360 Banhammer Has Started.

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aznknife

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Anyways, yup its true! I loaded up my modded 360 to play some Mass Effect around 4:40AM today, and its weird that I cant get into live, so I login to my Elite, and it works. So I test connection and get the error code "Z Code' 8015-190D" which I recognize as the error code you get when your console is banned from live. So I go on my computer, and into the IRC at Xbox-Scene, and the place is swarmming from the recent ban-wave. From what I found out, all the drives got banned.

Oh yeah my 360 had this drive Samsung (iXtreme 1.2)

Drives That Got Banned :rolleyes:

Toshiba-Samsung
Hitachi-LG
BenQ (Newest One)
(These are all the drvies that exist from my knowledge)

The drives were banned with both Xtreme and even the newer iXtreme firmwares.
 
What do you have to do to get a third party HDD to work? If it's nothing internal, MS can sucks my balls for banning people because of a hard drive.
 
Great news, as the only reason to have a hacked DVD drive is to play copied games.
 
Rocketpig said:
If it's nothing internal, MS can sucks my balls for banning people because of a hard drive.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it isn't. You're allowed to hook up external USB hard drives to the Xbox 360, to use for music, movie, picture storage. I'm pretty sure this is all about modded consoles, and optical drives.
 
ClearM4 said:
Great news, as the only reason to have a hacked DVD drive is to play copied games.
Click to expand...

I guess one can make the argument that they want a quieter DVD drive... I see people bitch all the time that it is too noisy. I don't have that problem, however.
 
Not optical drives? Its the whole system if you get this error code, you can never go on live again :eek:.
 
As long as these people aren't surprised it happened. I mean, seriously, you f*cking knew it was coming.

I guess the op deserves some kudos for not throwing a complete hissy fit though. Take it like a man.
 
every1 who has hacked the firmware on their 360 deserves to be banned.

Effing pirates.
 
To OP, so now that your 360 is banned from live. Are you willing to purchase another 360?
 
Saw this coming... and it'll happen again and again and again. No such thing as an undetectable hack.
 
From what i've read, it's the same as before. MS is not detecting the flashed firmware's, they are detecting that a backed up game has been played. So yeah, if you are pirating games and get your console banned, consider yourself lucky. You are stealing whatever the game costs on a shelf. you could be prosecuted. They have all the info they need through the live account used to connect.

I would have somewhat of a problem with MS if they were banning based on firmware because it's the only way you can switch the drive yourself if it goes south outside of warranty. But banning for backed up games should be expected.
 
4saken said:
every1 who has hacked the firmware on their 360 deserves to be banned.

Effing pirates.
Click to expand...

its not firmware scouting, its looking for inconsistencies in data (due to copies being bad. so yes, all of you have earned your bans.
 
Although I believe that game pirates deserve the bands, MS should also step up to the plate and start manufacturing quieter consoles, because there ARE people out there who mod their 360's soley because their stock optical drive is awful.
 
Sorry, I disagree with this. Strongly. Even if you are pirating, its an asinine idea that an entire console should be bricked because of it. Come on, everyone. If you try to play an illegal copy on the PC, what happens? You get a nice little "Please insert CD" or "Key invalid" message. The game servers don't permanently ban your MAC address, so even if you were to buy the same title later, it wouldn't work. It certainly doesn't prevent you from playing your other legit games online?

I've been against these bannings from the beginning. Below is something I wrote on Digg this morning:

I do think its really shitty that bans are permabans. Which one of these sounds like a better business strategy: 1) Player alters his firmware and goes online with a copied game. It "works" for the meantime, but is logged and flagged for a later date. Sometime later, player logs on to find out he's banned, gets pissed and either pirates every game available now to play offline out of spite, or tries to offload his 360 on someone else as he can't play online anymore, thus not buying any more games. Either way, once you ban someone's $300-400 console, they are NOT going to be happy with you. 2) Player goes online with a copied game and gets a friendly message that says "Hi, we noticed your game is not legit, and because of this you can't play it here. We'd love for you to come back once you bought it though" and a simple disconnect from Live, ONLY for that title. If player has 100 legit games, he would still be able to play all of them online. So Player goes and buys the game, gets back online, his little adventure into piracy becomes an "Oh well, guess it won't work" moment, and from now pays for games he wants to play online. Why in the name of Mr. T's Mohawk would anyone ever think the first is a better plan than the second?
 
