unfortunately there’s no way of easily enforcing something like that.

  • ,

    who cares about the games EVERYONE ive played against has done something they shouldent have like nuke boosting lag switching modded controllers i actually WANT to sell my xbox for a ps3 atleast then theres less annoying trash talking 8 year olds

  • Brad

    If i download a game onto my xbox and play single player will i still get banned or is it only when you play online

  • sam

    I bought my buds xbox 360 elite, and he had an online for a year on it. can i still use that to get online or do i need to buy a new subscription?

  • sam

    or how can you tell how many months he had left on it? i’m mkeing sure he didn’t screw me , but i don’t want to signed on and be screwed..?

  • WTF?

    New firmware is out for those who haven’t been banned or flagged for banning.

  • Disembowling Gus Bonny

    Lets get this straight playing burnt games is not piracy, there is nothing swashbuckling about burnt games.

  • slaughter

    WTF?, you should look at the definition of stealing from the New Oxford American Dictionary – take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.
    another persons property is the game you pirate, you steal it from the distributer/supplier/developer as you are not buying it from them, and by not purchasing it legally you do not have permission to be in possession or play that software. So you pirates are stealing, not so much the disk but the software on it.

  • WTF?

    I agree to the extend that the original game in it’s box is another person’s (or corporation’s) property, but the duplicate made from the original game does not in any way affect the original game. It is still in that person’s possession. Hence, it cannot be stealing… And following the second leg of your definition, what if I intend to return my duplicate when I am done with it – then I didn’t commit a criminal act, or what?

    Now I am not saying it is legal (nor completely morally viable), I am just saying it is not stealing under these circumstances.

    To comment on JRADS comment, I do know that a musical business like the one we know wouldn’t be able to survive if piracy was completely legal. I have two comments on that: I think if the media industry lowered their prices severely, the moral sentiment for piracy would be completely washed away. And the second thing is, I wouldn’t really mind if the media industry collapsed and had to build up anew, but on a completely different, more open, fair and democratic way.

    Seriously, there is too many $ going into this stuff. A movie like Avatar, for instance. Yes, great effects, but 50 of the world’s all-time top 100 films could have been made on that budget. Do we really need it? Would they really spend all that $ on things like that if they didn’t know they could incite a mass-hysteria, leading to massive profits? Even the censorship – the way they cut out the damn silly sex scene – to make the movie watchable for a wider audience and thus generating a larger income? Is that really a business worth supporting?

  • Hi

    Ok I just bought a flashed xbox 360. I dont understand what that means though? I dont plan on buying moded games becuase I Have all the games I need but Im worried about getting banned. Will you be able to be detected by a modded game or you playing the xbox? As long as im playing legit games im ok right? I got the RROD so this was my last resort a cheap modded xbox.

  • WTF?

    Nope – it’s not the games that get you banned, it’s the mod/firmware. You can get banned even though you only ever had original retail games in the drive.

    If you have a firmware-modded xbox and you are lucky, you can upgrade your firmware to ixtreme LT and connect to Live without any risks; but your xbox might already be flagged for banning, and then it wont matter whether or not you upgrade your firmware.

  • http://www.thirddimensiontattoos.com Brian Murphy

    These games dont come out of thin air alot of people spend months at a time makeing them.Someone has to pay them for what the create if they dont get paid you cant play shit you wouldn’t have no modern warfare ect..

  • daz

    Wtf says it all for me
    listen to this guy he knows …….. can i hear an amen for wtf

  • WTF?

    –> Brian Murphy. True. That’s why I buy quality games like everything Bethesda has to do with, Bioware games, Borderlands, MW1 (not MW2) and the likes when they are reasonably priced. I agree that great games needs supporting – but I don’t let them bleed me dry and pay full retail price. I wait 2-3 months for the prices to drop. To be honest, no game is really worth $125 (yes, that is the standard retail price for brand new games in my country), and no matter what anyone says, I can’t be made to believe that it is a fair price.

    What originally set me off was the article “mildly” suggesting that pirating is a nuisance to regular gamers, which I fail to understand. I do think that there are some great games out there which people invested a lot of hours in making, and I do believe that they deserve to get paid. I would just love to see what every cent went to, as I believe quite a bit ends up with distributors and marketing people – the likes I don’t feel a need to support.

    The entry price of $125 and the way the prices on all games drop following the same trajectory indicates that someone somewhere is knowingly setting the prices too high because they know they can push it some of those fools, that feel inclined to buy everything brand new, no matter what the costs are. Which is a pain in the ass for sensible consumers, as we have to wait months for the prices to drop to a level that actually matches the product’s use-value.

    So I see piracy as a revolutionary act, and not solely as a self-centered act of personal gain. Someone has to challenge “the industry”, and it surely wont be the regular consumers. People are willing to pay anything for 20 hours of entertainment (or how long a videogame may last), and “the industry” in it’s current form rely and capitalize on that.

  • jessica

    @WTF? love how you like to prove everybody wrong… thats how i am. everything you said is true. so i’m not going to fight you on that.

    who cares which console is better its not like if you say the ps3 is better that i’ll switch and hate xbox! calm down people, it’s just a gaming system!!!

    i do however agree that if we paid for a gold membership we shouldn’t be banned cause technically we did buy it in some ways.. well i don’t use pirated games cause i was afraid to mod my xbox and get banned :P

  • Necro

    Can you get banned for just acheivement mods? God I hope not.

  • JAD

    Anytime you take someones ‘art’ and copy it.. youre stealing. Stop trying to justify cheating on any level. This is why things are going downhill in this world..’certain levels of corruption are tolerated’. You cannot rationalize it away. Its wrong, period.

  • WTF?

    Hmm, I think your chain of thought is missing a few links. “It’s wrong, period” – you still fail to explain why? These are nothing but empty postulates.

    You need tighter definitions and a more stringent line of argumentation to have any chance of debating what I – and some others (also a few of those who disagree) – have stated on this forum. Let me ask you this:

    If I draw a copy of Mona Lisa, have I stolen it?

    To follow your argumentation above, it is a definite ‘yes’ – but common sense dictates otherwise, which leads me to ask you what you mean by ‘stealing’? And be precise, please.

    And if I am not going to use reason (ratio), then what am I going to use to solve this problem? Although reason alone might not be the best way to reach the goal, it is surely far superior to mindless repetition of anti-piracy campaigns or to strict and unreflected rules for “right and wrong” dictated (and unchallenged) by a bland general society which – let us not forget – in large parts are motivated by economic interests.

    In short: If you can’t build – or at least attempt to build – a somewhat thorough argumentation, you shouldn’t really comment on other people’s statements (as the comments – due to the total lack of argumentation are more or less worthless).

