The Inquisitr » xbox

Microsoft could face legal action over mass Xbox 360 bannings

Chris Greenhough — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:55:22 +0000

Last week, Microsoft started rocking its banhammer in a big way, permanently banning 1 million Xbox Live users from the online gaming service for playing on a modded Xbox 360. But was Microsoft’s choice to ban 5% of the Xbox Live community a bit too conveniently timed?

Boutique law firm AbingtonIP thinks so, and argues that the timing of the bannings – which took place shortly before the launch of Modern Warfare 2 – was deliberate. By cutting users off just before the year’s biggest game arrived, AbingtonIP claims that Microsoft netted a ton of money from potential Xbox Live subscribers, before banning their modded consoles.

Of course, by the letter of the law, Microsoft would seem to be in the right – modding your console does violate the Xbox Live Terms of Service. Yet banning so many users when it did could land Microsoft in trouble for what Joystiq legal columnist Mark Methenitis calls a “deceptive business practice concern.”

AbingtonIP is currently investigating the case before it considers bringing a class action lawsuit to obtain a refund for the sums of money left on the banned Xbox Live subscriptions.

[Via Joystiq]

Banned Xbox sets headed to an auction site near you

Steven Hodson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:41:15 +0000

Yesterday Kim reported here about the big ban hammer that Microsoft had dropped on about 600, 000 users that either had modded systems or pirated games. It turns out that those bans are permanent leaving those banned users with Xboxes that are next to useless – especially when it comes to online play.

Well word late today via Matt Peckham at PC World is that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of Xboxes showing up on Craigslist and eBay. Prices for these next to useless consoles range from a buck to well over the retail price and often includes a full raft of games and other goodies to entice buyers.

There is also an apparent “want to buy” market for the banned systems but in most cases as with this one they are looking for more than just the box for their money.

“I’m looking to buy one of the newly banned X-Box 360’s,” adding that it needs “to come with some new games such as Modern Warfare 2 and what not.”

I can see the logic of doing that especially if you had no plans whatsoever of playing online. Hmm .. maybe this would be a good time to actually get a console.

Microsoft unleashes banhammer on 1 million Xbox Live players

Kim LaCapria — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:29:37 +0000

Cries of frustration, anger and grief rose up from parents’ basements across the land as a million Xbox Live players found themselves cut off from the service in an anti-piracy blitz by Microsoft.

Microsoft describes the number of affected modded consoles as “small,” and commented on the move unapologetically:

“We have taken action against a small percentage of consoles have been modified to play pirated game discs,” Microsoft told GamesIndustry.biz today. “In line with our commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox Live community, we are suspending these modded consoles from Xbox Live.”

While banninated users can’t participate in Xbox Live, affected consoles work offline, so the console isn’t totally bricked. That’s of little comfort to users who have fallen afoul of the ban, one of whom commented at length to the BBC:

I wasn’t expecting it. I was just like, ‘OK, what do I do now? Is this just a joke?’ So I thought, ‘Let me restart the Xbox’. I restarted, signed in again, same message. I did that three times, same message. I was pulling my hair out thinking, ‘No, why me?’

It’s like telling someone their dog’s just died. It was pretty much like that for me. I love it, I love playing Xbox live. I play with my mates all the time. It’s just a good laugh, we all sit there chatting, playing games. Now I don’t know what to do.

The move comes just as the highly anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 hit shelves- a release that was reportedly widely pirated before it was available for purchase. Although many users have praised the ousting of the rule-circumventing Xbox owners, alienating 5% of the 20 million players on Xbox Live just seems counterintuitive. I also imagine that the users who would spend money to mod their consoles (the user quoted by the BBC spent £100 to do so) might also be the players who are dedicated enough to pour revenue into the company in other ways. Well- perhaps they were the customers who poured revenue into the company in other ways, but that’s not very likely now.