Xaeos said:
or tries to offload his 360 on someone else as he can't play online anymore, thus not buying any more games.
Click to expand...
You have a point, but I've seen so many pirates today talking about going out and buying another 360 that I have to believe there's some merit to what they're doing.
 
They just ban your console from live but your X360 still plays games ? I know satellite companies can "fry" scrambler boxes that receive unauthorized signals and they'll no longer work until properly unlocked.
 
So you are okay if you are playing legit games? Reason why I would consider modding an xbox 360 (which is perfectly legal where I live) is to buy imports which are substantially cheaper.
 
Xaeos said:
Sorry, I disagree with this. Strongly. Even if you are pirating, its an asinine idea that an entire console should be bricked because of it. Come on, everyone. If you try to play an illegal copy on the PC, what happens? You get a nice little "Please insert CD" or "Key invalid" message. The game servers don't permanently ban your MAC address, so even if you were to buy the same title later, it wouldn't work. It certainly doesn't prevent you from playing your other legit games online?

I've been against these bannings from the beginning. Below is something I wrote on Digg this morning:

I do think its really shitty that bans are permabans. Which one of these sounds like a better business strategy: 1) Player alters his firmware and goes online with a copied game. It "works" for the meantime, but is logged and flagged for a later date. Sometime later, player logs on to find out he's banned, gets pissed and either pirates every game available now to play offline out of spite, or tries to offload his 360 on someone else as he can't play online anymore, thus not buying any more games. Either way, once you ban someone's $300-400 console, they are NOT going to be happy with you. 2) Player goes online with a copied game and gets a friendly message that says "Hi, we noticed your game is not legit, and because of this you can't play it here. We'd love for you to come back once you bought it though" and a simple disconnect from Live, ONLY for that title. If player has 100 legit games, he would still be able to play all of them online. So Player goes and buys the game, gets back online, his little adventure into piracy becomes an "Oh well, guess it won't work" moment, and from now pays for games he wants to play online. Why in the name of Mr. T's Mohawk would anyone ever think the first is a better plan than the second?
Click to expand...

You agree to the terms of agreement for xbox live, what do you expect them to do? It's just like running a pirated copy of windows, don't expect to get updates for it. Think about it, they aren't making money on the hardware, they're making some on selling the live service, but most of the money is from selling games. When people are illegally making copies of games, then they're cutting into their revenue and violating the terms of agreement for the live service, so they get banned.
 
defiant007 said:
So you are okay if you are playing legit games? Reason why I would consider modding an xbox 360 (which is perfectly legal where I live) is to buy imports which are substantially cheaper.
Click to expand...

From what I can tell, this is true. If you mod you box but play retail games only, you're pretty much ok (but don't hold me to this). Which may sound dumb, but there are 2 good reasons to do this:
1) Replace the busted drive in your out of warranty 360 with a new one, copying over the key from your old drive.
2) Slowing down the drive to make it much quieter (it's a huge difference).

But in your case, modding a 360 won't let you play region locked games. Besides, a large majority of 360 games are region free anyway, so you don't need anything special to play them on any 360. Just check the games ay play-asia.com, they usually list what region(s) the games work in.
 
ND40oz said:
You agree to the terms of agreement for xbox live, what do you expect them to do? It's just like running a pirated copy of windows, don't expect to get updates for it. Think about it, they aren't making money on the hardware, they're making some on selling the live service, but most of the money is from selling games. When people are illegally making copies of games, then they're cutting into their revenue and violating the terms of agreement for the live service, so they get banned.
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Right, don't expect to play online with that particular pirated copy of a game. Why create a negative incentive to purchase further games by ensuring that the ban is permanent and locked to the system?

In the PC world, lets face it, a lot of people download and play games. However, most pirated copies will not work in conventional online play for a variety of reasons. Yes there are ways to subvert this, but its considerably more effort than 99% of pirates are willing to go through. With this in mind, many people download a game and play it in an offline mode, only to say "Yeah, its good enough to buy" to play online. Then when they enter their legit CD key, they have access to everything.