    • Adam Smith

      WTF, clearly you are a complete fucking idiot. Piracy is stealing and I will explain to you how it is stealing. If you pirate games then you are not just copying a piece of software, you are ripping off the person who created the game as their intellectual property simply because you do not want to pay for it. You are not withholding profits from Microsoft you are withholding well deserved royalty profit to the video game designer themselves. You can substitute Microsoft with record labels and designers with bands if you want. See once a game is made the way you market and get the game out there is by getting the rights to issue the game on the xbox platform which costs money. Then you have to hire a company to market the game to individuals by hiring some sort of marketing entity which also costs money. Pirating contributes no money for these important fees that were invested up front. Since no one knows how a new game will do it must be sold at near the same price as similar products (basic economic theory) in order for the luxury of video games to exist for everyone in the first place. Thus when you copy a game it is stealing because you are taking the intellectual property and undercutting the capitalistic system that has made the US what it is today. Not to mention you a cheap piece of shit who should have noticed before buying your xbox that you would have no money after to pay for games. Get a fucking job.

  • WTF?

    Well – insults aside – I like your comment. However if you flip back a few pages in this thread you will see, that I am totally aware of the production and distributing process. And I agree that piracy might be considered actual theft (of expected profits) under the right circumstances (ie. when a pirate with 100% certainty would have bought the game if it wasn’t available through illegal means).

    To say piracy and theft is one and the same offers – at most – a highly reductionistic view on piracy. A lot of pirates download a game, music, movie or whatever simply because it is available – they often download things they would never dream of buying just to see what it is. I’m not saying that is more or less illegal, but how can you compare that to theft? Whoever produced the item lost neither their product (the game in it’s box on the shelf) nor the profit (as the pirate never intended to buy the item, and would have done without it in case it wasn’t available illegally). So explain to me, how is that “stealing” in the literal sense of the word?

    I agree that whoever spent their time building a good product should be rewarded economically. I don’t agree with your viewpoints on the importance of marketing (I agree that marketing works, and when calculating profits it is probably worth every penny spent). I don’t see why the economic system should fuel the whilst a more autonomous cultural system is perfect for the job. For instance, I know of Beethoven’s music, not because of his heavy marketing budget, but because of his sheer brilliance. Could the same be said of Britney Spears? Is the economic system really the best vehicle for the development of the arts, which is in essence a highly cultural phenomenon?

    “Since no one knows how a new game will do it must be sold at near the same price as similar products (basic economic theory) in order for the luxury of video games to exist for everyone in the first place.” –> This part I don’t get completely. If it is in relation to my comment on entry prices, basic economic theory tend to suggest that you launch your game on an entry price say a penny less than the market rivals to get a marginal advantage in the pursuit of the customer’s $. That is why the capitalistic system favour an open market with full competition because (1) It benefits the consumer and (2) It benefits the market or sector in total as the individual companies will be cost-effective and competitive and thereby strong companies, making for a strong sector/market.

    And on a site note: I am obviously not american. Or rather, I am but I lived all my life in Europe. And surely in the lights of recent events, the (ultra)capitalistic system as we know it should be up for debate. I’m just saying that it might be time to re-think the arts or how we “manufacture cultural items”, as it seems that the capitalistic system in it’s current form is undercutting the arts.

  • Jokersquad

    before anyone calls me a fucking idiot or any insults, no i am not extremely educated on banning and modding and stuff, this is an OPINION.

    Personally, i dont think that modding is as terrible as everyone makes it out to be. what about people who dont mod just to totally pwn every one in a game? like if i were to mod, it would be to get free games. i realize its – well whatever you like to call it- illegal and all that, but how can microsoft justify 60$ for a game? so lets see, it takes however long to come up with the idea(employee wages), it costs to actually make the game ( probably max 5$) and they have to pay part of the profits to comps involved in the creation i.e halo creators pay part profit to bungie.

    so clearly to sell the game for extremely cheap would bankrupt them, but why cant they sell it for say 30 or 40 dollars, and if the game doesnt sell, just smack the guys who came up with it and dont pay them, tell em its their own fault for making a crap game.

    or at least if somebody mods, they shouldnt get there console banned, maybe they should get there profile banned from live, or get the subscription terminated, maybe charge an extra fee to play online, i dunno, but you guys get my point right?

  • WTF?

    I agree. And seriously, who doesn’t dislike M$ for their ultra-competitive way of doing business and constant violations of international trade laws and infringement of consumer rights? When the old xbox was out there was a huge debate whether or not the owners of the console were allowed to open the box and change harddrive for instance – i don’t see why M$ think they have the right to interfere with that, but apparently they think they do.

    There is no denying that the gaming industry is scoring a huge profit. And the production costs are a lot lower than those of the film industry (God of War III for instance – huge production costs for a game, but nothing compared to that of Hollywood blockbusters). In my eyes, there is simply no way of justifying the price of a game (in my country it’s about $100 for a new game, $30 for an album and $40 for a dvd).

    The only way to combat this is piracy, really. It’s sad to say, but as consumers we have absolutely no say because there are a lot of people out there who are willing to pay the price, and the companies know and rely on that. And that goes for music and movies too, unless of course they are on independent labels (and there are very few truly independent labels and film production companies out there).

    However, I do wish there was a way to support the developers/artists directly, as I do think the right people should be rewarded for their hard work. But the way the system is now, it is “all or nothing” – and this is a strategy the industry has chosen single-handed, not something pirates or consumers has asked for. So really, more democracy in the cultural production sector is the way to go – and the industry should have sensed the changes by now. They are fiercely trying to defend their old ways, but there is no way to stop piracy – it’s a growing attitude among ordinary people as well.

    • monnie

      so the only way to play copy game on xbox360 is to stay offline?

  • WTF?

    And another thing about M$: The way they killed off Netscape in the days of yore was really nasty. Their Windows product sucks balls – Vista was a piece of garbage, and they knew it when they released it, promising consumers Windows 7 as the proper solution. I beta-tested Windows 7 for a year, and it was a huge improvement but still miles behind OS X and Ubuntu/Linux. They constantly release below-average products and they survive on the sole fact that they more or less have a monopoly and that consumers don’t have the capacity or resources to reflect on what they are doing and are afraid to change platforms.

    Office on the other hand is really their flagship. It is an extremely good product. They might have other professional business solutions that might be good, but in my experience – besides from Office – their products are always below average. And I actually bought and paid for the Office suite (it’s madly expensive, but a valuable tool).

  • WTF?

    —> Monnie: No, upgrade your firmware to ixtreme LT and you will be fine so far. Say no to any dashboard updates offered by xbox LIVE and stay up-to-date on the modding foras to see if any new bans are occurring and what to do about them. You will be safe as long as you do those 3 things.

  • beastkiller

    the easiest way is to have 1 just for playing online with thats not modded and 1 just for playing offline with that is modded so you get the best of both worlds (admitedly you would have to be able to afford 2 xbox360′s and a mod chip to start with but after that with 1 modded for offline play and 1 for online you can mess around ofline all you want) no updates and no expansions except for store bought ones like gta4 did.

