So the holiday season is upon us. Halloween has come and gone, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and Christmas will be here before you know it. In the middle of everybody indulging in pumpkin pie Microsoft decided to ban a couple of people from playing their Xbox 360 on LIVE. Ok, it was more than a couple; reports estimate that anywhere from 600,000 up to 1 million Xboxes have been banned.
The first thing to note is that these are not Gamertag bans, they are strictly console bans which allows for the pirate to purchase a new Xbox, retrieve their gamertag, move their HDD over and continue on like nothing ever happened. Of course, they have to purchase a new Xbox for this plan to work.
We have already seen a flood of banned consoles hit Craigslist and with all of these pirates getting rid of their banned systems, they will need to purchase a new unit to replace the old. My guess would be that most of these people will just pick up the standard Arcade SKU as it is only $200 since they can use the HDD that they already have. Of course, a pirate may decide to go with one of the other units if they choose to upgrade to one of those fancy larger hard drives so that they can utilize installing their pirated games.
Of course, tracking any of these numbers is nearly impossible save for maybe a poll on xbox-scene to gain some small idea of what the pirates are buying. Microsoft has also cleverly banned the systems just in time for the holiday system. Not only does this tell current owners that Microsoft is serious business and discourages from new people modding, it also masks the sales boosts in with the rest of the Holiday sales.
Had Microsoft banned 1M units in August, it would be much easier to relate an increase in sales to the system bans. Since this is during the holiday season, however, all of the sales resulting from system bans will just mix right in with the expected increase over the holiday season. Imagine of Microsoft was a character in an RPG. He has a strength of 33 and is about to level up but just equipped a new pair of boot that has a +1 to strength modifying. You don’t notice that +1 a whole lot, but it does make a difference.
[background image courtesy Major Nelson]
[UPDATE]
I just want to add a bit here to responds to some of the comments I have been seeing. I am not saying that this is some sort of conspiracy. Microsoft’s main goal is to get rid of the consoles that are able to play pirated games, and they have just chosen the best time of year to possibly ban those systems. They are also smart to not ban the Gamertags in these instances so the pirates can purchase a new system and not mod it if they wish which leads to future revenue as well.
I have also seen some people say that pirates don’t play on LIVE as well, this is not true. A lot of people who mod their 360 play on Xbox LIVE all the time, this is why the ban matters. The systems still work offline, but this ban matters because it has disabled those systems abilities to play online. I also realize that some of the people that have been banned will go and buy a PS3 instead, which I don’t understand.
One last bit to all of the people mentioning the RRoD conspiracy. There is no conspiracy, seriously. The RRoD has cost Microsoft over $1 billion because of faulty hardware and not just in replacing systems. I can guarantee that Microsoft wishes the RRoD problems never happened.
also cocks
I don’t know how eager those 600,000+ will be to line Microsoft’s pockets with cash again after being banned. It seems that this is more of an opportunity for Sony or Nintendo to attract some new customers.
I thought most of those folks would buy PS3 slims since they probably thought Microsoft screwed them, that’s the way crooks think you know, everyone is always out to get them no matter what they did to deserve it LOL.
Now if it was Sony that banned a bunch of PS3’s, the media would be raising holy Hell about all this saying it’s the death of Sony and blah blah blah. If people were smart, they’d drop microshaft and get a real system : PS3!!!
I think it is safe to assume that most people that got their Xbox banned won’t just go get a PS3 for a couple of reasons. First, they have a history of playing Xbox 360 games which includes game saves, friends lists, and achievement points. They may also have purchased XBLA games as well.
They probably also won’t purchase a PS3 because there is no ability to mod the system and play backup games on the device so it is most likely that the modder would simply purchase the Xbox 360 again.
Red ring of death, banning consoles, banning gamertags, that’s the only way they can survive. They ban me and I’ll play online with my ps3. Yes my ps3, you know the one that doesn’t overheat, charge for online, comes with free wifi, oh yeah AND a blueray player. Good job microshaft, what’s that you say you got Halo? And gears of war? Halo is massively overated and gears is fun for about an hour, one hour. with uncharted 1 and 2 halo looks like shit, and not the cool corny shit just plain shit. Uncharted series and/ or killzone2 make gears look like dark sector(not a good thing)
I just can’t possibly keep this comment clean. Microsoft is officially full of dildos and dickheads.