What the 360 bans do is prevent people from ever "changing" or "rectifying" their mistakes. The pirate who just wants to play offline, will still continue to use copies. It won't affect them, and they sure as hell will not buy games anymore. The people who still buy at least some games, will now no longer be able to make full use of any they purchase, and even those that were purchased before the incident.

Its all well and good to tell copied games to get off your network, but its ridiculous from both a business and customer service sense to ban systems. It keeps (most) people from ever buying games again.

Those who are willing to shell out $300-400 again after they get banned are either very rich or very foolish, and I don't think that many people can afford to do this, especially on a regular basis.
 
Xaeos said:
Right, don't expect to play online with that particular pirated copy of a game. Why create a negative incentive to purchase further games by ensuring that the ban is permanent and locked to the system?

In the PC world, lets face it, a lot of people download and play games. However, most pirated copies will not work in conventional online play for a variety of reasons. Yes there are ways to subvert this, but its considerably more effort than 99% of pirates are willing to go through. With this in mind, many people download a game and play it in an offline mode, only to say "Yeah, its good enough to buy" to play online. Then when they enter their legit CD key, they have access to everything.

What the 360 bans do is prevent people from ever "changing" or "rectifying" their mistakes. The pirate who just wants to play offline, will still continue to use copies. It won't affect them, and they sure as hell will not buy games anymore. The people who still buy at least some games, will now no longer be able to make full use of any they purchase, and even those that were purchased before the incident.

Its all well and good to tell copied games to get off your network, but its ridiculous from both a business and customer service sense to ban systems. It keeps (most) people from ever buying games again.

Those who are willing to shell out $300-400 again after they get banned are either very rich or very foolish, and I don't think that many people can afford to do this, especially on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

Dude you lost your brain somewhere with both of your posts. If you can afford a $400 system you can afford the games or you shouldn't have bought it in the first fucking place. The morons can still play their games offline anyway so you're totally contradicting yourself with this entire post. They are stealing and you think MS should just say ok, just don't do it again? Get real.
 
Focker said:
Dude you lost your brain somewhere with both of your posts. If you can afford a $400 system you can afford the games or you shouldn't have bought it in the first fucking place. The morons can still play their games offline anyway so you're totally contradicting yourself with this entire post. They are stealing and you think MS should just say ok, just don't do it again? Get real.
Click to expand...

I'm not debating over whether they should have bought it in the first place, I'm debating if the punishment fits the crime. If you got caught shoplifting, you would expect a fine, and perhaps some community service, would you not? 25 years in prison, or the death penalty would certainly be overkill for the crime. The same is true here. Losing the use and resale value of your $400 system, plus however many legit games you have, is not a suitable punishment for pirating one title. Taking a copied PC game online doesn't permanently ban you from that game's servers - you are simply turned away until you come back with a legit version. The 360 is even worse in that its not simply a ban from one title's servers, but for those for all the games you have, past and present.

What I think you are forgetting is that the "morons" here come in different categories. There are some people who download all their games, never intend to play online, and thus being banned doesn't affect them. However, there is what I assume to be a much larger group of players out there that do wish to participate in Live, and play online. These are the players I think you're forgetting about.

By outright banning systems, you're preventing these players who would normally buy SOME games from buying ANY games. What happens if these "half-morons" don't buy any games? Then Microsoft and the developers make no money from these patrons.

Thus, these permanent, system-centric bans are..
1. Bad for the partial customer/partial pirate - They don't get to play their legit copies and have no incentive to buy new legit ones.
2. Bad for Microsoft and game devs - They will lose the customer base from category 1
3. Ineffective on "full time" pirates - They have no incentive to buy legit games at all.

Seems like its bad for everyone involved, huh?
 
Xaeos said:
I'm not debating over whether they should have bought it in the first place, I'm debating if the punishment fits the crime. If you got caught shoplifting, you would expect a fine, and perhaps some community service, would you not? 25 years in prison, or the death penalty would certainly be overkill for the crime. The same is true here. Losing the use and resale value of your $400 system, plus however many legit games you have, is not a suitable punishment for pirating one title. Taking a copied PC game online doesn't permanently ban you from that game's servers - you are simply turned away until you come back with a legit version. The 360 is even worse in that its not simply a ban from one title's servers, but for those for all the games you have, past and present.

