Oh they can tell who is using an illegal copy. They aren't stupid

LOL, official reviewers having flashed 360's, what planet are you on?!

And the banning process you call bullsh*t has been proven many times before, there is only TWO ways a flashed 360 can get banned, 1 - playing a game early before its release date and 2 - not checking your games via abgx360 before playing them, those two ways are the ONLY way you will get banned, 

I have been flashing 360's since 2006, I have flashed loads and only one of these has been banned and that was for playing gears 2 early last year, no other 360's have been banned and I am talking in excess of 150 systems, I have three flashed 360's, my family and friends have them, none have been banned,

Next time do your research before making stupid comments, xbox-scene has all the information you need....

LMAO, that's why they have been banning loads of people with the proper retail game then?

No, if you are not connected to Xbox LIVE when you earn achievements, they do not have dates.

Who has been banned with the retail game?

proof?

http://twitter.com/Stepto/status/4929023990

Don't worry folks, anyone who bought a copy early is ok. In general, if you got a receipt, play away. These are illegit copies we're hitting

Not true as once you reconnect to Xbox live they can log when achievements were unlocked at Microsofts end.  If you really want to play a game early in complete safety it should be without any memory device connected ideally.

Well, I assumed that would be fairly obvious...

LOL I skim read the prior quote and didn't realise he said if you never played online.  Never forget that obvious isn't always peoples strong points.

I'm a journalist and blog at the Houston Chronicle, the 7th biggest paper in the country. I started getting early stuff from MS back when I was in New Mexico. I asked them to give us early copies so we could have a review in place before the game releases. And after a while, they sent me games early. It depends on the tier you are in - you could be a blog that gets a few million hits and they'll send you the game early. If you are a popular video game mag, you'll likely have a couple debug kits - consoles that will play early versions of the game that won't play on regular consoles. Plus, since their leadtime from story to print is large, they get first dibs on early games. Wonder why Game Informer has video game reviews of games that aren't released yet? That's how they do it.

With newspapers, the turnaround time is much, much shorter, so they will dispatch games a week or two before the game releases - sometimes. I do get games the day of release, and sometimes we get games just because. I got flooded with all sorts of games after my Beatles: Rock Band review ran in print (in Houston and San Antonio) and online.

Do I know folks in the industry? Yeah - I know a few - but in the end, if you have proven yourself to be a good reviewer who does an outstanding job, you request a game, you'll get it.

And your achievements do show up online, but most times, it shows up as the game (Like I have Forza 3 achievements) but you can't tell what achievements have been unlocked. And yes, MS knows if it's a pirated copy of the game or not, especially if you play it early. Forza 3 doesn't drop until Oct. 27th, so if you aren't on a safe list, and the code you are playing on was flagged as pirated, good luck with that.

Of course. Believe you me - they know where the leak came from - and can even pinpoint who got the copy. I know when I did beta testing for Atari on Test Drive Unlimited, they tracked every - I mean EVERY copy of the game. Someone posted the build online and let folks download it. Oh, they found out who did it and he was out permanently.

They are just addressing piracy, not the retail version.