[slezakattack]

Interesting post but was really hoping to understand why some of my saves wouldn't transfer to other 360 consoles. Back when the "red ring of death" was more common, I would be issued a replacement console. When I snapped my hard drive back in and turned on Ninja Gaiden 2, I wouldn't be able to continue my progress. I had the unfortunate luck of this happening several times to me and I eventually quit playing that game.

Years and years later, I worked with someone who used to be at a gaming company and he claimed that apparently it was a quality assurance requirement from Microsoft in order to be published..

[EatonZ]

There are "transfer flags" on content items that control whether they could be copied/moved.

[hubbbbble]

Good to know! Back in the days my friend and I figured out that if we bought Xbox Live Arcade games on someone's console with the other person's account, both would effectively own the full game and could play it (albeit not at the same time). We used this scheme to share account passwords and get more Gamerscore out of some titles. My then 14-year old self was quite disappointed to find out he lost all shared games when his console was replaced after a RRoD. I guess these games weren't transferable.