What I think you are forgetting is that the "morons" here come in different categories. There are some people who download all their games, never intend to play online, and thus being banned doesn't affect them. However, there is what I assume to be a much larger group of players out there that do wish to participate in Live, and play online. These are the players I think you're forgetting about.

By outright banning systems, you're preventing these players who would normally buy SOME games from buying ANY games. What happens if these "half-morons" don't buy any games? Then Microsoft and the developers make no money from these patrons.

Thus, these permanent, system-centric bans are..
1. Bad for the partial customer/partial pirate - They don't get to play their legit copies and have no incentive to buy new legit ones.
2. Bad for Microsoft and game devs - They will lose the customer base from category 1
3. Ineffective on "full time" pirates - They have no incentive to buy legit games at all.

Seems like its bad for everyone involved, huh?
Click to expand...

If you're pirating one game, then you are potentially pirating all of them. So instead of letting the pirater continue to use live, they get cut off. The don't lose any revenue and they prevent a pirater from using their service. You're refering to potential revenue, potentially they'll never buy another game and pirate all future games as well...
 
Xaeos said:
I'm not debating over whether they should have bought it in the first place, I'm debating if the punishment fits the crime. If you got caught shoplifting, you would expect a fine, and perhaps some community service, would you not? 25 years in prison, or the death penalty would certainly be overkill for the crime. The same is true here. Losing the use and resale value of your $400 system, plus however many legit games you have, is not a suitable punishment for pirating one title. Taking a copied PC game online doesn't permanently ban you from that game's servers - you are simply turned away until you come back with a legit version. The 360 is even worse in that its not simply a ban from one title's servers, but for those for all the games you have, past and present.

What I think you are forgetting is that the "morons" here come in different categories. There are some people who download all their games, never intend to play online, and thus being banned doesn't affect them. However, there is what I assume to be a much larger group of players out there that do wish to participate in Live, and play online. These are the players I think you're forgetting about.

By outright banning systems, you're preventing these players who would normally buy SOME games from buying ANY games. What happens if these "half-morons" don't buy any games? Then Microsoft and the developers make no money from these patrons.

Thus, these permanent, system-centric bans are..
1. Bad for the partial customer/partial pirate - They don't get to play their legit copies and have no incentive to buy new legit ones.
2. Bad for Microsoft and game devs - They will lose the customer base from category 1
3. Ineffective on "full time" pirates - They have no incentive to buy legit games at all.

Seems like its bad for everyone involved, huh?
Click to expand...

I would say stop while you're ahead, but you've never been close to being ahead. Are you seriously saying MS should be thinking it's ok for people to steal multiple games valued at $60 per game as long as they plan to buy the occasional game to play on Live? These guys do not go through all of the trouble to research and buy and mod a $400 360 to just steal "some" games. Use your head. The more I think about this the more I'm thinking you're one of those who modded your box and you're desperately trying to rationalize it somehow.
 
Focker said:
I would say stop while you're ahead, but you've never been close to being ahead. Are you seriously saying MS should be thinking it's ok for people to steal multiple games valued at $60 per game as long as they plan to buy the occasional game to play on Live? These guys do not go through all of the trouble to research and buy and mod a $400 360 to just steal "some" games. Use your head. The more I think about this the more I'm thinking you're one of those who modded your box and you're desperately trying to rationalize it somehow.
Click to expand...

Your ad hominid attacks really aren't helping your case, you know :D Anyway, as a previous post said, we are talking about potential revenue here. After all, when any company cites "losses" from piracy, they are abstract "potential" losses. The reason the crime is legally called "copyright infringement" and not "stealing/theft" is because nobody is deprived of an item. If I run down to GameStop and take X off the shelf, there is one less game available for sale. If I download a version of X instead, it is quite simply, a copy. Doing so doesn't prevent the reseller from selling their merchandise.

