SOCOM Online Cheats Ruin Experience

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a GamePro report discussing GameShark cheat provider Fire International's touting of itself as "the first source of cheats for PS2 online title SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, effectively encouraging gamers to ruin online gameplay for fair SOCOM players." According to Fire's European press release, the cheat "..enables unlimited ammunition and now boasts cheat codes for no recoil, rapid fire, unlimited grenades and a code which allows the player to steal their opponent's ammunition!" This brings to Europe a problem that is already rampant in the States, but which Sony claim they will fix for November's SOCOM 2, which should "..solve these issues and also feature the ability to ban cheaters from online play."

Punkbuster?

[Estaga]

Not being a gamer myself but playing around with Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, I noticed a think called punkbuster, a countermeasure against online cheating? Maybe more games should support this (yeahyeah its PC only now).

http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=info.p hp

Re:Cheats = Testing Codes

[evil-osm]

The cheats were not actually left in the game, rather they are done with a third party hacking/cheating utility called Xploder.

They do have some control....

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you haven't been following the mod chip saga. Microsoft has been banning modded xboxs from playing online. If you get caught they change your settings/system so that the xbox that got caught can not play on xbox live(others please ignore the technicalities, I just want to make the following point).

So Microsoft has one way to combat the cheater problem, they can ban their xbox system. They can transfer their account to a new xbox, and it will cost them to do so each time. This could be a good deterrent to prevent people from just the cheap and easy route of buying a new xbox live kit, and they won't have to deal with continually dealing with and banning xbox live cheater accounts.

I can see Microsoft doing this with people who use cheating devices, but I doubt that Microsoft will resort to doing that for people who act like dicks. They would be killing off those customers who are helping them make a profit from their losses on the xbox.