New Xbox 360 disc format [Bad news for pirates?]

[Inferno.]

Major Nelson has revealed on his blog that Microsoft is preparing to conduct another seasonal Xbox 360 Dashboard "preview program," this time to kick the tires of an "updated Xbox 360 disc format." For participating, testers will receive a copy of Halo: Reach in addition to "other possible rewards."

Sign-ups are now open at Microsoft Connect, with Major Nelson saying that the company is "looking for multiple thousands of participants, so your chances of making it in are good." Unlike with last fall's update preview, there's no mention of this update prohibiting participants from playing online or voice chatting with Xbox Live members who aren't part of the beta program. The preview is restricted to US residents, though both Gold and "Free" Xbox Live members can sign up -- with Gold members given the priority come selection time.

As for the new disc format: Since it will need to remain compatible with current 360 disc drives, the update is likely just related to copy protection -- in which case, the free copy of Reach probably uses it. We've contacted Microsoft for more details and will update as we get them.

Source.

Personally I hope they're going to stand up to pirates and do something about it. They've been pretty easy ever since the 360 piracy scene started. Would be good to see consoles actually getting banned.

[Inferno.]

Bah, what boring news. They're freeing up disc space, as the current disc layout only allows for 6.8GB because of the video partition, so they're freeing up the extra space, but really... Does an extra 200-300MB matter? It's not going to stop games like FFXIII using 3 discs now is it MS?

[Kermit Da Frog]

"Dear people, here's some copies of the discs with the new protection on them. Feel free to have extra time to get past these measures because we're allowing people to test them early."

[Tayls]

I didn't think the 360 pirate scene was all that big to begin with. I just flashed my drive's fw only to find that downloads and torrents for good 360 games are really hard to come by.

I don't know what MS hopes to achieve with this. Maybe it's just fear from seeing the PS3 get cracked wide open.

[Inferno.]

It's to free up the space on the disc, like I said before.

It's also possible they're going to pack each of the new discs with AP25 stuff, to fuck shit up good and proper for those who aren't clever enough to reflash with LT+.

[Tayls]

Which is sorta what I meant. They can't do much with that extra 200-300MB of space except maybe add some new security measures. Also, I've heard elsewhere that it actually frees up about 1 GB of space, not just 300MB. But that's still irrelevant considering most 360 games don't even get up to the current capacity of the discs.

[Jase]

It's to free up the space on the disc, like I said before.

It's also possible they're going to pack each of the new discs with AP25 stuff, to fuck shit up good and proper for those who aren't clever enough to reflash with LT+.

i havent flashed that yet.
Why thou, its only 4 games lol.

[Inferno.]

i havent flashed that yet.
Why thou, its only 4 games lol.

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