    • Kyle

      That’s what i’m trying to find out. I have like you said 2 xbox’s, one modded and one not for online play. Can i move the harddrive back and forth and the achivements will count when i move it to the online xbox?

  • WTF?

    What would u use a mod chip for? U can easily update ur firmware urself. It is very very easy, it only requires a few components u can get off of ebay, and some files and programmes that are easily available on the net. It’ll cost u maybe $20 altogether or something like that.

    The best thing of all is the jtagged xbox though, but u will never have the option of going on to live on one of those. It offers some pretty nifty homebrew applications though. Check it out – if the xbox was delivered like this from the M$ factory, it would kill off all the competition in one quick sweep. Probably why M$ had a few sites that sold jtag xbox closed this week…

  • PITBULL

    well modding is so great in the gaming industry.. why banned people who is using modded xbox 360 consoles?? what’s the point?? they said modding is bad because it support piracy..yeah maybe its ryt but if u mod ur xbox does it also mod the MS POINTS??? the XBOX LIVE MEMBERSHIP??? i dont think so.. so please stop saying that playing pirated games on XBOX is entirely FREE which is not.. yeah the game is cheper but the membership and all the DLC still cost us modded XBOX 360 users of our POCKETS…

    what about the issue of ORIGINAL GAMES scratching to easy and sometimes after u played it so many times and dosen’t work anymore??

    COMMON BILL U disapointed us ESP. ASIAN VERSION of XBOX 360 by not adding a RF FF13..

    HMMM and what about that FUCKING THREE RED LYTS COMMON BILL. UR A FUCKING DEVIL!!!!!

    • Rage

      You are using THEIR product, if you don’t like the product you look for something else. So you have to pay for DLC? So what? Everyone has. If you don’t like it you don’t buy it, very simple.
      Stop looking for excuses and accept you are responsible for your own ****. Why do you think they wrote Terms of Service? Seriously stop whining or go find another hobby.

      • yoshio tuki

        fuck the theme of xbox 360. im keeping my 360 modded.

      • rickitup

        shut up!! no one is whining. m$ is all about money and nothing else. Look at all the shitting things they put out. yes you say dont use it or go some were else. But i cost to much. So go f*** your self and for the rest of my life i will make M$ lose money by get free xbl and dlc and games. I hate M$

        • James

          Yeah, that’s all they care about… money, hmm, no sht! They want to make money doing what that know and love… i’m guessing you work for free or a hippy-nonprofit ? and are happy making the small paycheck too ? riiight… I work my ass off doing what i love, and I make OK money, but the second i find a way to step on the guys above me in my company to get ahead and an easier & better paying position, i’m gonna do it. then spend that money on games and pron

    • monnie

      what if someone go and modding the xbox360 hard drive to burn or copy the gaame from the computer to the xbox360 hard drive so there know way to get
      modding detected on xbox360 live ?

  • WTF?

    If you have a jtagged xbox, all xbox live DLC is available for free:-)

  • PoptyBreaker

    so i was wandering if i do have a modded system and an online system, and simply swap my harddrive back and forth so my gamer score still increases, my saves count, and i can still get extra stuffs for the games, can M$ find out and ban me while im using my regular system in some legit online game?

  • WTF?

    Don’t know. I don’t care for “gamerscore”, really and I am not sure how swapping harddrives and using the same gamerprofile on two different systems (if at all possible?) affect things.

  • question

    what if got modified xbox 360 and played with original game cd online, am I gonna get banned too ?

  • WTF?

    Yup. Everything modified (unless with iXtreme LT and NO M$ UPDATES) gets banned. It’s paradoxically not the games, but the system that gets you banned…

  • Jay

    what if i just have a case mod? no harddrive mods or chips? please let me know

  • jay4744

    listen all them people that say copied games r stealing i buy my games then copy them then play the copied ones and if you want to play copied games online find the software ms use to copy them im trying to find out but will get bk to u all when i do and do listen to internet to software like copy game monster its bullsh*t iv downloaded it it dont work tw*ts now thats stealing

  • WTF?

    Don’t know about case mods. I don’t think you can get banned for that – firmware and hardware mods (soldering on the motherboard) can get you banned.

    To play copied games (to actually make the disc drive able to read the copied discs) you need a firmware update. You will need a PC with a SATA-card, some different doo-hickeys available through e-bay for about $10, a flasher programme for your PC (free) and new firmware (free too).

    If you just copy your originals and stick ‘em in the drive, it won’t be able to read them.

  • WTF?

    But flashing is VERY easy – requires no soldering

  • player1

    i had a modded xbox 360, just flashed using jungleflasher, that i used to play copies of games. i got caught, so my xbox didnt work online anymore. it sucked. but i heard that the system’s motherboard has a way of knowing it has been tampered with and it basically tells m$ “hey im different” and thats how you would get caught. and it was a sweep kind of thing that m$ did. i have a buddy that stayed offline for a couple weeks and after that he was able to get on with no problem.

  • WTF?

    Your buddy will probably get banned eventually: The thing is, M$ flags you for banning, it doesn’t occur right away. It might happen months after they detected your modded firmware.

    And yes, M$ could detect the modded firmware, because it was very very different from the original firmware. However, a new firmware has been produced that is almost identical to the original M$ firmware, and currently nobody has been banned for using this specific firmware (which is why you should use it, and always say NO to xbox-live updates and wait a few days to see the reactions from the modding community before installing).

  • b

    i had my 360 elite flashed a few weeks ago….so far ive been burning games like crazy and they all work!! happy as hell to..i use verbatim dvd+r dl and burn at 4x…not sure if the disc matters but you never know….also i go on live as a silver member only for the DLC and other downloadables….i have no actual need to play online with my xbox considering i play online free with my ps3…ive only considered the gold membership briefly and only for the last.fm radio station i thought was top notch!….my ps3 has net flix…..my 360 is fully updated also…i dont know maybe its just a matter of time before i get banned..maybe not…i personally think i would be safe considering im not ruining the live community in any way shape or form…i buy my DLC, i buy my arcade games…i dont burn games and play them on my console before they are released….but so far so good

  • WTF?

    As long as u use ixtreme lt and verify each burned disc through abgx and DON’T install any further updates from LIVE, you are alright.

    This banwave occurring in relation to MW2 was due to the extended flashed firmware before LT, which included a security check on the discs used in the drive (because a previous banwave had been hitting people who used discs with minor errors/variations of the original games which M$ detected). The LT firmware has removed ALL stealth checks, so it is up to you to make sure that each disc you use is ok (through abgx), otherwise you will feel the hammer.

    As to not installing updates: The fall/winter 2009 wave happen a little while after a LIVE update had been out – this update was suspected to have a built-in security check, detecting all consoles with modded firmware and then reporting back to the Mother$hip. That is why you are advised NOT to install any further updates, as a similar feature might be included in the future to try and hit the iXtreme LT users. Use the relevant forums and see what “the community” has to say on new updates just to be safe.

