Comments on: Xbox Live taking action on Gamerscore tampering

Gamers who are caught cheating may find their Gamerscores reset to zero and they'll lose any accumulated achievements. Microsoft says, basically, "Don't do it."

[elcapitaine]

About Time

first off...his name isn't 'Major Nelson' it's Larry Hyrb. That's just his gamertag.

Second, they're being very careful about this. A lot of the known gamesavers are still in the clear. As far as I can see, gamertags Sufoor and StripClubDJ are the only ones affected as of yet.

Honestly, way to go MS.

[basraw]

huh? what's a game saver?

How does one cheat on xbox 360?

[-fjtorres-]

You guys don't do much console gaming, do you?

Major Nelson (as in "major Anthony Nelson from I dream of Jeannie"; he bears a slight resemblance to Larry Hagman) is the Gamertag for Larry Hryb, who is not an XBOX Live Administrator, but rather a spokesman for MS.
He (definitely male) hosts weekly one minute video clips on the service and runs a sort-of support Blog, where he posts regular podscasts, interviews, and notifications. So he is pretty much a fixture of this generation of console gaming.

Even PS3 fanboys know who Major Nelson is.
(You guys Wii users?)

[umbrae]

Mud on CNET's face...

Definitely should have had someone write the article that was "in the know". Major is the voice on XBOX right now, and the author should have absolutely KNOWN he was a HE. Just makes CNET look bad and uninformed.

As Wii users know Major too. :)

[Morpheus Phreak]

Even you don't have it completely right

Larry is the Director of XBox Live Programming.

He's far more than just a simple spokesman.

He's one of the few people on campus that I have not had the
pleasure of meeting.

I've met Bill, Jim, Steve, Cesar (from the Zune side of things),
Paul Donnely (who heads up a lot of the windows stuff), Julie
Larson-Green (who handled Office 2007 and is now working on
Seven),and a few others, but not Larry, at least not yet.

I have to wrangle an audience somehow.

[perfectblue97]

You guys Wii users?N

Nah, they're probably PC-heads.

[Steve519_]

Not everyone is happy

http://www.platformnation.com/2008/03/25/microoft-just-pwn-your-cheating-a/

[aceattorney]

We're Tracking the Cheaters

Thanks to MS, gaming on Xbox Live is just a little bit more fun. Check out the growing list of Cheaters we've id-ed: http://xboxcheaterwatch.wordpress.com/

[swj719]

How lazy/stupid must this journalist be?

You couldn't even click "about" on Major Nelson's blog to find his name and official job title.

I know you didn't look, because you neither got his title correct, but you were unsure as to his gender.

Know many women named "Larry", do you?

A wonderful example, children, of how not to research an article. A shining sample of what not to do.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

[Daniel Terdiman]

Fair criticism

This comment, and others like it here and in email I got, was fair, and I regret not looking up Major Nelson's bio before making the post. As you mentioned, it would have been easy to do so.

I've edited the story to remove any uncertainty about Major Nelson's gender. I would like to assure you and anyone else who might have misinterpreted the language I used that I wasn't trying to be disrespectful of Major Nelson. I just neglected to make that extra click. I'll do better next time.

[-fjtorres-]

Who is Major Nelson? Duh...

Here ya go, children, Reuters knows:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0265215120080103