Xbox 360 summer dashboard update hitting soon

Chris Greenhough — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:00:50 +0000

Xbox Live is going to be down for an unspecified amount of time on August 11th, but this time for a worthwhile and explicable reason. That’s because Microsoft will be updating your console with a brand new free dashboard update! Hurrah! Here’s what it’ll bring you (a looong, more detailed version can be found here):

An update that fixes issues with limited games and with dashboard.
The Games on Demand service to the Game Marketplace.
Community Games are now known as Indie Games.
The abilty to rate content (uses a 5 star rating system).
Xbox Live Gold Member Veteran Status.
Various improvements Netflix.
Eject when there is a disk in the tray! (Yay?)
The Avatar Marketplace.

Some of this is a bit trivial. In fact, there’s set to be a much meatier update this fall, one that will introduce full Facebook and Twitter integration. Nevertheless, the “instant on” streaming of Netflix movies and the ability to watch films from the service simultaneously with other users is neat. Also quite cool: the new “Games on Demand” service, which allows you to buy full Xbox 360 titles straight from Xbox Live.

On the other hand, there’s the frankly pointless Avatar Marketplace, where you can blow Microsoft Points on game-themed clothes and accessories for your Xbox Avatar. Man, is it just me, or does Microsoft take us all for absolute idi – * looks at post image again * – OHHH MY GOD REMOTE CONTROL HALO WARTHOG YOU CAN GET A REMOTE CONTROL HALO WARTHOG!!1!

[Via Xbox.com]

Xbox Live down overnight, makes apparent recovery

Chris Greenhough — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:16:50 +0000

Gawker, Twitter, Facebook: all have temporarily gone down in the past few days in what has been a week of high drama on the stormy Internet seas. Last night, Xbox Live joined them in Downtime City, further disrupting all of our meticulously arranged lives.

There’s still no word from Microsoft explaining the drop in service (which occurred while most of North America was wrapped up in bed), but it seems to be back up for now. I’ll be keeping an eye on the situation over the next few hours, if only because I’ve saved an hour tonight to head online and embarrass myself with friends on 1 Vs. 100.

Man, and to think I almost considered going outside for a moment. Jeez, close call.

Microsoft: Has the battleship finally turned?

Steven Hodson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:14:27 +0000

Mention Microsoft in any conversation on technology and you will more often than not hear more negative things about the company, and its software, than you will about the things that it is doing right. Words like copycat, no innovation, bloated software, evil are peppered in any conversation do to with the company. Many like to equate Microsoft to some great big battleship that is slow and lumbering when compared to the more nimble companies associated with Web 2.0 and Social Media.

Given this last month and the current slew of announcements one has to wonder if indeed that battleship has turned finally and is coming with all its guns on board firing. Let’s look at some of the stuff that it is managing to pull off and apparently pulling off very well.

Windows 7

After the debacle that was known as Vista many had written off Microsoft’s operating systems as a has been Microsoft fires back by announcing that Windows 7 would be shipping by the fall. Not only will it be shipping sooner than the previous 2010 deadline the company had set but by all accounts this is the operating system that Vista should have been. Reports started coming out about how svelte Windows 7 was right down to the point that it would run just fine on netbook, which is something you would never have dreamed of doing with Vista.

From personal experience running both the beta and the release candidate of the operating system Windows 7 is definitely head and shoulders above Vista. I have joked in the passed that if there was a line-up forming where I could pre-order Windows 7 I’d be right there, except it’s not really a joke. With Windows 7 I think that Microsoft could very well have redeemed itself in the operating system market.

Bing

Okay, I still think it is one stupid ass name but the early results from around the Web have been for the most part fairly favorable. Sure there are some folks who wouldn’t like anything Microsoft does in this area and there are others who have legitimate points against the new search engine from the company.

Microsoft won’t be, and never intended to be, a danger to Google with this offering but they have however stepped up their own game in search which is a good thing. Only time, and improvements, will tell if they will be able to improve their dismal standings in the search market place.

