Forza Horizon 6: Microsoft is handing out permanent hardware bans for playing the leaked build
Microsoft is issuing permanent hardware bans to players who accessed a leaked build of Forza Horizon 6 — a build that leaked because Microsoft itself forgot to encrypt the Steam preload. The ban doesn't just block an account; it locks the entire PC out of Xbox services, with an expiry date set to December 31, 9999. That's roughly 69.9 million hours from now.
What happened
About a week before the game's May 19 launch, the full 155 GB PC version of Forza Horizon 6 appeared in Steam's preload system, completely unencrypted. Players who downloaded and launched it — some just to take screenshots — began receiving ban notifications citing "cheating or unallowed modding," per WCCFtech. The leak itself has been called the biggest in the franchise's history, and Windows Central frames it squarely as a Microsoft security failure, not a player-initiated breach.
Forza Horizon 6 key art. Illustration: Microsoft
The ban that survives a Windows reinstall
A standard account ban is inconvenient. An HWID ban — hardware ID ban — is something else. It targets the unique serial identifiers embedded in your motherboard, CPU, and storage. Reinstalling Windows doesn't help. Switching accounts doesn't help. The only real exits are buying new components or using HWID-spoofing tools, which carry their own malware and ban risks. Microsoft's Services Agreement grants the company broad rights to restrict access when it detects modified software, and Playground Games applied that clause at full force here.
The practical stakes are real: a player who paid for the Premium Edition to get early access could end up with a machine permanently blocked from Xbox online services — all for playing a game that was publicly accessible through no fault of their own.
A device-ownership question with no easy answer
No public appeal process has been documented. That absence mirrors complaints about Apple and Google account closures, where permanent enforcement with no recourse leaves users with hardware that still works but services that don't. The situation raises an uncomfortable question: if a company's own security error puts restricted content in front of you, how much liability should fall on the person who clicked play?
For now, Microsoft has sent a clear message that embargo violations won't be tolerated — even when the company itself is the one that broke the embargo. The official launch is May 19 on PC and Xbox Series X|S.
