Headline :: Microsoft adopt zero tolerance against Xbox 360 cheats

[Steven W]

Microsoft will now be able to detect modded Xbox 360 consoles via the live network, which should improve the Xbox live experience for the majority.

Check out the Headline

[SiM]

How will it change the live experience?

can't play with the far eastern pirates anymore
at least until the hackers find a way around it...

[Carlh]

Not sure how this will make the xbox live system fairer as you cant use cheats on the 360 with a modded system as far as I know anyway.

Suppose the servers for some of the games will be more stable and less laggy tho

[Steven W]

There were plenty of people who used modded consoles on Halo 2 to cheat, it was the reason I stopped playing the game.

[Carlh]

Steven,

The main difference was that on the original xbox the hackers found a way to patch the xbe files to allow cheating - this hasnt happened on the 360 as yet and I cant see it happening now as lets face it the firmware hacks have been freely available for the past 9 months or so.

All this will do is make the hackers more determined to bring out another firmware to get passed the banning and maybe as you cant patch the files as yet with the cheats get them to concentrate on this area.

Also looking through the xbox.com forums it looks as though there banning consoles which apparently according to the users havent been moddified

[SiM]

I guess there will be loads of cheap 360s that have been banned on ebay (but of course the seller wont mention that its banned)

[Carlh]

I can see a few going on ebay - however I think the majority will just stay with the original user and they will just play them offline, if the ones with the modded firmware are that bothered about live then I guess they might go out and buy a 2nd console for originals.

[Steven W]

So what's the advantage of modding your Xbox 360 if it doesn't help you cheat over Xbox live?

In the statement Microsoft said that it's particularly relevant due to Halo 3 being released, which suggests that people would be able to mod their consoles to cheat. If that's the case then banning them improves online gaming for everyone else?

Have to admit I don't really understand modding

[Carlh]

As far as I know the modding of the firmware basically allows the use of backups as it bypasses the security sectors and dmi sectors of the disc, the original xbe file still has to match otherwise the backup wont boot - upto now there has been no way to play unsigned contect even with the modified firmware.

[Veles]

It's basically a slap on the hand "Naughty boy you've got pirated games, you can't play online"

But AFAIK, you can get "stealth" mods, i.e. ones that you can turn off or on depending if you want to go onto XBL.

[kalniel]

Wish they had something like this for PC gaming too.