14 DAY TRIAL // Bad news for the people who recently leaked footage from the Gears of War Xbox One reboot: Microsoft has permanently suspended their consoles from accessing Xbox Live.
Some game testers who decided to break their non-disclosure agreements and leak footage from the upcoming reboot have their Xbox Live accounts permanently disabled, and their Xbox One consoles can now only be used offline, according to Kotaku.
You can see some of the leaked screenshots on NeoGAF and even access some video content, which was hastily cloned before the powers that be got a chance to pull it down.
The affected game testers can still use their consoles, they just can't get online with them, and that also means that they can't access game updates or online games like Destiny.
"Microsoft enforcement action does not result in a console becoming unusable. Suspensions for both consoles and accounts are determined by looking at a number of factors. To avoid enforcement action including suspension from the service, users should follow the Xbox Live Terms of Use and Code of Conduct," the official statement from Microsoft reads.
The moral here is to follow the Terms of Use you agree to
The safest way to avoid "enforcement action" would be not to buy a game console from a party that strong-arms you into only using its own software, without being able to install anything else on a perfectly good computer, in spite of the fact that you paid for it in the first place, and it was not given to you as a courtesy.
That said, with the deed already done, this might serve as a caution for console users involved in alpha and beta testing upcoming products in the future. Breaking an NDA can have dire consequences.
Sure, the Xbox One devices affected by this can still be used for single-player games and watching movies on Blu-ray discs, but without the ability to go online, the consoles are pretty crippled.
The Gears of War remaster has not been officially announced yet, but rumor has it that Splash Damage, the studio responsible for Brink and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, is currently working on it under Black Tusk's supervision.
Microsoft was no doubt planning to make the big reveal this June, at the E3 convention, but the leak has taken a lot of wind out of the company's sails.