Some of you people really need to lighten up. I'm pretty certain that there are very few of you can say that you've never downloaded an MP3 off the net or ripped a friends CD in your lifetime. Most of you probably have hundreds if not thousands of songs you haven't paid for, and many of you have probably emulated old console games on your PC's. That's piracy too BTW...
Now I will admit I am a modded console owner. And I'm sure many of you will continue to hate and flame like theres no tomorrow, but I want to make it clear that it is not simply all of 'us' that are contributing to the failure of the game industry in any way whatsoever. In fact, in my case it's just the opposite. I likely have a larger game collection than 95% of you. Modding my console to play backups enables me to keep the original copies of my games in mint condition. The fact that I can play a game and still keep my original sealed preserving its value over time is a huge benefit for me. It also allows me test out games at will and weed out the ones not deserving of my hard earned cash. I will do everything I can to make sure I don't waste any more money on packaged trash or broken software. UBISOFT, YES I'M LOOKING AT YOU!
A lot of you are missing a very important point. It's not just that Microsoft timed these bans to benefit themselves financially, compainies rarely play fair anymore and this doesn't even seem like a legitimate point. Microsoft should have every right in the world to ban you from accessing their Live network for any reason... it's written clearly in their terms of service.
What seems to me to be up in the air is whether or not M$ had the right to disable non XBOX Live features on the owner's consoles. Crippling a $200-$480 console by being unable to fully access your legitimately paid for games on it is bad enough, but disabling built in options that came included with the console such as the ability to access your home network or your HDD installations seems to be one step too far IMO.
The transfer of information regarding the modded consoles was also done largely unbeknownst to the console's owners as well. This is another point the lawsuit brings up, but if you signed up for Live and skipped over the TOS disclosure I guess that's your own fault. Personally, I don't like the idea of living in a world where the companies we do business are able to corner us into allowing them monitor and take action on our every move.
I also don't subscribe to XBOX Live nor do I have a banned console either, so for me life goes on.. I guess I'm lucky since Live always seemed like a waste of $50 when my PS3 has the same online options available for free. They suit my needs just fine.
I'd like to see M$ lose big on this one, I really would. But I also think it seems hignly unlikely that anything will come of it. They have plenty of $ and power so they really don't have to play by the rules anyways. I'd just like to point out that all gamers will eventually lose out from this sort of behavior, and if it's allowed to continue there will only be more and more restrictions put in place to limit what we can do with our toys.