Xbox – Project Natal

This is one that I don’t think anybody saw coming from what I have been able to tell by reading the news about this really cool addition to Xbox. I’m still trying to figure out all the details but the buzz is that this is something that Nintendo should be really concerned about. the very basic idea is the Natal is an add-on controller for Xbox that uses a 3-D camera tied in with an array of motion sensors that will capture the players movements and translate them to in-game actions. Natal will also supports voice and facial recognition as well as multiple players by the time it is launched.

Here’s a short video of the demo that Microsoft gave at E3

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Xbox – Movies & Streaming Video

The Xbox online Video Marketplace will be getting a new name, Zune Video, and will be changing from a download service into a streaming video service that will be offering 1080p, 5.1 surround sound High Definition content. In other words an instant on-demand movie store that players will also have the option to share their movie watching with others through Xbox LIVE Party.

Xbox – Going Social

the other very interesting news as far as the Xbox is concerned is that Microsoft will be integrating Twitter and Facebook into Xbox. So you will be able to sign in with your Facebook Connect info and post images and info to your Facebook account (pictures courtesy of Kris Abel’s Tech Life blog)

As you will be able to post to your Twitter timeline and access your Twitter Favorites

The Road Forward

No-one is willing the suggest that Microsoft has successfully re-imaged themselves at this point, but for the first time in a very long time Microsoft is doing stuff that people will need to pay attention to. they are starting to make inroads in the cool factor that they probably aren’t getting enough credit for. Sure there are diehard Microsoft haters out there but nothing the company does will get them to admit anything other than they just hate the company.

If Microsoft keeps moving forward the way they are there could be some very interesting times ahead.

Gamers are energy pigs

Steven Hodson — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:08:38 +0000

And here everyone thought that gamers are nothing but a bunch of couch potatoes. Well maybe they are but those consoles they are using to play all the hottest games are chewing through a shitload of energy. Between the Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360 you gamers are using enough power to keep a city the size of San Diego running.

According to a just completed study done by the Natural Resources Defence council and Ecos Consulting (pdf report) approximately 16 billion kilowatt-hours is consumed by gaming consoles. The average Xbox consumes about 119 watts in active mode, the PS3 averages out to 150 watts and the Wii with its less pull on graphics rates only 16 watts in active mode.

Now the NRDC does say that by actually using the power down options that are available on all the consoles – but are disabled by default DUH! – that if combined with better power saving measures could save 11 billion kilowatt-hours per year. In real money that would come out to about $1 Billion saved annually.

So remember you gamers out there in this new green world – Power Down when you’ve finished blowing up the world.

[hat tip to EcoGeek]

Remember that Obama Xbox Game Ad?

Steven Hodson — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:23:31 +0000

Well apparently the in-game ad campaign still running has cost the Obama team $44,000.00. According to GameSpot the ad was run in games such as Burnout Paradise across 10 battleground states. the full campaign started on October 6 and runs until November 3 across a total of 18 games.

So was it worth it?

This was the same question that Mike Egan asked on The Raw Feed Today and his conclusion to the question was – massive press which according to Google as of Mike’s post was more than a quarter of a million pages of publicity.

Not a bad publicity return for $44G’s eh.

Microsoft & Netflix Team Up For New Xbox Streaming Service

JR — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:56:15 +0000

Microsoft’s getting in the game of Internet-to-television movie downloads. A new partnership with Netflix will bring streaming movie and show capabilities to TVs via the Xbox 360 gaming system.

The service will be offered only to users who pay for an Xbox LIVE Gold membership and also have a Netflix membership. If you fall into both those categories, you’ll be able to watch the content “for free,” says Microsoft (heavy emphasis on the quotation marks there).

Netflix plans to offer 10,000 titles on the service — which, one might argue, could actually compete in a way with its own Roku Netflix Player launched in May. The Roku streams Netflix content from the Internet to your TV over a Wi-Fi or cable connection.

Netflix

Roku