A recent crackdown on modded consoles snared "a very small percentage" of Xbox Live users who had done nothing wrong, yet received comprehensive bans from Microsoft nonetheless. Xbox Live's top cop today apologized for the mistake and said these gamers would be reinstated immediately.
Stephen Toulouse, better known as Stepto to some, said the bans resulted from "a software issue, not an error on the part of the enforcement team's normal actions." That said, the enforcement team is investigating what exactly when wrong, to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Those who were wrongly banned will get three months of free Xbox Live Gold service, and 1,600 Microsoft Points. All of this will be applied automatically, StepTo said. Those who were banned simply need to log back into Xbox Live.
"I'd like to take a moment to personally apologize for the inconvenience this has almost certainly caused to the affected customers," Stepto wrote. "You have my assurance that we are investigating how this error occurred and have since discontinued use of the software that was used."
A Guest Post from Stepto Regarding Console Suspensions [Major Nelson]