    As for fairness: It is M$ we are dealing with here… Even though you can prove to them that you only play backups of games you have bought or even if you can prove that you never even used a backup game, you will find no mercy. Once you are flagged for banning, your life on LIVE is over…

    • B-rad

      ok so i have a modded 360 not sure what firmware but M$ had the new system update April 10th 2010 or whatever the one that lets you hook up usb devices. i could go on live before that but its saying this is required if i update will i get banned ?

  • G

    I love my modded Xbox 360. I can play games before they even come out. I can avoid paying 80 bucks for games that won’t get put into my Xbox much. Instead I can pay 5 bucks. Perfect. Do i give a fuck what microsoft thinks. No. I don’t care if they want the money for the games. They aren’t getting it from me. Unless its a game I know I’ll play lots then I’ll actually pay for it 4 my Online Xbox 360. Thanks for Banning me microsoft, you accomplished jack shit!!!

  • WTF?

    @B-rad. I wouldn’t know – I don’t have an xbox, but I know you can check on the relevant modding forums – there are always discussions when new updates are out. If you wait a while after the update is out, you can “check the temperature” on the fora, and find out if anyone got banned/experienced problems…

    There has been some security wave updates, making things annoying for ppl without iXtreme LT, but as the security check is deactivated, it wont trouble LT-users.

    From my knowledge of M$, nothing will happen for the next while (M$ loses revenue each time, as they make their money on LIVE-subscriptions and not games). If another huge banwave happens again, you can be sure it will be right before or right after the release of a major title (like Modern Warfare 2) or before Christmas to boost Christmas sales.

    In the world of M$, nothing happens unless it is fueled by some specific way of making additional profits – that the fall/winter 2009 wave was to “make life more safe for LIVE users” is complete BS. The way I see it it was due to one of two reasons:

    1. The game developers (i.e. Activision) were pissed off (a lot of ppl were playing MW2 on Activisions servers even before they released the game to the public) and demanded M$ to take action.
    2. To boost Christmas sales of the units themselves. A lot of ppl ran out and bought a new box straight after getting banned (if the wanted to play games totally legit, it is beyond me why they didn’t get the PS3). There is some prestige in being the most selling console at Christmas.

    They could have banned people a lot earlier. They had the information, knew who to hit. But they waited for a moment to satisfy either 1 or 2 above… So be sure, if it happens again, it will be in relation to some special event.

  • b

    thats something i never do….is play games before they are even released…i have alan wake right now but im not touching it until release date…kinda keeps me under the radar i guess…im on live ( gold ) i havent had any problems as of yet

  • Satan

    Point is if u play your flashed or modded 360s online someday u might get banned, play offine and soon the hackers will beat ms. Ms loves money, and will do anything to keep us from cheating them out of money. I do agree that $60 for a game sucks, because half of them are crap. MW2 is a game worth the $60, but most people have to much going on car, phone, rent, girlfriend-wife, kids ect to spend $60 3 times a month on new games, half of which are crap, and this is why we hack our 360s, so we can play free games. So if u go online with a flashed or modded 360 its just a matter of time b4 u get banned, and if u dont get banned your one of the lucky or smart ones. If u play a game on a flashed or modded 360 b4 release date, and your not one of the smart ones your just asking to get banned. Sony couldnt stop one guy from hacking the ps2, all psps, and ps3, so they tried to give him a big cash job at sony to stop hackers and he said hell no, so give the hackers time, and they will find a way around the bans. If u want multiplayer achievements try system linking with another flashed or modded 360. Hackers keep doing what your doing, and all u hacker haters eat one!

  • WTF?

    Interestingly, the PS3 is proving near impossible to hack, even though they left in the option of installing other os’es (like Linux). I think it is because of the encrypted data flow between units inside the CELL CPU. But M$ could learn from them if they really really wanted to make the box unhackable (but apparently, the CELL CPU makes it more difficult for developers to develop games as well, so that might be the reason)

  • b

    in recent PS3 updates…..it eliminates the “install other OS” option, this is a mandatory update also

  • WTF?

    Yeah exactly. There were rumours of a possible exploit, so the “install other OS” has been removed, sadly…

  • ax

    i’m glad i’m reading this before softmodding my xb

  • Zack

    I just had this CRAZY idea, why doesn’t M$ just create their own versions of the mods so they can quit pestering(yes i wrote pestering) people for modding their xbox’s, these aren’t Grade A genius programmers making these mods, but like people who just sort of want extra things, so,,, why doesn’t M$ use it’s grade A genius programmers to make the mods themselves, if it’s been done before, it can’t be that hard.

  • WTF?

    @ax. good. use ixtreme lt firmware, jungleflasher (it has a great and easy step-by-step guide), verify all games you put in the box using abgx and be careful with the official updates and you should be fine on LIVE. It is very very very easy…

  • RAZ

    Im about to buy the 360 Super Elite (FF XIII) does it matter, and where do you download the latest Firmwire for a Lite On Drive

  • Suraj

    So if i get a modded xbox can i play the non-modded games on xbox live than play the modded one’s on my offline account?

  • jawbreaker

    the funny thing is that ms says that when you pirate a game your stealing wich is true but bill gates stole everthing he has today except for ms-dos wich he bought for 50000 dollars from some retarded fucking guy who sold it to him for that price and then gates licensed it to ibm and made hundreds of thousands and then while steve jobs and apple were makin it big with the macintosh with the first graphical user interface he stole that too and made it into windows and the mouse he stole from xerox. fuck off microsoft if u can steal shit to get to were you are with billions of dollars y cant we steal just to save us a couple of bucks and you still make money off the people who buy games your pockets aint hurtin

  • Robbing Hood

    I can’t believe everyone is STILL whinning on about getting banned. The “oh it’s so unfair” mob…. yes it is fair… You accepted the terms M$ offer you the 360 with then you complain when YOU break those terms! If you don’t agree with their terms don’t use their product, go get a PS3 instead! Ban waves being in time for xmas to increase revenue, yep well thats just called protecting your investment and maximising (with an s not a z you yanks!!!) revenue, all companies carry out that practice to some degree. You must be a load of old hippies if that doesn’t make sense. As for pricing M$ got you all hook line and sinker! Paying to play on line FOOLS! Many things in the world would ideally be cheaper to purchase, many of which some of us would love to be able to afford but cannot. Just because I would like a Ferrari 250LM but I don’t have the money for one doesn’t give me the right to go and drive around in one without paying for it.

  • Bogden Krawczuk

    While modding is completley legal why be banned? do you get banned for playing a copied game on it? what happens if you play a legit game with a modded console? will you still get banned?

  • wtf

    Well I guess I am a hippie then – just because M$ does within the rules of the market doesn’t mean it’s in any way sympathetic. I think there are good reasons to protest against that.

    And yes, good games ought to be bought. But what about the crappy ones? And to be fair, what games are worth 65 quid? Especially when you consider the total production cost pr. unit along with the ginormous profit of most gaming companies? A Ferrari has material value – that’s making a huge difference. It can’t be infinitely replicated, so its material value will be – more or less – worth its monetary value.

