Time to buy an XBOX360?

[Daz]

One of the great things about LIVE and the unified community is that we work hard to create a level playing field for all gamers and have a no tolerance policy towards inappropriate behavior like hacking or cheating. As part of our commitment to our members, we do not allow people that we have detected to have modified their console to connect to LIVE. This is an important part of our efforts to try and maintain a fair gaming environment for the large majority of gamers that play by the rules. This topic is more important than ever given the recent release of the Halo 3 beta. As a result, some consumers that try to login to LIVE who we detect have illegally modified their console will get an error code (Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D) when trying to connect to the service. These users will not have their account automatically banned from LIVE, but they will no longer be able to access the service from the console they modified.

We have stated in the past that customers can only enjoy access to the Xbox LIVE community through the use of a genuine, unmodified, Xbox console and we will continue to enforce this rule to ensure the integrity of our service, the protection of our partners and the benefits of our users.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Gamer...77/545414.aspx

Keep an eye out for that code Des

[Desmo]

Looks like I wont be seeing you guys on Live for a bit then.
Not at least until I either flash it back to standard or new firmware comes out.

[Daz]

I've not seen anyone report that they cant get onto Live yet. They've either got something in the new dash, or it could just be scare tactics.

[Desmo]

I've been doing a fiar bit of reading and it seems a lot have been banned. People can't figure out a combination of drives/firmware etc yet as far as I can tell.

[Daz]

Aceybongo posted something a little harsher:

please take this warning to heart. Using modified content and hacked boxes is against the Terms of Use for Xbox Live and doing so will result in your console being permanently banned from the service. Forever. For all games.

If you get an error message "Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D" it means you are done playing Xbox Live on that console. Congrats.

Might be worth keeping the console offline until you find out if that's true :/

Though everyone keeps talking about the Halo beta, almost like something's been built into that :/

[Daz]

Actually, you're right, it is a bit serious:

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...uAjENKDCMV.php

:/

[Feek]

Reading around some forums it also appears people got banned who have had their consoles modified in the past but have reverted them back to stock some time ago.

If that's the case then it seems as though MS may have been fully aware of what's been going on and have been logging the console IDs for a while.

One thing it does mean for the future, be very wary buying a second hand 360, especially if it seems quite cheap - It could be a banned one.

[Desmo]

I'll be staying offline until this is all sorted

[Desmo]

It seems to be a case of you're OK as long as you've never played a backup online. It seems that they're not directly finding the firmware hack.

The guy I've bought mine from says he always unplugged from the net when playing a backup as he was a bit paranoid about it all so seems I might be OK.

Will still wait and see for a little bit though.

[Feek]

Aye, good luck