By now, around 1 million Xbox-360 users are hitting themselves in the head and shouting, “What the hell, Microsoft?” This is because M$ just banned them for hacking their hard drives. But Microsoft didn’t stop there, most of these unfortunates also had their hard drives bricked when it all went down. That’s right, Microsoft didn’t get mad, they got even and 1 million potential thieves got powned, then tea-bagged for good measure.
Now, you may be asking yourself, “Why would Microsoft ban 1 million Live customers, which tentatively amounts to around 8 million dollars a month in income?”
Well, the answer to that is a bit convoluted. You see, these guys weren’t hacking their hard drives to hold more videos, games or music. These particular hard drives were modified to play “backup” games. The problem with that is that anyone can burn a backup copy of their favorite game, upload it via torrent or drop it on their favorite forum and then someone with a modified hard drive could download it, pop it on their drive and play as if they had the original. Microsoft couldn’t even tell the difference between the “shared” games and the for-sure bought-n-paid-fer copies from your local GameStop.
So, when Microsoft checks their books and notices they only sold 2 million copies of Badlands and there are currently 3 million people on Live playing… you guessed it: Badlands, they decided something was fishy.
Now typically, Microsoft would just go and ban those accounts. That’s bad enough for most folks, since it means you will have to go buy a new console to get back on Live, but that wasn’t enough for M$, who got downright mean and issued an update just before the ban, an update that actually bricked the modified hard drives, corrupting gamertags and any saved game data. This is because Microsoft knew that just banning these guys wouldn’t stop them from playing their borrowed games.
I said all that to tell you this: A modification is now available for these bricked hard drives that will allow you to once again get back to your pirated Halo 3 with only a slight interruption in gameplay. The modification requires you to solder one of the chips on your bricked drive. This may turn off some folks, but I’m betting that if you’re the mod type that won’t take “Go Away” for an answer, you probably already know about this and have applied it with gusto.
A couple of months ago some workers were in my house doing some repair work. One of them noticed that I had several computers and my 360 running while they were working. He asked me if I worked on computers. Since that is a very open question, I was able to tell him “yes” without actually lying (since I do repair my own machines). He proceeded to ask a ton of questions, ending with “Can you mod my Xbox360 for me?”
I was stunned for a moment. I had not realized that the drive for mods was so large. I told him that yes, I could modify his 360 if he wanted, but that he really didn’t want to do it. Then I explained why:
The gaming industry, as well as most of the programmers out there, rely heavily on the actual sales of the software involved. Microsoft can’t sell the 360s for the price they actually built them for, since few people would be able to afford them. Instead, M$ sells the consoles at a loss, hoping to recuperate the losses later in video game sales. It depends on the contract, but Microsoft may (1) charge a gaming company a set fee for access to their full programming API or (2) take a cut directly from the game sales. This means that if you steal a game instead of buying it, you are putting the entire industry at risk. Not just the console manufacturers, but the people who spent two or three years of their lives slaving away to bring you the game to begin with.
Now, I hate Microsoft, I really do. Many of you out there who read my posts can attest to that. But I don’t hate babies. You know, like the children of the game programmers who work hard to put out a superior product and rely on the income produced therein. I also like puppies and if I could figure out a way to work those in here too, I would, believe me.
So there are still a few folks out there who don’t give a damn about others. You want your free content, not because you’re entitled to it, but because you can take it and that means it’s yours.
For those folks, think about this: The games for the Xbox360 suck. Out of thousands of games, only a handful are worth more than a couple of afternoons of your time. The only thing that sets the 360 out from its competition is XboxLive. And you can’t out-mod Microsoft. If you mod, they will catch you and when they do, they will ban your ass from the only good part of the whole system.
So… if you want to continue to see great games being released, take your butt out there and buy them. This supports your console manufacturer’s efforts to build a better system in the future, as well as your fellow programmers who are trying to make a living at the coolest job on the planet.