Lack of Content on Xbox live.

Grievous

Grievous

New member
So another game i was looking forward to isn't coming to xbox live - the new magic the gathering. Apparently its got to do with our rating board. Does anyone know what he process is, and why this board which is meant to serve us, is actually doing the opposite?

Edit: Obviously this is relating to content in SA.
 
Get a UK account, all your problems will be solved

In regards to your question, the FSB controls content in South Africa, they charge a flat rate to evaluate content and do not accept ESRB International Standard ratings
 
Xero said:
Get a UK account, all your problems will be solved

In regards to your question, the FSB controls content in South Africa, they charge a flat rate to evaluate content and do not accept ESRB International Standard ratings
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yeah i know, i have an UK account as well. But a work around isn't really my problem, its trying to understand the bullshit. I mean it doesn't really make sense, that we have content blocked because its not being rated here, but we can get the content anyway. And wtf, surely this should be a free service? I want this content, stop blocking it. I would be happy if they went the lazy route, everything is R18 unless it get rated, then at least you can have access to the content.
 
Yes but then how would the FPB make its money to pay the guys on Perma Lunch breaks?
This same issue cropped up a while ago with the queries into local Steam Purchases, titles not rated by the FPB can according to law be prohibited from being sold here

The system is built so that we, the idiots who enjoy gaming and purchase legitimate software, are punished for doing so
 
Xero said:
Yes but then how would the FPB make its money to pay the guys on Perma Lunch breaks?
This same issue cropped up a while ago with the queries into local Steam Purchases, titles not rated by the FPB can according to law be prohibited from being sold here

The system is built so that we, the idiots who enjoy gaming and purchase legitimate software, are punished for doing so
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Yeah sucks, I also think there is general lack of knowledge on what actually happens. I think a lot of people just assume MS are stiffing us, when infact its our own country thats holding us back. Pretty sad we pay taxes, and then have an organization setup, that blocks content we want.
 
I think it's because the ZA PSN is technically a foreign store, although prices are shown in Rands. The content may be cached locally however, but as lawyer Nicholas Hall commented in one of my articles analysing this scenario, the content is exempt from SA ratings laws because of ICASA licenses granted to ISPs.

It seems that because Xbox LIVE has an official presence in SA they ironically have a more difficult time bringing certain content to the digital marketplace.

Illegal digital distribution in SA analysed
 
James said:
I think it's because the ZA PSN is technically a foreign store, although prices are shown in Rands. The content may be cached locally however, but as lawyer Nicholas Hall commented in one of my articles analysing this scenario, the content is exempt from SA ratings laws because of ICASA licenses granted to ISPs.

It seems that because Xbox LIVE has an official presence in SA they ironically have a more difficult time bringing certain content to the digital marketplace.

Illegal digital distribution in SA analysed
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Oh My God, bureaucracy. What ever happened to logic?
 
Gir said:
Oh My God, bureaucracy. What ever happened to logic?
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+1

I was one of the people who got angry at Microsoft because of the empty Live Arcade store. Sorry MS. It does suck a lot though. There are so many of the games that I would like to get.
 
Just doesn't make any sense. I mean some games are rated and available to purchase on disc but the DLC never makes it to SA?
Mortal Kombat for example...
 
steaksauce said:
Just doesn't make any sense. I mean some games are rated and available to purchase on disc but the DLC never makes it to SA?
Mortal Kombat for example...
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Mortal Kombat isn't officially released in SA, you can't use your SA xbox live account for access to online matches (Though there is a workaround) I assume Computer Game shops get around the rating system some how. I'm just guessing here though, I'm going to check out my mortal kombat box and see who rated it when i get home.
 
Some DLC would be region locked
That's one of the reasons I never bothered switching over to a local LIVE account, my UK account has access to everything
 
Another reason this sucks for us, is if MS is deciding on the relative importance of SA as a market, they will likely look at the number of SA subscribers, and since most people are using US/UK accounts, it looks as if there's only a handful of xbl users in the country, so it would look like an even more insignificant market than it actually is. So why waste their time on a handful of people in a country where the government makes it near impossible to publish to anyway
 
matt said:
Another reason this sucks for us, is if MS is deciding on the relative importance of SA as a market, they will likely look at the number of SA subscribers, and since most people are using US/UK accounts, it looks as if there's only a handful of xbl users in the country, so it would look like an even more insignificant market than it actually is. So why waste their time on a handful of people in a country where the government makes it near impossible to publish to anyway
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Exactly, its the main reason i switched knowing fully well the service is no where near what it should be. I can't expect MS to give us full support if I don't even support them myself, specially considering the hurdles our government is making them jump. And considering the work around is pretty easy, when required i use a 2nd account on my xbox to get content which isn't available in SA. And use my SA account to get anything I want and that is available here. Not ideal, but not the end of the world.
 
Gir said:
Exactly, its the main reason i switched knowing fully well the service is no where near what it should be. I can't expect MS to give us full support if I don't even support them myself, specially considering the hurdles our government is making them jump. And considering the work around is pretty easy, when required i use a 2nd account on my xbox to get content which isn't available in SA. And use my SA account to get anything I want and that is available here. Not ideal, but not the end of the world.
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I do feel for them having to deal with the bureaucracy this country forces on them, but the one thing that has really grated me is that I had to create a UK account just to download the media update so I can watch avi's on my xbox. Seriously, it's just codecs isn't it? Why aren't we allowed that?
 
matt said:
I do feel for them having to deal with the bureaucracy this country forces on them, but the one thing that has really grated me is that I had to create a UK account just to download the media update so I can watch avi's on my xbox. Seriously, it's just codecs isn't it? Why aren't we allowed that?
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I'm taking a guess here, but i suspect the media update is for the movie service they offer? Wild guess though. I assume for us to get that same service MS would have to go through even more trouble, for a service most south Africans cant afford with our slow internets and expensive bandwidth.
 
Gir said:
I'm taking a guess here, but i suspect the media update is for the movie service they offer? Wild guess though. I assume for us to get that same service MS would have to go through even more trouble, for a service most south Africans cant afford with our slow internets and expensive bandwidth.
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Not even hey, it's just to enable the thing to play video. Maybe you have a movie, or even some home video or whatever, you can't play it unless you have that update.

If you have a video file you want to play, on a flash stick or whatever, you can select it on the xbox, and it says you need to download a media update to play it, but it just gives you an empty box on the download popup thing. If you try get it from the xbox website, it says this content is not available in your region.

I made myself a fake UK account, tried to play a video, got the message, downloaded the update, and now I can play video on my normal profile as well.
 
If you have an Xbox Live account that's registered as US account then you will definitely not be limited to certain content. But the Xbox Live South Africa has improved by adding more and more content piece by piece and I think that eventually they'll be up to speed with the rest of the world. For now I'm pretty much satisfied with all the content on Xbox Live SA because it's all I need. :)
 
souluser7 said:
If you have an Xbox Live account that's registered as US account then you will definitely not be limited to certain content. But the Xbox Live South Africa has improved by adding more and more content piece by piece and I think that eventually they'll be up to speed with the rest of the world. For now I'm pretty much satisfied with all the content on Xbox Live SA because it's all I need. :)
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I think that you and I have different XBox Live South African accounts. They have improved by adding more and more content piece by piece? They haven't even added one Arcade game a month. LIVE US have added a lot more this year alone. In fact, we are getting more behind by each month.

The worst is that if you are a Gold subscriber and they've got all these nice specials and the specials just don't apply to us because we can't buy the games.

The media update thing is unacceptable. Are South Africans not allowed to watch media on their XBoxes? It's a huge oversight.
 
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