No Owner of the Xbox 360 likes to see this message when they connect to Xbox Live

:(

Unfortunately, for many this was the message they got after Call of Duty: Modern

Warfare 2 came out. The reason why? Many Xbox 360s are getting modded or

flashed to allow users to download games from various websites that get a hold

of video games the day of or even weeks before they are released! Microsoft has

warned 360 users that they will ban or suspend people from Xbox Live if they

catch them playing flashed games. So the question is is how does Microsoft know

if you've been pirating games? The solution is simple each game disc comes with

a certain encrypted code on the disc, these are know as "Waves", every few

months, the disc "Waves" are changed and are numbered 1,2,3,4, etc. Why

Microsoft caught so many pirates was because of these reasons:

1. Before MW2 release, games disc were "Wave 3" and in order to play these

games, you need a certain firmware which at the time was ixtreme 1.6,

Borderlands I believe was the last "Wave 3" game before the switch to "Wave 4".

2. Because MW2 was a "Wave 4" game, there was not a firmware that was

avaible to play "Wave 4" games yet.

3. Regardless of that and the eagerness to play Mw2 early and when it came

out, pirates used a program known as activateiso which tricks the flashed xbox

into thinking that the game is a "Wave 3" game instead of "Wave 4".

4. Every pirated game is usually stealthed patch so that Microsoft does not find

out you are playing a pirated game, except since there was no stealth patch for

"Wave 4" games yet, Microsoft was able to tell that users were playing a pirated

game.

5. Therefore when Microsoft does a "ban sweep" which is a program they use to

tell if you are playing a pirated game, all those who were playing a pirated copy of

MW2 or any other "Wave 4" game such as Tekken 6 at that time were banned.

The real reason why people flash their consoles is the sole fact that it can get

very pricey to buy video games this year, and especially when there was so many

releases of games!

Batman Arkham Asylum

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Halo 3: ODST

Brutal Legends

Dragon Age: Origins

Assassin Creed 2

Tekken 6

Left 4 Dead 2

Borderlands

The Saboteur

=

about $649.93

Thats almost half a thousand dollars on those games alone not even counting the

DLC they have which comes at about $10 a piece!!!

This is why many people are turning to pirating games, in this economy some of

us can't afford to spend that money and some of us don't want to wait 2 years

before it drops to $20 and by that time they got new games and sequels already out! :x

P.S. Merry Christmas