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[Zander]

I bet everyting will appear to be fine for a few hours. Until you disconnect from a game and want to play something else.

Then you will get "xbox live not found".

You have been warned.

Z

[mark986]

Will having a switch and keeping the modchip disabled be a reliable way to play on Xbox Live?

[shjon25]

So what you're are saying is I'm already screwed? Even if I never play another Live game on that system and load my account on a new unmodded system and play from there from here on out I will eventually get a "not found" error?

[andreo]

First, you can disable your mod. Look in the tutorials. You need to put a switch on connection 15 and 21.
Next, you may or may not be screwed. Disable the mod, put the retail Live disk in, and see what happens. If you can't connect any more then it means that console is banned (according to most people, including myself). However, that doesn't mean that you can't use your account anymore. If you want to copy it from the none working system to a un-modded system it will work fine.

Enjoy

[shjon25]

Oh ok, that's all I wanted to know... Looks like I'll have to get a third XBOX...

[slappynutz]

The MS guy who called me back said that they started banning Mod chips on the 13th of November. Which means that they were probably scanning for them somehow before that date, and just killed the serials on the 13th. If you went on with a mod chip before then, it probably doesn't matter what you do now.

Of course, there are those that swear that they're not banning modded machines, but all the anecdotal evidence is leading me to think that MS is. Plus that phone call I got today when the first thing the guy asked after my name was whether or not I have a mod chip in my Xbox.

[Spree]

See but this is all i'm saying.  Just bc your down doesn't mean they are blocking serialz.  Why try to ban every single serial when you can release an update to change your eeprom to an unusable state?  To me it just makes more sense.  I'm not claiming to know but I think logging every single serial is ridiculous.  The xyz factors are clearly changed in a modded box after you have updated.  That is the ticket.  The eeprom should be able to be corrected I just don't see why this can't be true.  Somewhere there must be something to be done I simply at this point refuse to believe it is a blacklist.

[ianmalcm]

I've been to Comdex this week, and talked to official Xbox personnel face to face about modchips. They just ban serials, and are not interested in banning accounts (probably because legal trouble could ensue if an account is banned for assumption of illegal piracy and no piracy actually took place)

Its all marketing, and it worked... let the modchip'ed play the beta, get them hooked on it, and then force those people to buy a new unmodded xbox in the end. Let friends tell friends that "modchips work fine! no worries!" then get them all in the end, forcing more hardware sales.

Activities like this are not uncommon. Sony Playstation2 is NOTORIOUS for breaking down constantly. Cheap lasers stop working with DVDs or PSone or PS2 games, either blue or silver disc. They call it "planned obsolesence" which forces customers, who already have a library of games, to buy another PS2 when their first one breaks. This increase in sales allows Sony to tell companies like RockStar "we have more systems on the market than anyone, so why dont you just make games for us!" PS2 has sold 11 million units with this scheme.......... and MS saw an opportunity to help themselves catch up.

Secondly, allowing modchip'ed to play during the beta allowed MS to troubleshoot their detection and banning techniques over many months. It will probably be very very difficult to bypass, because they had a testing ground of 1000's of hacked xboxes to try, retry, and verify hardware and software information. When all those gamers were laughing and saying "we tricked MS! ha!" - MS actually had their number. Literally.

ON THE FLIP SIDE, yeah it sucks they tricked us. But we have XBconnect and Gamespy.... and if more people are playing those services, others will join in. A crowd attracts a crowd.

As far as cheating, thats an understandable threat to Xbox Live. So what is MS going to do when GAMESHARK XB is released? Infinite energy/missles? and its 100% Legal

Concluding, I'm pleased with what I have. A $199 emulator machine that streams mp3's and plays Divx on my HDTV. Fully upgradeable. Not to mention this is only first generation software....

[alee132]