    And for the record, I don’t own a 360, but if I did I would copy loads of games and then buy the ones I liked when I could get them for a reasonable price (1-6 months after they are published)

    • b

      i refuse to pay for online game play… ridiculous for MS to charge for a service that should and is free on other consoles…so what do i do? i mod my xbox…screw them!!!…..i buy ps3 games i burn 360 games…..if they ban my console for the flash mod screw them more i could care less to play on live for 50/a year……if you idiots wouldnt pay it MS possibly wouldnt try to suck you all dry

  • jusaki

    I currently own a modded Xbox 360 Elite and I have done so far everything you’re not supposed to do (which means the worst things so that you get banned) I haven’t got banned yet but my guess is I’m backlisted already, I haven’t played online I’ve just visited marketplace and updated games with no side effects, besides, I downloaded the latest firmware update right from there; I guess I’m one of the lucky stupid ones, my question’s why didn’t they get me banned already?

  • b

    i go to live marketplace and buy DLC….im not a gold live subscriber though…i havent been banned

    • jusaki

      how long have you been going to live? is your console really hacked?

  • wtf

    Because they ban in waves. Like what happened last year – the gathered up all their info and banned people in one go. I don’t know why they do it like this – perhaps to generate media attention to scare off people, or perhaps they did it because the game developers pressed them to do something. I really don’t know.

    The thing is, they do have the info about LIVE users, so they could just ban people right away whenever the EULA is violated, but for some reason they don’t. Like on Steam or WoW, you never see pirates, because they are acted upon as soon as they are caught logging on to the servers – I fail to see why M$ shouldn’t be able to do the same if they really really wanted it…

  • jusaki

    If that’s the case, there are two possible reasons: either they have a system to ban consoles that is not perfect, or they choose the people they want to ban based on their account activity and the money spent in DLC or any other services; maybe, they just sit down and look for the perfect victim mainly mean people not willing to spend their money.
    has there been any reports of people getting banned at the very moment they sign in for Xbox live? because it seems like M$ is manually picking up people, otherwise I should have been banned at the very second I recovered my gamer tag which I had in the previous console I owned.

  • wtf

    People got “insta-banned” during the wave – even freshly bought & modded consoles got banned the moment they logged on. Rumour has it that up towards 1 million LIVE users got banned (http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/peripherals/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=221601267). And no, they didn’t look for “mean people” LOL, they banned everything that had been firmware modded. Every- and anybody! You survived the fall wave? And just to set the record straight – gamertags wasn’t banned, it was “only” the actual physical consoles…

    Considering that it is 1/20 of the total number of LIVE users, I understand why M$ was hesitant to pull the trigger. And when you consider how it occurred in relation to MW2, I believe M$ did it due to pressure from the game developers, and not because it was something they actually wanted themselves. From my knowledge of M$, $ is all that matters, and a steady income generated from LIVE fees from 1 million users must be hard to give up…

    • jusaki

      I understand the harware is what becomes banned, I’ve read lots of reports on the topic, I personally agree with the idea Microsoft must have been pushet into banning this consoles (which I think were more than 1 million) but certainly it remains in mistery (or maybe it doesn’t $$$$$) the reason they just don’t ban every single console that comes firmware modded, my guess is, next ban wave will come after the release of Halo Reach because no other game after MW2 has been attractive enough to cause M$ to use that “banhammer” of theirs. As I live in Colombia (that means pirates by nature) we are allways afraid of going into xbox LIVE due to the possibility of getting banned as we turn our consoles on do you think we can get banned if we go online these days?

  • killer23

    well now you can play online even if you get banned there is a way to get new kv’s but thats all up to the user to find out how lol ive been doin it for the last 6 months and havent been permanently banned its nice to figure out the ways to screw them as much as they screw us lol

  • flipperindiana

    u guys prolly wont like this but if m$ that big bad company making money and jobs want to stop mods i dont mind it its their right sides if they didnt all multyplayer on the xbox would be **** cause people would use mods to make the game unfair

  • wtf

    Lol I think you are confusing to different types of mods with each other… The “mod” we are talking about is firmware flash which allows you to play burned discs – it has nothing to do with “cheating”… It only does that – mods the disc drive’s firmware so it can read backups.

    If you want to “cheat” you can easily make a lag switch and M$ will never ban you for that. I read about that. And for the record I really don’t mind companies making money and jobs – but M$ does it with a certain lack of ethics and class. That is beyond debate – do a quick search on google if you are in doubt.

  • andrew peters

    what if i have a modded xbox that will play burnt games, but they still haven’t banned me. I’m going to copy a game and just play it offline, if i play another game another time, online, will i still get banned? Or can they not see any history of what i have done offline?

  • robert

    hey liten the best thing to do is to not flash ur xbox and dont buy a jtag and just stick with ofline mods, and for the love of god DONT TAKE A GAME PICTURE OF UR MODDED AVATAR YOU LOOK LIKE A RETARD!!!

  • wtf

    @andrew. yeah, it is not the games, that get you banned. It is the firmware mod – they don’t care what games you use or don’t use. They just care if your box has been tampered with.

    @robert. best thing to do is to get a jtagged xbox for offline games, and a ps3 for playing online for free:-)

  • bb

    so if we are going to play online we just have to buy the original game?
    huh?

  • JC

    You crooks deserve to be banned.

  • b

    crooks? ….hardly

    all my games i own are originals but also keep burned discs for back ups…you want to talk about crooks….point the finger at MS

  • loyd

    it is possible to go online with copy games but you can get banned easierif you havent stealth checked your games

  • notneededtobeknown

    i like the idea of a 1 flashed xbox for offline and a normall one for online but i hate ms rite just coz of vista but in this case ms have nothing to do with copyright thq do ms cant sue you for having a pirated game but thq or the game developer can ms is banning you because your violating the terms of service that of wich i argee with ms but piracy has nothing to do with them i hate it when people mod a game to play online for there advantage and i think that that is when ms should step in but it would like be having a computer game with out a cd key you know uts the only real protection against piracy that xbox 360 games have if they dident ban you from xbox live the only thing stopping you from downloading the games would be bandwidth buying a game lets say saints row 2 NO money goes to ms it just goes to THQ the game developers and case modding case modding is fine aslong as you have nothing electrical (like leds) connected to the power supply or the motherboard your fine so you could put in another power supply and just plug the leds power cable and your xbox power cable into a like double power adapter (its hard to explain lol) and your fine just dont touch anything but the case itsellf your a ok to go online like a good idea would to be for poeple worried about rrod just lay the xbox as spread out as possable then there is little heat before i go off topic the banns are realyy annoying but thats the only way for the gaming industry to make people buy there games think of how much hard work it would be to develop a game if you think that its easy go make a game like gta that is not glichy and go fuck yourseflf coz ur wrong ok before i go off topic again j taging is a awsome way to make use of all of your console like the original xbox with xbmc

  • Guest

    notneededtobeknown @ That’s the worst English I’ve ever read on my entire life.

