Print

[Fofer]

Hi all:

I've read a lot (specifically from user Brienj) about how moving your XBL account info from the hard drive over to a memory card will protect your Xbox from ever "accidentally" logging on to XBL.  He contends that if you managed to remove your account to a memory card *before* the XBL 2.0 update is applied, you are doubly protected, since the update never knew you had a gamertag in the first place.

But I have also read that there is definite net activity to MS servers both with, and without, an account on the HD.  And it makes sense too -- the update is delivered automatically, even if you haven't yet created a gamertag on that particular box!  And the new XBL usage policy explicitly states that the Xbox can/will occasionally connect to the XBL servers to monitor/update/change/delete files as it sees fit.  Whether you initiated the login or not.  I can imagine a scenario where an Xbox gets banned from XBL before they even create a gamertag.

So basically I'm wondering if there's been any new data discovered on this "memory card as protection" idea.  I'm not against transferring my gamertag info to a memory card if it will genuinely make a difference!  But I got this box to play games, and I am already very careful about turning the mod chip off, fixing my EvoX/XBMP settings so I don't accidentally launch the MS dash, renaming the updatedash.xbe/downloader.xbe/onlinedash.xbe files, turning off XBL autologin, etc.  

It would be a pain to have to purchase/insert a memory card just for the sole purpose of (perhaps) protecting my box from getting banned.  I see no reason why this would provide any additional protection, and if it does, it would be trivial for MS to rectify the situation within one day.

Any additional discussion appreciated.  I know it's difficult to say, since XBL 2 is new and no one is eager/wealthy enough to experiment with the Xboxes, but the situation will no doubt get more complicated when Live Enabled games come out.  I anticipate games that connect to the net upon launching, or within a game when you hit a spot in the map that could use updating, etc.