Update: Major Nelson has stated in a Reddit interview that users will “absolutely not” lose access to their games if banned, but…
Update: Major Nelson has stated in a Reddit interview that users will “absolutely not” lose access to their games if banned, but still no details how that would work, or updates to the licensing/terms of service. Stay tuned.
We came across some interesting tweets today that seemed to indicate users will lose access to their Xbox One games if they are banned from Xbox Live for violations of the terms of use. Redditors took the tweets seriously enough to vote the issue to the top of the front page, and Microsoft has attempted to clarify the situation – but we’re still not exactly sure what the hell is going on.
Let’s start with the tweet that got the whole thing rolling:
According to this tweet, “AC” clearly states Xbox One users will forfeit any games associated with the banned account. However, just a little while later, Microsoft backed away from this statement saying it was a ‘mistake’ and they were referring to Xbox 360 terms of use.
With the shitstorm ensuing over the original tweet, Microsoft attempted to clarify by referring to their licensing agreements for Xbox One games (see last tweet):
That link they’re referring to is a very general page about Xbox One licensing, and doesn’t cover or mention banning, ToU or even if you’ll have access to your games on a banned account. When pressed for more information on what might happen to disc based games in that situation, Xbox Support replied with the same link we just mentioned:
It now appears as if Microsoft Support has a standard answer to everyone tweeting about the situation with banned accounts, and it’s basically saying it was a mistake and refers to the link we mentioned above. At the time of press, the link had been sent out over 20 times.
We’re not sure exactly how Xbox 360 users lose access to their games if they’re disc based, but the bottom line here is we don’t have any strong information on what exactly happens to Xbox One users who are banned from Xbox Live – despite the litany of tweets and ‘clarifications’ from Microsoft Support. We reached out to Microsoft via their Twitter account for more information specifically on banned accounts and the Xbox One, but they replied saying that’s all they had for now.
We’ll keep you updated on what clarifications Microsoft make, if any. It could be a while though, as they’re currently in full damage control mode.
Source: Reddit