    Shit happens, play on XBL with a pirated 360 and don’t worry, you’ll be banned in no time.

  • shane

    okai my xbox is chiped.. can i go online if i just play an normall game,not a chipped game or will it still get banned ??

    • Techboywii

      @Shane yes, if you play an original game on a modded consolé you Will be banned

    • banner

      you will stiil got banned

  • BOOTANG KLAN

    free games all the time > xbl .

  • wtf

    @Guest: It’s not that the English is bad, but the text could do with a few commas and full stops. Just a few

  • The guy from the first floor

    Hey there

    Got a question for you:
    My xbox used to be modded/flashed and I was online with it, but never got banned or anything. NOW it isnt modded anymore and I only play original games, though on the same gamertag.

    Is there a possibility that I still can be banned, even though my Xbox is back to its normal “state”, just because I’m still playing on the same gamertag?

    Thanks.

  • Glock 21

    I don’t know who the hatter is that created this blog, but as a matter of fact I have a couple of modded systems all still play online. It doesn’t give me an advantage at all so thinking I’m better for cheating is just absurd! I back up my own games on DL DVD and play them all the time the new firmware is so far advanced it can’t be detected and once Microsoft finds a way to detect it a new stealth patch will be created! I take one system get all of my achievements on my burnt system then pop the HD onto my other system and once I hook to the internet all of my achievements are there so Microsoft didn’t stop anything they just created a temporary speed Bump LOL! I win!! I hope this post doesn’t make the creator of this site take his ball and go home!

    • motabavirus

      If you have a jtag console, you can perform mods that will give you an advantage. If you believe otherwise, you are a fool. And eventually they will catch up with you it’s just a matter of time. Anyone who mods their system and plays it online for an advantage is a P*ssy that can’t perform without it.

  • Altyaur

    Fucking buy the games instead, and support the videogame industry.

    Fucking criminals

  • the modder

    hey looks yalllllllllll free xbox live games is the beast your just pissed off that you cant do it and that your to dumb to get around the damn updates you have to smart smart to no hows to play like l337 M033DeR$ so go whine you little bitch because we gets free xbox games live and ppoints lolllllllllllllllllllzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

    • Hacker1717

      aye chill out on the cussing, no one really wants to read it, the guy that made the blog just posted his opinion. I had a modded 360 as well. But Microsoft is becoming alot smarter (pshhh) lol. I think gamers just need to stop whining or else stay out of the gameing world. Microsoft can’t ban everyone. And like you said company’s will just come out with more patches. SO YOU LITTLE CRY BABY’S STAY OUT OF THE GAMEING WORLD.

  • the modder

    the reason why hes doesn’t turn on voice chat is because he is like 12 and gets made fun of for his bALLS not dropin yet… i bet he is a abortion survivor

  • Sharath

    Should i mod my Xbox .?? is it gud ??
    Do ppl enjoy playing games online ??

  • wtf

    you should mod it, it is good! and I support the videogame-industry by buying those few really good games when they are reasonably priced!

  • Angry Beard

    you people who support the game industry are only half correct. like some of you, i strongly support purchasing games full price when they are deserving. for example, bungie is deserving. i wud never pirate halo. activision is not deserving. i wud pirate cod 5 if i didnt already have it. but infinity ward is deserving, so im not going to pirate their cods. u see what i mean? and come on. all you computer illierates wud instantly say yes if u were offered free video games if u knew how. yes i support stealing. by stealing 60 dollars from microsoft game studios, you are taking back part of the fucking hundred or so dollars that they fucked you out of u by selling u office. if jesus was selling games and u had an opportunity to steal some wud u? hell no. what if hitler was doing the same thing? u wudnt just steal, youd clean him out and steal his wallet and car too. come on down ye lads! the bay waters be warm today! long live the pirate bay with a bottle o’ rum!

  • leon

    question if i have my xbox modded to play pirated games but not install hacks or anything and go onto xbl with an original game will it still get banned?

    • http://downloadsnolimits.webs.com downloadsnolimits.webs.com

      yes you will because it will pick up on the dvd drives firmware/hack
      so evin if you burn and play stealthaly you will b banned its stupid ehh.

  • sebastian

    im sorry but the gme industry isn’t worth supporting anymore

  • Enzo

    hello

    I cant afford to buy xbox games, my friend download them, i just got a new xbox for my birth day, is there a way to chip the new xbox yet? there are some good games out there.

  • help me out here

    i got a modded xbox 360 and i haven’t been online at all since i herd about people being banned form online and i wanted to know if i go online now and only play the original game and not play any more of the copied ones will i get banned?

    • basim

      did u get an answer if soo tell me i have the same question

  • iqhram

    HELP ME to understand…will i get banned if i only play single-player games(which means i never play online) on a modded xbox 360?

    • http://thenavroom.wordpress.com OmegaVesko

      If you never play online, then you aren’t using the LIVE service anyway. SO, it’s safe to say you can play perfectly fine as long as you stay off LIVE. Then again, I’m not sure if you can get banned by browsing the Arcade, etc. My advice would be only to connect to LIVE when you really need to.

  • nash

    well….. my friend just got an xbox 360 . He plays pirated games offline… but if he buys an original game and plays with it online, will he get banned??

    • techboywii

      yes

    • hi

      no my cousin plays both online hasent been banned in 2 years

  • Mark

    I agree that pirating isn’t really illegal. Unless you are trying to make money off of it.I also agree with the prices of games are high that some games are not worth 60 bucks. If you think about it most of the these people in there are interested in about downloading games or they wouldn’t be here and i bet everyone in here has downloaded music like on napster before it got shut down and then people moved to something else. That is the same thing. It’s just a technology change and the industry wasn’t ready to adapt to it so now so they want to call it illegal. I tunes came out and now everyone say its cool because you pay for basically the same thing you did before but now because they are making money off of it. What about back in the day when they released a cd with 1 or 2 good songs on it and you went out and bought the album for the full price wasn’t that a rip off.The gaming industry is going up ever year despite people downloading games. Look at black ops and how many people bought that. If you make a good product people will have no problem paying the money for it but if you don’t then they will just download it. Like nba 2k11 its a ok game but no worth 60 bucks. I am not going to go out and spend that much money on a game but cod black ops yes. They need to lower the prices on new released games that are not worth the price just because new game doesn’t mean it should automatically come out with a 60 dollar price tag. I think street fighter did that or something. It’s the pricing when it comes to games. If nba 2k11 was like 35-40 bucks that would be a easy buy but not 60.You are losing people due to price tag not the pirating. Many people that pirate are not going to go out and buy the game if they didn’t pirate it so they can say that the actually losing millions a year on people downloading games. So the gaming industry needs to stop trying to make the make profit on everything it comes out with if its not worth 60 bucks don’t but a price tag on it and call a good game. If you charge people what it is worth then you will make your money. I think you would rather have 2 people buy a game for 40 bucks then have once person download it because its 60. The people are only going to pay what it is worth so the people have control. Stop releasing over priced games and you will see pirating go down.