Now I imagine you're fuming with something like "If you download it, you won't buy it, dumbass" brewing around in that head of yours, right? Well, possibly. However who's to say I would buy it if I couldn't download it? Maybe I don't have the money, maybe I don't care enough about the game to be worth the $60, maybe I'm just too lazy to go down to the store. Think of it as the "Here, have a drink" theory. You walk into a bar and notice they have $12 martinis. There's X% chance that you'll buy one and drink it. Now, go into the same bar and the pretty bartender gives you the $12 martini for free. There's Y% chance that you'll drink this one. I can guarantee that Y > X.

The point is, that it is a fallacious argument to assume that every pirated copy is a loss to the company. It was flawed when the MPAA and RIAA used it, and its still flawed today.

Thus, we're back to dealing in potential losses and gains. Piracy is unavoidable. You said yourself that the morons who play offline will continue to do so. You say people don't just "steal some games" and buy others. I'm afraid I can't make it any more plain here than to say you're wrong. Look at my previous argument about the PC world. People pirate all the time, and then decide to purchase if there is content that's advantageous to do so (Ie. Multiplayer etc..).

Every pirated download is not a loss of revenue, but every purchased game IS a gain. Thus, why piss off your customer base so they have no incentive buy any more games? Its shooting yourself in the foot, financially. Why is this such a difficult concept?

Please note I am not arguing the ethics of piracy and if you believe that its worth practically taking their 360's function away from them in punishment, then I'm not going to try to change your mind. We simply disagree here in principle. But from a financial standpoint, it sounds to be a mistake.

And for your information I don't even have an Xbox360. I simply feel strongly about what I perceive to be an unfair treatment of consumers, that is also bad business.
 
All this does is flood the used market with bricks. People who really want to pirate will get as much as they can and move on to the next console.
 
Xaeos said:
Your ad hominid attacks really aren't helping your case, you know :D Anyway, as a previous post said, we are talking about potential revenue here. After all, when any company cites "losses" from piracy, they are abstract "potential" losses. The reason the crime is legally called "copyright infringement" and not "stealing/theft" is because nobody is deprived of an item. If I run down to GameStop and take X off the shelf, there is one less game available for sale. If I download a version of X instead, it is quite simply, a copy. Doing so doesn't prevent the reseller from selling their merchandise.

Now I imagine you're fuming with something like "If you download it, you won't buy it, dumbass" brewing around in that head of yours, right? Well, possibly. However who's to say I would buy it if I couldn't download it? Maybe I don't have the money, maybe I don't care enough about the game to be worth the $60, maybe I'm just too lazy to go down to the store. Think of it as the "Here, have a drink" theory. You walk into a bar and notice they have $12 martinis. There's X% chance that you'll buy one and drink it. Now, go into the same bar and the pretty bartender gives you the $12 martini for free. There's Y% chance that you'll drink this one. I can guarantee that Y > X.

The point is, that it is a fallacious argument to assume that every pirated copy is a loss to the company. It was flawed when the MPAA and RIAA used it, and its still flawed today.

Thus, we're back to dealing in potential losses and gains. Piracy is unavoidable. You said yourself that the morons who play offline will continue to do so. You say people don't just "steal some games" and buy others. I'm afraid I can't make it any more plain here than to say you're wrong. Look at my previous argument about the PC world. People pirate all the time, and then decide to purchase if there is content that's advantageous to do so (Ie. Multiplayer etc..).

Every pirated download is not a loss of revenue, but every purchased game IS a gain. Thus, why piss off your customer base so they have no incentive buy any more games? Its shooting yourself in the foot, financially. Why is this such a difficult concept?

Please note I am not arguing the ethics of piracy and if you believe that its worth practically taking their 360's function away from them in punishment, then I'm not going to try to change your mind. We simply disagree here in principle. But from a financial standpoint, it sounds to be a mistake.

And for your information I don't even have an Xbox360. I simply feel strongly about what I perceive to be an unfair treatment of consumers, that is also bad business.
Click to expand...

The problem with your argument or your "concern" for consumers is that there is no possible future profit for MS if these people are stealing lots of games that are normally $60 a pop. Piracy costs them money. And if banning their live accounts gets them to BUY ANOTHER 360 AND START BUYING LEGIT COPIES then it's a win-win situation for them. How this could possibly be anything other than smart business is beyond me.
 
