Console gamers in South Africa have it rough. In addition to not getting official support for Xbox Live, we also get ignored when it comes to DLC content. Take music-rhythm games, for example. Great in theory: an entire catalogue of music for you to buy and play whenever you like. And overseas, in countries with 100% working online support, there is no problem. The UK PlayStation Store, which updates with 90% of the same content as the South African store and on the same date, receives DLC packs for all the big-name music games: Guitar Hero, Rock Band and DJ Hero, while we in South Africa get ignored.
It’s not like we are the armpit of the world anymore, at least not badly enough to be treated like this. I mean, we’re hosting the biggest sporting event in the world in 8 days time, and hundreds of thousands of tourists are going to flock here and be amazed that we don’t all live in huts and run miles through the savannah just to get to a telephone line. We have technology! We have broadband internet connections, and there are even uncapped options that are affordable! If we can have access to content that other countries get, it is surely not a matter of availability.
Perhaps the answer lies in licensing. For what is probably the same reason why there is no official iTunes support in South Africa, we on the tip of Africa are denied access to the latest musical offerings for our favourite music rhythm games. Actual information is scarce, and nobody seems to know anything about why we don’t get included with the rest of the world. Strangely enough, the Nokia Music Store is quite successfully selling digital music to South Africans, so it can’t be a matter of licensing for the music.
Maybe it’s the interactive part itself that prohibits us, and other pariahs like Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from receiving music game DLC releases. But wait. Isn’t Karaoke Revolution a music game? And is it just my imagination or does that faithfully receive a good couple of songs every week for download? Yup, it seems that way, and even SingStar has fully supported local DLC. So we can rule out that it’s because of a licensing issue that we can’t download Rock Band/Guitar Hero/DJ hero music.
This leaves us with two options: either Activision and Harmonix are too lazy to actually secure licences for the games, or there is some difference between Karaoke Revolution and other music rhythm games that allows the publishing and sale of digital music for one game and not the other. By virtue of the fact that there was (and still is) some Guitar Hero 3 DLC content available on the store (it only shows up in search results and not from browsing), we can rule out the former reason. It has been done in the past, so surely it must be possible in the present?
I would suggest that it is because Karaoke Revolution features cover songs while other games are based on master recordings, but the presence of SingStar master DLC tracks renders this point moot. The only thing left that could be prohibiting the sale of RB/GH/DJH DLC is some kind of law prohibiting the sale of music tracks that that allow virtual interaction via means other than singing.
Anybody else got any ideas as to why we don’t get any music DLC in South Africa?
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