    ~Mark

  • jhksd

    mabye you should at at the title BANNED FOR GOOD -!

  • Michelo

    Say i have the new update with the Kienect Ani. and Adv. plus my dashboad is 12611, if i can recall correct, so can i go ahead and play Live with no worries????
    Can someone plz help me here????

  • Wow you are all retarded

    wow… you are all retarded. you won’t get banned for FIRMWARE hacks… MOD CHIPS are obsolete and have been for… 3 years now. firmware hacks are fucking stealthy as shit and you won’t get banned mod chips scream modded. check se7ensins before you go running your chops about how you will get banned when you won’t. it’s like i’m talking to a bunch of 4 year olds. if any of you guys knew the coding behind firmware you would be like holy shit… they could get away with hacking this. and if somehow xbox magically comes up with checks for all 5 different dvd drives… AND all 300 firmwares then holy shit get to the bunker. jesus christ both sides of this argument are retarded… gives modders a bad name. perfect example. my MW2 won’t load all the way. if i get a pirated copy install it to my hdd and run my ORIGINAL then… pop works again that’s what this is for.

    • http://thenavroom.wordpress.com OmegaVesko

      Wow, imagine that, what a genius! Do you really think you’re better than the rest of us just because you can flash custom firmware? I’ve been soft-modding Wiis for years and I know all too well that a softmod is virtually undetectable, especially if done right.

  • help

    hi plz help i i bought the new xbox slim and played pirated games offline and then played online using original games will i get banded?
    P.S i heared the xbox doesnt need to be chipped to play pirated games is that right the shops told me that

  • Never U Mind

    I dnt get coppied games i wanna save my original disks so i dnt have 2 buy more than one an wanna b able 2 play the copy and over work than sob, instead of destroying the original an havin 2 pay another 50Quid to buy a new one. so i aint no thief i just dnt wanna spend a fortune on replacing them im sure most ppl would want this too.

  • Aramelia Gothik

    Hi I would just like to know if you can join an invite only party, without getting an invite, with these hacked xboxes.

    ps I do NOT have one, was just having some trouble with someone else.

    thx

  • Cheeto

    Hahaha sux for you man you shoulda flashed your 360s dvd drive with the latest Ixtreme LT then you would of been fine ….but i guess you could alway just change the ip, subnet mask then go back and get banned again (changing xbox 360 IP is possible but only by experienced modder which obviously this guy isnt) Microsoft would let you do it all if it wasnt for the fact that it makes them absolutly no profit infact it takes away their bussiness because mods make it easier to get games (free) and its MODDING your 360 not HACKING it …i mean technicaly you are hacking it but in the utmost truth you realy arent hacking it at all its not done over the web you dont even FTP it most 360 modding is not similar to hacking at all …JUST THOUGHT ID CLEAR THAT UP ………….it got on my nerves its like how people say that racist people are ignorant they may not be but if they are it makes it so much worse *though the same is true reversed except that its worst to the point of perpously doin it …….

  • http://www.xbox.com Microsoft Xbox Live Support

    I have just detected all of your ip addresses and I will ban your consoles so you can’t turn them on.

    Goodbye, Xbox Support, happy to help :)

  • SAmmy

    for the Microsoft Xbox Live Support guy , go FU** yourself.
    So , if we regular ppl , make 10 dollars an hour or less with the economy going downwards theses days , cant afford a 60 dollars + the fu**ing taxes DVD , what should we do? … if they sell the games @ a reasonable price 30 25 new maybe , I d be more than happy to buy 2-3 games a month , but seriously what is this sh*t?
    God I miss thoses nintendo days…

  • hi

    Well,its diffrente here in mexico people use chips on there xbox because games here cost twice waht they cost in the U.S. if you tell me microsoft will get rich if they accepte pirtade games 1-because the are cheap to make 2- in mexico pirted games cost $3.they could get up to $2 for every game they sell and every day thousands of pirtade games are sold.

  • http://nickster99.deviantart.com/ Nvzman

    Wow… I think the internet has struck back. Can anybody turn their consoles on anymore? ‘Cause I don’t hack, plus I don’t even own a 360: my nearby relative does, though.

  • b

    and still playing burned games…fine…daily

  • anonymoose

    this is stupid….so people who pay money for their consoles can’t unlock their true potential because their account gets banned? I payed money for my xbox and I can’t even use it the way I want?

    I don’t pirate games, I hack consoles for firmware and other legal software to upgrade my console and make it better then it was originally intended.

    it’s stupid to ban people who have hacked xbox’s and do no harm to the industry by running just homebrew on their consoles. it’s also wrong to ban people who do no harm to XboxLIVE and never use cheats or exploits or anything.

    also both sides of the arguement I’ve seen so far are:

    - moral idiots who think all hackers pirate (but reading these comments I can see why)

    - pirates trying to justify why they steal games…which gives us homebrew users a bad name :/

    in the end

    go f*** yourself microsoft…seriously banning all who use hacked consoles…even if they do nothing wrong…you’re so smart to identify hackers using our drives? why not use that effort to ban people who actually DESERVE it…like those who use hacks online and play pirated copies…I should be able to enjoy a hacked xbox playing LEGAL homebrew…this is bullcrap…now I see why Playstation 3 is the favorite around my neighborhood :/

  • Xeno Templar

    WOW! I love how into this you all get, its just a debate, stop acting like your lives depend on people agreeing with you, damn!
    1st: Yes, mod chips are a definite ban, thats the worst way to go, get a mod chip & all your doing is begging MS to catch & ban you!
    2nd: Yes, the firmware hack is undetectable, TO AN EXTENT!
    MS is always updating “Ban Hammer” so regardless of which DVD-drive you have, theres three that MS used for the 360s, you will only get away with it for so long.
    One day, regardless of how long it may be before then, we will all be caught & banned or we would have moved on to the next generation console wars, so just drop this stupid arguement!
    Recap:
    Mod chip = ASKING to be banned!
    Firmware hack = ALMOST undetectable, for the time being, anyways!

    Xeno Templar

  • big daddy

    your all stupid …. i have a modded xbox360 i have burned games but i have looked up the fed laws.. i own the game i have burned.. its my legal right to do this… i have flashed my xbox because it wont read my legal back p copys.. under fed law if you own any type of media holder cd dvd vhs yadda yadda yadda you may make one copy as long as you dont sell it your good to go.. and as for flashing my xbox.. MS needs to wake up apple got into trouble for bricking jail broken and unlocked iphones… i bought the xbox outright i pay for xbox live.. i dont run modded games where i can cheat.. i just dont want to play a disk worht 60 bucks and one tiny blemish and poof all gone… MS can infact kiss my ass if they ban me i will get it un bannend.. yes i clicked that i agree button but as we all know all contracts have loop holes

  • Whoknowsme

    I absolutely hate paying $60 per game BUT stealing is NEVER the answer! I just buy used games from Amazon/Gamestop…. Also F*** you Pirates and get a job and buy your games legally; Pirates ruin the fun for people who want hack for themes and user customizations.

