The battle begins: modded Xbox 360s banned from Live

If you have a modded console, and enjoy said modded console, [insert choice of expletive here].

BIGVIP posts in the Gamerscore Blog that if Xbox Live detects a modified Xbox 360 console, it will spit out Error Status Code Z: 8015-190D, and not connect to Xbox Live, and you will spit out [insert choice of expletive here] and not enjoy Xbox Live.

Note that this does not mean that your Xbox Live account has been banned – it is still active, says BIGVIP.

It is your hardware that has been banned – or more accurately, that it has been detected to contain certain modifications that violate the Xbox 360 Terms of Use and thus will not be allowed by Xbox Live to complete the connection and log on the user trying to use said Xbox 360 with modifications.

This seems to have been put into mass play beginning with the Halo 3 Beta rollout – BIGVIP hints at it. Xbox-Scene reports mixed-bag effects: some firmware mods get detected and some don’t, although they observe that Microsoft tends to “ban with delay”. Xbox-Scene thinks that Xbox Live’s detecting backup discs, and this despite using “new firmware with disc-jitter added” – and this despite earlier reports that backups worked fine with Spring Update.

Apparently the mod-detect feature wasn’t piggybacked to Spring, but to the release of the Halo 3 Beta.

The official line is that this protects the integrity of the Xbox Live community and the XBL service, “the protection of our partners and the benefit of our users.” You already know our stance: boo to piracy (but make next-gen a little more economically accessible), no flag-waving for either side, and honestly, those Halloween brick rumors still hurt, half-a-year on.

If you have a modded console, and enjoy said modded console, [insert choice of expletive here].

BIGVIP posts in the Gamerscore Blog that if Xbox Live detects a modified Xbox 360 console, it will spit out Error Status Code Z: 8015-190D, and not connect to Xbox Live, and you will spit out [insert choice of expletive here] and not enjoy Xbox Live.

Note that this does not mean that your Xbox Live account has been banned – it is still active, says BIGVIP.

It is your hardware that has been banned – or more accurately, that it has been detected to contain certain modifications that violate the Xbox 360 Terms of Use and thus will not be allowed by Xbox Live to complete the connection and log on the user trying to use said Xbox 360 with modifications.

This seems to have been put into mass play beginning with the Halo 3 Beta rollout – BIGVIP hints at it. Xbox-Scene reports mixed-bag effects: some firmware mods get detected and some don’t, although they observe that Microsoft tends to “ban with delay”. Xbox-Scene thinks that Xbox Live’s detecting backup discs, and this despite using “new firmware with disc-jitter added” – and this despite earlier reports that backups worked fine with Spring Update.

Apparently the mod-detect feature wasn’t piggybacked to Spring, but to the release of the Halo 3 Beta.

The official line is that this protects the integrity of the Xbox Live community and the XBL service, “the protection of our partners and the benefit of our users.” You already know our stance: boo to piracy (but make next-gen a little more economically accessible), no flag-waving for either side, and honestly, those Halloween brick rumors still hurt, half-a-year on.