Modified Xbox 360s get hit with the ban stick

Xbox 360 owners who have modified their consoles to play pirated games are no longer just on Father Christmas’ naughty list, but also on Microsoft’s.

The modified consoles have been permanently banned from Xbox Live, possibly affecting as many as one million users according to the Guardian. Microsoft has just given the figure of ‘a small percentage’ which considering Xbox Live had over 20 million active users as of May 2009, must mean quite a lot.

The thing to bear in mind is that only the machines have been banned from connecting to Live, not the actual gamer tags, and so if those banned still want to play online, all they will have to do is buy a new Xbox 360 (much to the delight of Microsoft we are sure).

Piracy is a problem that is affecting the gaming world quite severely at the moment, with so many people working out how to get hold of games for free. It is estimated the videogame piracy could cost the industry up to £750 million per year.

Unfortunately most attempts to curb piracy only seem to slow it down rather than stop it. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft’s no nonsense policy on console modification plays out.

Written by Anthony H

Anthony has been playing games for far too much of his life, starting with the MS-DOS classic Mario is Missing. Since then his tastes have evolved to include just about anything, but his soft spot lies with shooters and the odd strategy game. Anthony will inspire you with his prose, uplift you with his wit and lie to you in his biography.