Xbox Gaming in South Africa

The latest Xbox 360 update over Xbox LIVE seemed fairly insignificant, purportedly only re-enabling the 'boot to disc' functionality which was lost with the last major dashboard update. However, if you're a pesky pirate, you would've noticed something else: a new piracy check that blocks you from playing your favourite "backed up" games.

According to an ever growing thread on a forum at the modder hangout Xbox-scene, the latest update included a hidden piracy protection check that causes disk read errors when trying to boot up pirated copies of games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, Modern Warfare 2 and Halo: Reach, making them unplayable.

Microsoft has yet to comment on the matter, but the message is clear: don't pirate games.