Technology article #1

I came across this article on the MSNBC news website and found it interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly I was very close to getting my X-box chipped just before Microsoft start cutting people from the X-box live service. After reading this article Im glad that I didn’t because the money that I could have saved by chipping my X-box and downloading pirate games for a lot cheaper would have been lost if my console had been banned from using their live service. I was told that if you got caught playing a “modded” X-box only your gamertag was blocked from live, meaning it would not cost you too much money to create a new one, around 30 euro. This fee is a lot more modest than having to buy a new console if you get banned but still wish to use their service, you would also have to invest in a new subscription to X-box live, which is more money again. To be honest I don’t blame Microsoft for doing this, as the article states this was all done coming up to the launch of Halo 3 and Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2. Both of which were highly anticipated releases and have huge numbers of people playing them on X-box live, so Microsoft were insuring they got their monies worth for both game sales aswell as cashing in on gamers having to replace banned consoles and having to re-new subscriptions to their live service.
The article also states that there are up to 20 million users of X-box live worldwide and they recently banned upto 1 million users, that’s roughly 5% of people who use the service worldwide, so that is a lot of money, even for a company as big as Microsoft that is a lot of money. Those figures also do not include any new subscribers to X-box’s live service due to the release of the before mentioned games (myself included). I suppose the only thing to do is to abide by Microsoft’s rules, for the time being atleast, until someone with a level of computer knowledge above the creator of computers finds a way to cheat the system.
It says some gamers “mod” their X-bos in order to access a larger hard drive, also gamers think that they should be allowed do so as they own their console. However, looking at it from a realistic point of view, Microsoft are not going to allow people to cheat them out of money they would otherwise get from console part sales, like larger hard drives which can be bought at inflated prices of course. I must say I don’t agree that peoples consoles should be banned because of “modding” in order to achieve larger hard drives, although in the case of people playing pirate games I do find it acceptable. As all you have to do is look at the state of the record industry due to their inability to combat pirating.
The article also states the problem with blocking consoles rather than gamer cards, as people who trade them in or sell them to people second hand. As the people who buy them are really getting a raw deal as they cant use the console on X-box live as they might have intended to? The journalist questions whether Microsoft could not come up with a better wat of dealing with blocking people without having a console banned permanently, but realistically speaking, a company as large as Microsoft aren’t going to go out of their way to cater for the little man, these cases occur on far too small a scale for Microsoft to really consider any other way of dealing with piracy.
Overall I must say I don’t have any real issue with Microsoft banning consoles that have been altered, as I knew when I was considering getting mine done, it is illegal and there has to be consequences if you get caught. Perhaps I would think otherwise if I myself had been banned or had purchased a banned console, but from a neutral perspective I find it a fair enough procedure.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33866696/ns/technology_and_science-games/