As a gamer that enjoys online gaming, I am fully aware that I am subject to the powers that be while playing these games. Usually knowing what the repercussions of my actions are, I know better than to do things that are frowned upon by those in power.

It has been confirmed (by MSNBC) that up to 1,000,000 Xbox 360 users, will be subject to the almighty ban hammer of Microsoft. The justification is that Microsoft is cracking down on users that have modded their Xbox, bought pirated games, or unlawfully downloaded games.

If anyone remembers, Major Nelson tweeted about Xbox users to get legitimate Xbox hard drives. It looks like this may be the reason that he warned Xbox users against having any non Microsoft hard drives, so that they would not be banned from Xbox Live just because they had an unofficial hard drive. Also, with pirated copies of Modern Warfare 2 floating around, this is going to really screw some people.

The biggest problem with Xbox bans, is that it bans your MAC address, so some users may have an Xbox that they received from someone else and be banned for something they were unaware of. A backlash may be people with warranties returning their console and getting a new, fresh console in order to fix this problem.

Although Microsoft's actions are extremely justified, it seems bullshit in certain senses, because the hard drives offered are smaller capacity while being exorbitantly more expensive than a normal HDD.

(Via MSNBC)