A while back I reported about the Polish Xbox Live petition that was a little to similar to our own to be a coincidence. Well Robert Szkop, the guy who put it up, actually responded to me very shortly after that to apologise for the plagiarism and offer assure us that there was no harm meant in it. Which I was meant to post about but never did… Bad form on my part.. anyway
It’s more like a compliment, Poland copying us, than anything. He also mentioned the fact that Greece has also got a petition going for Xbox live, so why is it that we are all begging for Xbox Live. Why can Microsoft not just allow us to sign up using our local addresses?
Granted I understand that putting in the servers is an expensive task and supporting Live also has some costs however for a phase 1 why can we not just be allowed to sign up with South Africa as our locale?
We don’t need local servers in the beginning, all we want is to be able to sign up legally, pay with our local credit cards and not be restricted by Germany’s strict censorship.
I see no reason why this cannot be done easily and with very little cost to Microsoft. Xbox Live is an integral part of the Xbox 360 experience and it is shameful that we are not supported. Especially since the PS3 was released with local PSN support from the beginning.
What we and I am sure our European friends want is the following
1. The ability to select our home country when registering
2. The ability to purchase points in our local currency
3. To be recognised as a country in our own right and not to be restricted by other countries
I have sent an email to the local Microsoft guys asking for some comments and specifically reasons why we cannot have these 3 simple things. Lets see what happens. I am bored of the generic answers now.
Greece: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/xboxliveingreece/index.html
Poland: http://www.petitiononline.com/plxbl/petition.html
South Africa:
Last Updated: October 29, 2007
doobiwan
October 29, 2007 at 10:05
Hmm, maybe all three countries need to put our heads together.
I’m thinking a “Minority countries” committee that basically request exactly what you’ve asked for, maybe compromising at a single “Small fry” Xbox live region that would at least allow us to get all the “open” content, that’s not banned in other countries, like the Gears maps.
Sort of a staging area for any unclassified countries. It would be content limited, but at least we could game and get the free stuff.
Gavin
October 29, 2007 at 10:37
Did you guys know that India are getting xbox live in November! its on joystiq.com
I suppose they’re a huge nation though
hilt_ctn
October 29, 2007 at 11:35
Yup. It be true. And apparently their install base is smaller than ours ? I blame Hellkom
LazySAGamer
October 29, 2007 at 11:57
I also blame Telkom but it is about time Microsoft took some responsibility as well.
All we are asking for is to be allowed to legally continue as we have been…
Craig Nicholson
October 29, 2007 at 12:19
Firstly I hope that nobody is actually expecting to get local servers and a reduction in latency as this, in my opinion, is just not going to happen anytime soon. The ability to support the South African Rand as a currency and sign-up against South Africa as a country is likely to happen sooner; once Microsoft Corp. have decided to roll it out.
Just keep making noise and putting on the pressure and it will come. 🙂
LazySAGamer
October 29, 2007 at 12:34
@Craig, that is all we are asking for. There is no roll out required, just add our name into the database 😉
Vijay Sinha
October 30, 2007 at 02:38
Just recently, Microsoft green-lighted Xbox Live to be made available in India (official launch is November 5th). So I’d like to think that other countries would eventually follow suit, but while Robbie Bach had attended the accompanying press event – he didn’t really go into detail on why it took so long to get it over here in the first place. And I think that’s largely because countries may have their own set of rules for Microsoft to follow before they even decide to launch a service anywhere.
Anyway, wishing South Africa as well other European countries the best of luck. Hopefully, there will be some light shining at the end of this uber-redundant tunnel.