When my latest Xbox 360 broke and I had to call my old friends at 1-800-4MYXBOX, the first thing I heard was a recorded message explaining that if your Xbox was banned, they wouldn't be able to help you. This was well before any other recorded spiel, so they must have been getting a lot of calls. You can't very well shut down online access for a million Xboxes without getting some angry calls.

Legal system to the rescue! A Midwestern law firm is rustling up disgruntled bannees for a class action suit and they've got the asterisks, quote marks, and inferences to back their case.

Although modification of Xbox consoles is *arguably* against the terms of use for Xbox/Xbox Live, Microsoft "conveniently" timed the Xbox console ban to coincide with the release of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game and less than two months after the release of the very popular Halo 3: ODST game. This "convenient" timing may have resulted in more Xbox Live subscription revenues for Microsoft than it would have generated had these Xbox console bans taken place at some time before the release of Halo 3: ODST and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Additionally, sales of both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (published by Activision) and Halo 3: ODST (published by Microsoft Game Studios) would likely have been greatly diminished had the Xbox console ban occurred prior to the release of these games.

(Thanks Inc Gamers!)