Sincerely,
Homer Simpson
ladies and gentlemen all you have to do is buy a new three sixty gut it put the banned one inside the new case return it simple as that no cost to you in the hole for microsoft
Woke up to:
This console has been banned for violations of the Terms of Use. To protect the Xbox LIVE service and its members, Microsoft does not provide details about console bans. There is no recourse for Terms of Use violations.
its worth it though.
spend 200 bucks getting your DVD drive flashed and than you can play backup games for free, 5 games for free and you saved yourself enough cash to buy a new 360.
so i doubt many of these people would go over to the ps3 because than they would have less to work with and forced to pay for them.
and there not cheap, why ps3 games are more expensive than 360 ones when the 360 version is normally superior is beyond me.
hahahaha ps3 FTW
Seems unlikely that people owning banned consoles would switch to a ps3: they would have to actually buy their games, which they are not willing to do…
It seems that most of the people who own a dodgy 360, play on Xbox Live, so they’ve had to go out and buy a new or used console that hasn’t been modified. Why would they want to switch to a PS3? The 360 clearly has the best range of games (I’m not a fanboy as I own a 360, PS3, Wii, DS and PSP to name a few…). I wonder how many 360 owners own a PS3? Most (if not all) will just go out and buy a replacement.
I very much doubt that anyone who picks up another 360 to replace their banned system would make the decision to mod it again. Keeping in mind that they’ll have to pay for their games no matter what (if they want to play online). The ps3’s value in terms of an overall hardware/software (120gig standard hard drive, blu-ray, trophies, netflix, facebook, etc.) package has shot up since the last time these 360 buyers have had to make a console purchase. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s plenty of AAA quality greatest hits exclusives that 360 players have never touched for $20-40. I’m not going to think for a minute that everyone or even most will switch to playstation, but there will be plenty who do. Microsoft had to do what they did to make sure they didn’t fail like the dreamcast, but their market share (Xbox live subscriptions) will shrink as a result.
lol ms is funny they know like we know when you make a system like the 360 which is damn near a cpu there isnt much they can do that why they messed up already banning people who dont have modded systems2 of mine are and i still wont turn on my P.eice o S.hit 3 lol but yea you can just gut it and do it over give it a week or so and we will get around the bann they know that why they did it when they did. byt i still love ms no matter what they have every rite to bann me for the online sevice but you going to bann me bann me all the way dicks lol
Microsoft, are you stupid?!?!
You’re not gunna gain customers, escpecially with all the hype around the PS3 Slim, everyone’s gunna sell their games cheap on ebay, and they’re all gunna buy ps3 slims, especially with ur RROD at 60% at ALL Xbox 360 Models compared to 0.01% for ONLY 60GB Models!
Sony, go on, hit em hard why got da chance, ur smacked nintendo, during the N64’s, GameCube’s and Wii’s rein, do it to microsoft now = P
You even knocked out apple in 1997, sega twice!, activision’s blizzard somewhere after 1995 and a few more = P Oh yeah and especially Atari KO!
Ps3 Yea all the hype, they dropped price and are losing out there arse. So the hype doesn’t matter when Natal will replace all of those sales in the matter of one month. By the second month they will surpase and hit wii type sales. Not saying there going to close in on wii, that would be a hugh hurdle but the psturd, not a problem.
Been slamming those bunslammers for years now. You have a good couple of months and ps3 Fans are not used to having more sales, so they come out of left field running there mouths. when they know natal is going to own there arse.
PS3=fail….
Well, fuck Belisle… it’s about time it happened. lulz.
A very sneaky way to avoid criticism which didn’t wash very well with the majority of people, I’m not to sure what the point is since it’s a kind of false trophy to have record sales but just because you forced some of your customers to go out and buy again.