A large number - said to be around 600,000 - of Xbox 360 users have been banned from Xbox LIVE after Microsoft detected that they have modded their consoles in order to play pirated games.
"We have taken action against a small percentage of consoles [that] have been modified to play pirated game discs," the company confirmed.
"In line with our commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox Live community, we are suspending these modded consoles from Xbox Live."
The banned consoles are still able to play pirated games offline.
November 11, 2009 - 9:00pm