14 DAY TRIAL // The newest Xbox Live dashboard update, which was deployed yesterday onto Microsoft's console, is seemingly targeting video game pirates that are running illegal back up versions of Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, as well as Halo: Reach on the Xbox 360.
Microsoft deployed a pretty surprising mandatory update onto the Xbox Live online service, seemingly fixing only a minor issue that appeared after the introduction of last year's traditional Xbox Live Fall Update.
More specifically, people were no longer able to start the console right in a game, instead having to scroll to the game in the Xbox dashboard interface and then hitting launch.
Now, this new update once again enables the feature, but at least according to several websites, it brings a few more hidden additions.
According to several reports from specialty forums, this new Xbox Live dashboard update effectively blocks video game pirates that were using illegal back up discs of the most recent Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, made by Activision, as well as Microsoft's own Halo: Reach.
Xbox 360 hackers use a special firmware for the DVD drive of the console to allow it to run non-original game discs without Microsoft's anti-piracy software kicking in.
While this is great for those that want to keep their original games safe and run back-up copies of those titles, this "feature" was used by pirates to play downloaded copies of games on the Microsoft console.
What's very peculiar is that the company's new update only protects the two Call of Duty titles and Halo: Reach, so other game copies are still working fine.
Still, it seems that the pirates have begun fighting back, and already modified versions of the two games are popping up around the web, which can be played with modded Xbox 360 consoles that are running the new dashboard update.