And so we come to it, Microsoft has been carrying out out it’s annual ‘ban wave’ over the last couple of weeks; designed to target the modified console community (or pirates to those in the media) just before the biggest game of the year comes out; oh yes, and Christmas. Pfffftttt.

As per usual, you get the mass media hype saying how pirating is damaging the gaming industry; personally I’d say the damage was done years ago by Sony and it’s aggressive surge into the market but there you are. Alas, I can appreciate how pirating games is naughty, but I can also understand why it brings out a rebellious streak in some who people prefer not to pay £50 a game each time.

What will this mean to those who have had their consoles banned from playing on xbox live? Well, after talking to my friends who have been caught had their legs slapped, I’m of the impression that most will go out and buy a new machine, keep it legit and buy only the very best games to play online; the new Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2 game for example.

Most would probably keep the modded xbox for playing copied games offline and still save a significant amount of money in the long run by doing this. Not a big deal really when you look at it like that is it?

So what have Microsoft gained by doing this? Was it ever about piracy? I don’t really believe it was personally. Who will suffer? US games developers probably because there’s sod all development left in the UK now.

20 million people apparently play xbox live, an estimated 900,000 of those are banned for using modded boxes. If you take the average price of a console as £150.00 then that means that’s £135,000,000 in the coffers IF most go out and buy another machine. £135 million quid!

No, I personally think that this is more about Christmas sales figures, the Nintendo Wii and Slim PS3 have all been flying off the shelves lately, so Microsoft has to get their console sales figures up. What better way to do it than through a ban wave and look to be addressing a piracy issue at the same time? What would be more damaging for the Xbox, 1/20th of it’s online users having modified boxes, or slipping down in the console ranks?

What will I do? Lets just say I intend on writing quite a few ‘early’ game reviews on Antikrish should I have the time 🙂

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr Jim lad!