Blizzard & Microsoft Swing The Banhammer

[DoctorFinger]

Two industry giants, two rounds of banhammer upside the heads of cheaters on their respective networks.

First up is Blizzard. They've given the boot to 350,000 Diablo 2 and Starcraft accounts which they accuse of using hacks to cheat. These bans are - for the moment - only for 30 days, but if those accounts are found to be cheating again, they're gone for good.

Microsoft on the other hand is not messing around with temp bans. Users who have had their consoles banned from Xbox Live, permanently. They've also booted consoles which show signs of being modded to play pirated games. Major Nelson didn't say how many users were canned, calling them a "small percentage" of the greater usership.

Sources - Major Nelson (http://majornelson.com/archive/2008/11/11/xbox-360-console-banning.aspx); Edge-Online (http://www.edge-online.com/news/blizzard-culls-game-cheaters).

UPDATE - I removed the part about NXE pirates being banned. I misread a different article which I though claimed that was happening. Apologies.

[NoName]

Sucks to have a mod'd 360.

Wait, didn't some people on here install the pirated version of the NXE on their consoles? This doesn't bode well for them I suppose :/.

[menage]

Don't know about the NXE thing, but how does MS know when a 360 is modded?

[Gorvi]

Banning pirates/cheaters: always a good thing.

[Disgustipated]

Uh oh. Wonder how many EvAv'ers running the illegitimate NXE have been banned?

[Mdot]

Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.

[Shrinn]

Yea, that sucks for those of us in the cog community who fell victim to this.. but they should have known the risks.

[Narcissus]

Leak NXE, then blame their customers for their poor security?

What a shitty thing to do.

[Iron Past]

Um, I'm pretty sure you just made the part about the NXE up, since Major Nelson's post says absolutely nothing about that. It's about modded consoles. Unless you know something I don't?

[Purple Santa]

Uh oh. Wonder how many EvAv'ers running the illegitimate NXE have been banned?
There was a thread on the early leak and I know there were a few stating they were going to try. Most in thread, like myself, just decided to wait and not take the chance. The threat of a ban, which did happen, scared most away. I wonder if those few will pop up in here and tell if they were banned...

Speaking of banned...a belated welcome back ;)

[Spigot]

I didn't realize that the people running NXE over the past little while where using a pirated copy. I thought it was some kind of press beta or the like.

Yikes!

[Telefrog]

Leaked NXE users have not been banned. Only people with modded 360s have been banned. To quote Major Nelson:

Microsoft has taken action against a small percentage of Xbox 360 consoles that have been illegally modified in order to play pirated games.

Also, your source links are backwards. The Edge link points to Major Nelson and vice versa.

[Savok]

"You wanted to actually play the overpriced games you stupidly paid for without DREs early?! Fuck you!"

[Food Nipple]

The links you provide don't say anything about NXE bans, are you sure about that one?

[civil]

Speaking of banned...a belated welcome back ;)
Wait. Riley was banned here? When did this happen? I've seen that mofo all over these boards like mold on bread.

[Iron Past]

Apologies.

Apologies? Not good enough! Actually, they may still be banned if MS wants to be really mean, but since they can't connect to Live till next Wednesday anyway, there's no way to know.

[OldJadedGamer]

Who is stupid enough to not buy a second console so they can mod it and not take it online. You never take it online, they can never tell it's modded.

[MagGnome]

I guess this isn't that big of deal. One of the risks of modding your system is that you'll be banned. I'm sure everyone who mods is aware of that.

I'm glad the NXE issue was cleared up. I was a little confused by that as well.

[KingGorilla]

Given that Netflix was not live until the actual launch of NXE...what is the point of pirating an early copy? Avatars?

[Orca]

Given that Netflix was not live until the actual launch of NXE...what is the point of pirating an early copy? Avatars?

Having something before everyone else probably. Installing games maybe.

[Spigot]

Having something before everyone else probably. Installing games maybe.The latter... and to hopefully avoid the mad rush to update on the 19th when Live grinds to a halt.

For those of us not in the US, the slightly improved interface and installation to HDD is about the only reason to care about the NXE since we can't use Netflix.

[mister slim]

I wouldn't mind being able to install games now. Looks like my 360's DVD drive is dying. :( I lost about 2 hours of Fable 2 last night.