Opinion: Why Xbox Live bans were a masterstroke
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It’s no secret that the Xbox 360 is currently suffering at the hands of Sony’s PS3 Slim. September and October were some of the worst months for the console in terms of sales numbers and Microsoft’s recent spate of Xbox Live bans for selected users have left a bad taste in the mouths of consumers at large.
Or have they? Last week it was widely published that Microsoft had banned up to one million Xbox 360 owners from Xbox Live for possessing modified or chipped consoles. As a result thousands of multiplayer disabled consoles have hit classifieds listings worldwide as perpetrators attempt to recuperate the cash they lost after having their machines ‘struck off the roll’.
It seems unlikely that these users will simply drop off the face of the gaming world. Sure, some will defect to Sony and some will simply give up but many are likely to head out into the retail jungle once again to purchase a new console.
With this in perspective it appears that Microsoft’s banning exercise has been more of a sales boosting masterstroke than an action against piracy. Had the company banned users in September or October the sudden increased sales curve would have seemed suspicious. To carry this out now, in the run up to the festive season, is likely to result in nothing more than healthy Christmas sales.
The sharp increase in console sales on the back of recent Xbox Live bans has already been felt. According to VGchartz Microsoft averaged roughly 150 000 consoles sold each week for October. In the first week of November however (which coincidentally marked the start of Microsoft’s ‘anti piracy’ campaign) the company sold 250 000 consoles – that’s 100 000 consoles more than average.
Now that Microsoft has struck the fear of God into the hearts of its primary swashbucklers by permanently removing them from their beloved Xbox Live platform (a service which they paid a membership fee to access) the company can also depend on healthy game sales in November and December.
The truth is plain to see - Microsoft has been sitting on this bombshell for a while now. To assume that that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was informed one morning that piracy was taking place within the gaming division would be naive. The reality is that the company has simply been waiting for the right time, when its chips were down and the Xbox 360 seemed to lack its usual lustre, to effectively push ‘restart’ on one million (or more) consumers and benefit from a very merry festive season.
We can only assume that those executives at Microsoft’s Gaming division will be taking home fat bonuses this year. Well played gentlemen...
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hurdygurdygurdy | 08/02/2010 21:24:08
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TPex | 08/02/2010 16:18:47
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Comments (10 posted): Comments (10 posted):
Subscribe to comments feedThe latest ban includes as core functionality;
- corrupting your save games/achievements for any games you access said save games of after your ban
- disabling the ability for your console (the actual console unit) to install to the hard-drive, as well as, in some cases, causing issues with the hard drive itself when used on other machines (inability to see previously installed games and thus remove them)
- inability to access Live at all
- disabling of the Media Center Extension
- in many cases, corruption of the user's gamertag to the point of it becoming unusable (the version that gets downloaded when you perform a gamertag 'recovery')
- in other cases, a ban on the gamertag
- in other cases, either in combination with the aforementioned or separately, a wipe of the entire gamerscore for the gamertag
- in some cases, removal of previously purchase DLC for games that were known to be pirate copies on used by the gamertag, from the gamertag
Yeah, they really 'missed their opportunity'. I'm sure publishers and M$ alike are really upset that they aren't getting all that DLC repurchased and downloaded, or those new Live subscriptions purchased for new gamertags etc.
You wanna fool around with the hardware, fine, but stay out of Live. We dont need cheaters in there. One of the powers of the console is that it is a closed system, and a deterent for cheaters.
Why should legit paying Gold member have their clean service messed up by cheating?
- Wrong. Gamertags are not banned, and moving a profile to an umodded machine will make it perfectly functional again. Moving it constantly between a modded and unmodded machine, however, will result in corruption of gamerscore achieved on the modded machine. Fair enough, really, or people with modded consoles can just farm gamerscore on free/cheap pirated games.
- Moving an HDD between Xboxes will *always* require reinstallation of a game, regardless of whether the consoles are modded or not.
- You're complaining because pirated DLC is removed? Lol.
There's really no preachy and self-righteous like a freeloading asshole who's been caught out, is there? If you can't afford to buy games then find a hobby you can afford.
Effectively game publishers are losing money to piracy (those who disagree please go google "world of goo piracy" and tell me that good developers don't suffer) but Microsoft is using this to boost Xbox sales.
The 250gb is only available on certain limited editions and the 120gb's is way too expensive at R1600. New 250gb WD bevs drive costs about R700 and works perfectly. Why do i want such a big drive? lost 2 forza's to my wonderful shitbox dvd drive.
Sony may be money sharks but cater much more to the gamer's needs. F u microshit!
You sound like a friend of mine who's currently got no job, dropped out of school and gets high everyday, he would say something similar.
I normally just laugh because I pity the fool, but hey, you're probably in the same situation as him, and I'd guess your age at about 18-20
Anyway, I won't waste my time trying to talk sense into you, I was just slightly amused by your comment so I decided to say something.