hmm are you sure?

With this new online system Stern must have done something to protect the code - 1: from hackers being able to cook the books on the system and 2: from proper hackers installing bot farms on your pinball machine. I would be surprised if they haven't gone down the signed code route.

Stern have never said that they support you hacking their code, now because of putting the games online I'd be amazed if it was so easy to do. It should never have been doable and in my view (working in Security) amazed that the code was so unprotected.

sadly, software doesn't work like that. You are sold a right to use, you own the right to use the software, you do not own the software any more than stern owns the assets in the software. Hardware yup you can do what you like.

of course you can turn it off, simply by not connecting it in the first place. Or disabling the wifi dongle or unplugging the ethernet cable.

not sure what the aggression is for - but no you didn't hack the code and I never meant that - apologies. Someone hacked code that in my view should never have been hackable. I would be amazed if the new code stern puts out is changeable in the way the previous code has been.

With regards to the other things about stern making changes to your game, xbox, playstation, even your phone is online and gets updates but in every case you can say no, the same will be true for this but if you say no, you will still be able to play but you won't be able to do stuff online. However, Microsoft have proven that they have a right to remove service if they believe you are trying to circumvent their platform and the T&Cs notify you of that.

I think stern will continue to ship code updates via their website because lots of people won't have games online and often games don't ship with all the features promised at launch and they come later.