Xbox One not in South Africa at launch

sycogrim

sycogrim

MyGaming Comp Authoritah
Xbox One available in 21 countries ONLY, South Africa not included

Well since the first world DSL infrastructures are the most likely case of this, I think it should be seen that the rest of the world clearly isn't good enough for MS. It might change down the line but it's highly unlikely if this is what they're saying now.

Microsoft's Xbox One preorder information page states that the console will only support Live in only 21 countries at launch, and therefore presumably won't work anywhere else.


If you were planning on preordering an Xbox One console, you'd be well advised to do yourself a favor and make sure you live in one of these 21 nations:


  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Mexico
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Norway
  • Russia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

Why? Because it is in those nations, and those nations only (unless Microsoft changes its mind between now and then) that the Xbox One will be supported through Xbox Live at launch. And since the Xbox One requires online game activation and a daily connection to the central scrutinizer, which I assume must take place via Xbox Live, the unavoidable conclusion is that the console just won't work outside of those countries.


It seems fairly straightforward and yet it's so hard to believe that I can't help thinking that I must be misinterpreting the situation somehow. After all, we're not talking about a lack of support in, say, Equitorial Guinea or the Pitcairn Islands; the list omits nations like Portugal, Japan, Ukraine, Greece and Poland, ironically the homeland of Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt. These are potentially huge chunks of the international market that Microsoft appears to be willfully and completely bypassing.


It's possible that a stopgap plan will be put into place to enable the system's functionality in non-Live regions, although no mention of such a thing is made on the site. It does warn, however, that "Xbox One games are for activation and distribution only in specified geographic regions."
Click to expand...



Sauce
 
Run an dns with American server just like you would for Hulu and Netflix. Make sure your consoles regional settings are America or Canada. I don't see why it shouldn't work :)
 
As an avid hater of the idea of an Xbox One even I have to admit, this sounds like alarmism. I highly doubt that they would be so stupid as to entirely exclude European countries like Portugal and Poland. They will probably roll out plans to include other countries at a later date. Although, having staggered releases in those countries still seems like a stupid idea to me.
 
Wacky said:
Run an dns with American server just like you would for Hulu and Netflix. Make sure your consoles regional settings are America or Canada. I don't see why it shouldn't work :)
Click to expand...

Well and then your Live account needs to be USA/UK too and your subscription/payments will most likely happen via some dodgy voucher system as your SA CC won't be accepted. Considering how much emphasis MS is putting on their Xbox Live "always online" system, this is probably a huge schlep to keep up. It's one thing to do this with your Apple account to buy a game in the iTunes store, but having to constantly keep a USA/UK VPN service going everytime you log in (nevermind purchase anything) or at least once every 24 hours to prevent your Xbone from shutting down, that just sounds like a PITA.

Trust me i had to do all this with my Zune (Microsoft's attempt to make an iPod/iTunes competitor) and microsoft tried to shut me down around every corner in using their zune services. Netflix/Hulu is still very lenient with alot of these things, Microsoft left me very little loopholes with faking my USA citizenship, eventually it just got too much and my zune is now just gathering dust.
 
Last edited:
StaggerLee said:
As an avid hater of the idea of an Xbox One even I have to admit, this sounds like alarmism. I highly doubt that they would be so stupid as to entirely exclude European countries like Portugal and Poland. They will probably roll out plans to include other countries at a later date. Although, having staggered releases in those countries still seems like a stupid idea to me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have to agree. Perhaps this is only for pre-orders and XBox One will only come to SA a month or two later.
 
I use my SA credit card for UnoTelly and Hulu+ just fine. I don't see how it wont work with any other American subscription based payment gate :) I get that you might prefer having a South African xbox live account. I know of people who have SA and USA xbox live subscriptions and use them depending on what/how they want to play at a given time. I run my dns on my router 24/7 so its not a matter of keeping it running for me. I don't see the difference in day to day usage. Maybe google thinks I am American, but that's the worst that can happen. But like I said my post was merely an idea. Perhaps like you said, Microsoft have better means of detecting this type of behaviour.

diabolus said:
Well and then your Live account needs to be USA/UK too and your subscription/payments will most likely happen via some dodgy voucher system as your SA CC won't be accepted. Considering how much emphasis MS is putting on their Xbox Live "always online" system, this is probably a huge schlep to keep up. It's one thing to do this with your Apple account to buy a game in the iTunes store, but having to constantly keep a USA/UK VPN service going everytime you log in (nevermind purchase anything) or at least once every 24 hours to prevent your Xbone from shutting down, that just sounds like a PITA.

Trust me i had to do all this with my Zune (Microsoft's attempt to make an iPod/iTunes competitor) and microsoft tried to shut me down around every corner. Netflix/Hulu is still very lenient with alot of these things, Microsoft they left me very little loopholes to with faking my USA citizenship, eventually it just got too much and my zune is now just gathering dust.
Click to expand...
 
No, we are getting a Q2 release.

You won't be able to import a console and play here, you will have to use a VPN.

Unotelly and DNS spoofing is not going to work.
 
ViperGTI said:
Yeah, I have to agree. Perhaps this is only for pre-orders and XBox One will only come to SA a month or two later.
Click to expand...

I am sure of this. Microsoft have a big foot print in South Africa. They wouldn't leave the South African market untapped. The quality of our infrastructure would have you assume, that we as a country cannot be profitable in terms of Xbox live, but I am sure this is not the way that Microsoft sees it. Money is money :)
 
I wish i was a fly on the wall when the heads of state at Microsoft decided all this and said we gonna kill sony.

I know that there are some great minds in MS and maybe there is an endgame that we really dont understand yet.

I guess time will tell
 
Eugene said:
I don't think a few thousand people will make much difference to the millions they will sell in the listed countries.
Click to expand...

But as it says in the article, the rest of the world is a large percentage of their market: 13.7 million of 70 million is about 20% of their market! I don't think that only counts for a few thousand. I would also assume that they would want to grow their market share, not shrink it. They are excluding quite a few important regions from their first release wave.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top