Tag: xbox region coding

If a recent post I mentioned that some clever users found a way around Microsoft’s XBox 360 region-specific Market Place movie and video demo download restrictions. The trick was to take advantage of Microsoft’s free XBox Live Accounts. A user in one jurisdiction could create multiple silver-level (a.k.a. free) accounts by simply stating in the online sign up process that they live in a another download-frinedly jurisdiction. Paid movie downloads, trailers, game demos etc. would then be available available through the alternative silver-level account in jurisdictions that Microsoft did not intend.

After only weeks of being out in the wild, Microsoft has patched this work-around. Now only users that have credit cards with billing addresses that match the purported region can download content for that region. Happily Microsoft is not banning these extra accounts, they are simply restricting their access to region-coded content.

As a lawyer, this is understandable. As a user, this is sad. Having previously lived in the U.S.and having access to virtually anything the Internet can deliver, it is a very rude awaking to move back to a 2nd tier jurisdiction like Canada where so many Internet-based services are either not available, delayed, provided at higher price points or provided with less functionality. Microsoft’s new movie download service is a perfect example of this regrettable phenomena.

Presumably a Canadian with an American credit card and billing address could still circumvent the system for instance. Humm… as a holder of several U.S.-based credit cards, I wonder which of my U.S. buddies would allow me to use their address for credit card statement receipts? 🙂

Sources: TeamXbox | Major Nelson | Xbox 360 Fanboy | Hexus | Pro-G | EuroGamer | PlanetXbox | Gamasutra | Joystiq

If you follow Major Nelson’s (Larry Herb’s) day-to-day missives about what is available for download through the Xbox 360 Marketplace, you’ll note that many arcade games, game demos, trailers and other downloadable content is only available in certain regions of the world. This has lead to much consternation among Microsoft’s international customers. But the issue was brought to a head recently when, for the first time, North American XBox Owners were initially restricted from downloading a Rainbow Six: Las Vegas demo that was available for download by European users. This doesn’t happen very often to U.S. customers.

As a result, some clever users found a way around Microsoft’s XBox 360 region-specific MarketPlace download restrictions. You can read about them in the linked articles below.

Dale’s Comment: Just as Sony had legitimate legal reasons for opposing Lik-Sang’s import of PSP systems into the UK, no doubt Microsoft has legitimate legal reasons for restricting access to content on a country by country basis. For example, game publishers/developers that provide downloadable content to Microsoft probably have granted exclusive distribution/marketing and other rights to that content in the prohibited regions to others. My hope/expectation is that over time licensing and distribution deals will be structured to recognize the increasingly globalized nature of the market so as to anticipate and, indeed, facilitate global distribution/downloads without this kind of constraint.

Sources: Gizmodo | SAGN