I actually think the poeple that are getting banned are getting off pretty easy. Via the live account they have all the personal information they need, and the history, to take you to court for pirating. So for people thinking the fine is to stiff, you were fined the price of another console. Pretty cheap compared to people that shared MP3s.

Problem is the argument about Pirating wouldn't be as prevelent if the prices were cheaper is BS. I have a few buddies that are into that and how can you compete with the price for Free? They refuse to buy anything as they could get it for free. Most of them have good incomes, ie driver newer/nicer cars, so they choose not to buy it. Especially with gas prices == recent titles, what excuse do you have? If you can't afford the 60$, buy used.

The argument regarding "try before you buy" I feel is no longer a good excuse either. Many are released as Demos, so you have that legitamate free method. Saved me tons of cash via that method.

I think it's pretty obvious that people that use mods for other purposes, ie bought retail and made a copy or want to play oversees titles, are the minority. A pirate, at least from my experience, does not buy a majority of the titles and pirate a few. They pirate the majority and buy when they can't find a working copy. I have yet to see a post "Damn I was just banned and I bought Mass Effect". All the ones I see is "Crap, now I may ditch xbox 360". If you had a ton of purchased copies, I couldn't see the logic behind it.
 
4saken said:
every1 who has hacked the firmware on their 360 deserves to be banned.

Effing pirates.
Click to expand...

in taipei, a full retail copy of XP goes for a couple weeks salary. Is pirating in this case wrong?

the line isn't as clear cut as you make it out to be.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
in taipei, a full retail copy of XP goes for a couple weeks salary. Is pirating in this case wrong?

the line isn't as clear cut as you make it out to be.
Click to expand...

If you use that logic, if a few weeks pay is the cost of a game, how many weeks salary is it required to buy a Xbox? If you can't afford to play, and have to resort to illegal activities, maybe you shouldn't go that route. If I had to work 3 months for a Xbox, I would find other hobbies.
Keep in mind we are not talking about food/water/living. This is for entertainment. Just because I feel the cost of a movie is to high, you don't see me breaking in through the emergency exit to see a new release. I simply wait for it to come out on video.
Which brings up another good point. If you can't afford it, just rent the game.
 
lgestle said:
If you use that logic, if a few weeks pay is the cost of a game, how many weeks salary is it required to buy a Xbox? If you can't afford to play, and have to resort to illegal activities, maybe you shouldn't go that route. If I had to work 3 months for a Xbox, I would find other hobbies.
Keep in mind we are not talking about food/water/living. This is for entertainment. Just because I feel the cost of a movie is to high, you don't see me breaking in through the emergency exit to see a new release. I simply wait for it to come out on video.
Which brings up another good point. If you can't afford it, just rent the game.
Click to expand...
Plus one to that. This view that people are entitled to this stuff disgusts me. I can't reasonably afford to buy every game I would like to own... but rather than pirating them I either wait til they're cheaper or rent them.
 
4saken said:
every1 who has hacked the firmware on their 360 deserves to be banned.

Effing pirates.
Click to expand...
I won't go this far, but I certainly don't agree anyone with a modded box should be on Live. At the same time, consumers should have a facility to backing up their media. I am certain a number of individuals with modded consoles have done so for the sake of keeping their $60 software intact. Many or most? Irrelevant. The fact even a few people are morally responsible is enough not to lump the whole of modders into the catagory of pirates.

Again, I completely agree with the bans, but flat out calling everyone pirates is ignorant.
 
Kiggles said:
I won't go this far, but I certainly don't agree anyone with a modded box should be on Live. At the same time, consumers should have a facility to backing up their media. I am certain a number of individuals with modded consoles have done so for the sake of keeping their $60 software intact. Many or most? Irrelevant. The fact even a few people are morally responsible is enough not to lump the whole of modders into the catagory of pirates.

Again, I completely agree with the bans, but flat out calling everyone pirates is ignorant.
Click to expand...

Please, its too temping for most people not to steal when there are no consequences. Saying they are using the hacked dvd drive firmware to backup their software is a poor excuse to try and justify their actions. And we know its not true. Also, they know that copying the software is not allowed. I would love to see MS do more than just ban these pirates. They are stealing from developers, publishers and more importantly paying consumers. I have no pity for these thieves.
 
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