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Microsoft says it has banned thousands of gamers from its Xbox Live service because they may have been modifying or "chipping" their console. The company says that's illegal and that modifying Xbox 360 consoles to play pirated discs could result in a ban from the service. This is what happened to one gamer called Raz.

"My name's Raz, I'm 25 years old, I'm a massive Xbox gamer. I play every day after work and all day on the weekends.

The Xbox for me is just about playing online, that's why I love it - well did!

It was a big day yesterday, the latest game we've been waiting months and months for. We've played the whole series and this one's come out, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

All loading up, everything's going well, I was happy. It came on to the start screen of Call of Duty and I thought, 'Do you know what, let me quickly sign in online'. I sign in online and next thing I see, 'Your console has been banned from Xbox'.

I was pretty distraught at the time, I can't remember exactly what it said but I saw the words 'banned' and I was gutted, completely gutted.

At first I was in shock, I mean it's always at the back of your head using pirate games you know there's that possibility but you haven't heard about it, there's been no warnings and you haven't heard it happen to anyone in the last two years.

I wasn't expecting it. I was just like, 'OK, what do I do now? Is this just a joke?' So I thought, 'Let me restart the Xbox'. I restarted, signed in again, same message. I did that three times, same message.

I love it, I love playing Xbox live. I play with my mates all the time. It's just a good laugh, we all sit there chatting, playing games. Now I don't know what to do.

To be honest, I've contemplated whether to move to Playstation 3 or buy another Xbox. I wouldn't do it again but I really don't know if I'm going to get the Xbox again now."