  • john

    i have a mod xbox…will i get banned if i download demo or just browsing the arcade?

  • john

    LOL ok ive been looking at this entire thing i mean i agree with that guy about the itunes and shiz but really look at it. Only people who dont have A Moded Xbox think this i mean people get pissed because they tired of the high priced games? i mean i used to have to turn in all my fuking games into game stop and get credits and pull money out of my pocket for a new game. And i mean u know whats nice about a moded X-Box when ur lazy and ur playing cod Black ops and u hit ur foot knocks over x box Big ass ring on your Cod Game 0_0 u say wtf and start to be pissed. Then u have to save ur money up and shiz ALL OVER. lol ok well i think u get the point moded xbox isnt all that bad yes the nerds that are convinced that its a bad thing. because umm if u notice HALF OF THEM ARE RICH thats why they dont buy itunes. i mean really some people arent as fuking rich haha i like Moded Xbox because games are Free and i am a happy camper and if u dont like moded games then dont read this entire blog go on live u nerd. :] what a nice subject that started from being banned haha :]

    • john

      lol i meant to say THEY BUY ITUNES lol who does that anymore? haha Frostwire and shit is out not Even itunes for games :] JAIL BREAK THAT SH!T

  • http://www.basitsoft.jimdo.com life_style_333

    I keep my xbox connected to my network and even use xbox live features, (not gameplay, but for updates, downloading demos, etc). so my console still get ban….plz help….

  • rowan

    i have bought a xbox from my friend ( modded system ) and i can still play online with all kinds of games even black ops and all the new games so am i very lucky that im not banned yet or is my firmware owning those microsoft guys ??

  • Wolfie

    i just dig gaming and you people are bitching about rules.normal people listen to the law

  • Xeno Templar

    I’ve been firmware hacked for just over a year now & just about 2 weeks ago, my friend who hacked my console for me, came to my house & told me he needs to take my console overnight to update the iExtreme firmware, I’ve been going online since the very 1st time he hacked it whether it be for DLC, Arcade games or even mplayer games & nothing has hapened yet. I have, however, been having quite a few disc-read errors & the same friend said I may be caught & banned cause, after so many disc-read errors, MS’s server(s) will red-flag me & the next time I log on, they’ll do a scan of my software & may very well catch it, even though it’s up-to-date w/ the undetectable hack, I just tell him, whatever, if it happens, it happens, I don’t really care, I don’t pirate nor cheat, I had him hack it for me for the mods but come to find out that there really isn’t any mods you can do to the System settings, pretty much a waste now but, like I said, if I’m banned then so be it!

    Xeno Templar

  • thesmarterone

    Fuck it, be smart, save time and trouble, mod and play on pc with a xbox controller, play xbl legit on xbox. winwin.

  • conor callan

    i was hacked 2day on cod five i got -234567893456 xp and went from rank 52 to rank 1 and im not alloowed to play online somebody comment back quick

  • sasakuya

    i have a moded xbox 360….and my problem is the console cannot detect the usb drive from the System Setting. I prefer to update my console offline. Am i able to play copy games after i update my xbox 360?

  • kid person

    ok, so i am modding with a usb on a non online match but im still signed in to xbl….is there any chance they will ban me?

  • jeremy

    haha wow. well i need a better flashdrive to mod but i have done it before. it is sooo much better than the original gaming experience. so all of you little pansies that think modding is wrong can go suck a fat one. if you would mod your console..you would freakin’ love it. i promise that you would. so dont go around saying how modding is bad and people shouldnt do it until you try it out yourself. btw i need a mw2 tenth lobby since my flashdrive broke so i was wondering if anybody could hook me up with a free one. add me on xbox live. Gamertag= XxJxAxYx23xX

  • http://yahoo.com gab

    umm. i wanna hak rdr cuz im pissed and i want a free xbox live and sum free stuff.

  • hakers2011

    acuttaly your all wrong lol were are an independent body of hackers that have hacked played online games etc , on the xbox360 wich is modded,microsoft aint got a chance , we have desinged a chip that you can switch on and off and allows you to go online without detection also we have uplodaed new software and it allows the system to retuen as normal, E.G. on a pc the operateing system e.g. vista windows home etc ,when you go online it to update the micro surevers can detect if the opreateing system is original of fake there for it sends a a packed to your system telling it its fake , the xbox 360 has a system the same as a pc …ip config .. pacs .. and also tree .. for thos who know what were on about ..we have currently upgraded systems for people in uk.and now they play online without a problem,the system allows them to register online and it behaves just like a normal xbox .. sorry to dissapoint micro ,the bubble has been burst,also were working on a new system on the xbox to play any games even the old xbox .. more update laterz , hope its helped …

  • bobbytim

    well Ive been on xbox live for the longest with out getting kicked off almost everyday the reason why i download them is because some of the games that come out or not even worth 60 bucks and if you play games like i play them youll end up beating them the same day you get them to the people that talk trash about it i feel sorry for u spending all your money on bs and even if Xbox shuts us out xboxs are like 100 bucks for the pawn shop now and you can mod it yourself and save money you’ll spend almost 500 bucks on games in a year to
    my 0 do the math and someone said support Microsoft how bout they support us and and give us xbl for free like ps3

  • Ninjhetto

    I would like to be able to mod games if they are in single player only and have nothing to do with achievements or trophies. Online modding is wrong though. You have players who do play for real with real skill and hard work. Nobody wants to play basketball and lose if they dribble with their hands while others can carry. If there was a game console that would separate modded online matches (on purpose) from the professional ones, that would be cool. A system where it’s treated like a PC (after all, all three systems supports a keyboard and you can use the mouse for the PS3′s internet browser; so why not games?) that allows mods, but would have different modes depending on the “mod attachment” being placed or something. For example, the MA (mod attachment) would allow you to only play with other players with MAs and turns off the achievements and trophies, but with it removed, achievements/trophies are turned back on and you can play with those without MAs. Just and idea, because I want a gaming PC, preferably a laptop, but they cost WAY too much and the hardware my become obsolete after a few months or a year. Sucks that money ruins great ideas.

  • jarek

    i think, and this is my opinion that online players should be allowed to mod offline but only mod online if your just going to play fair or with other modders. they should have a thing where others players compete for best mod. and Microsofte should have a personal server made just for modders.

  • Chad

    I was sold an xbox that could read copied games…that I didn’t know…but can I still play on xbox live if I bought a legit game on (eg.) amazon or will the xbox still be banned?

  • cxvdrtret

    just have 2 xbox 1 hacked to play off line and the other to play online buy only games you really want to play online and get all single player games bootlegged =)


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