Home Gaming XBox Live! to launch in India in October..what about SA?!

XBox Live! to launch in India in October..what about SA?!

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Well, yesterday I was just chilling on the net for a bit, taking a break from the normal stresses of life and catching up on the latest console news when I came across this forum post from the wiiindians forum :

Xbox LIVE in October?
However, the primary reason for Mohit getting in touch with us was Xbox LIVE. There has been growing frustration at the delays in launching the LIVE service in India. We reported a while back that India would get Xbox LIVE in September, coinciding with the entire Halo 3 hoopla. But that plan has since fallen through and now Xbox LIVE is scheduled to launch in October, latest by October 29 when the server update takes place. There is also a strong likelihood that the Xbox LIVE fall update will take place on October 29 as well. Robbie Bach (President of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division) will be in India for the Xbox LIVE launch.

Now the entire forum post deals with various issues that the Indian 360 community had with MS India, everything from a delayed launch of Bioshock (*shudder*) in India which resulted in flaming abusive comments being hurled between forumites and MS execs to lack of XBox 360 accessories.

Now, the reason I’m posting this is because we’re pretty much in the same situation here in SA, nagging MS to give us official Live! support. Heck we’ve even set up a petition site to get their attention but still nothing has been done.

Now, the way I see it, the forum post mentions that in India an Xbox 360 Pro costs in excess of $650 (WOW!) whereas we’re pretty much on par with the UK (play.com sells a Pro + PES6 for £299.99). So, first I thought higher price means less Indian 360 owners which means less people on Live! which means no support for Live! for them, but then I realised that they have a huge population and broadband over there is pretty cheap compared to SA so I can understand why MS is giving them Live!.

So, if MS can accommodate them then I say, why not us? We have a pretty decent online community and I don’t see why we can’t also push for an October launch (*optimist*) 🙂 I’ve emailed MS SA to make them aware of this and I’ll probably get a reply tomorrow. Let’s hope they smell the coffee pretty quick and follow their Indian counterparts.

Last Updated: August 19, 2007

7 Comments

  1. bokka1

    August 19, 2007 at 16:28

    I hope this bodes well for us.

    Reply

  2. Evilredzombie

    August 20, 2007 at 07:28

    I wish we can just get a date ..or atleast a awnser from MS… we buy their console, games, O/S and various other products… I love MS and Even thou im no longer in it im stil a MCP so I even wrote alot of their exams…all I ask is LIVE

    Reply

  3. LazySAGamer

    August 20, 2007 at 07:55

    I heard that they have sold over 50 000 360’s in South Africa, that’s a lot of potential extra income… Easily enough to pay for a local server…. Come on Microsoft…

    Reply

  4. TheAlteredState

    August 20, 2007 at 08:27

    Can’t wait for this to happen already! Maybe then we can get more from the Marketplace too! 😛

    Reply

  5. Ruslan

    August 20, 2007 at 08:49

    Maybe Raj can make a plan and give us some IP ranges to piggyback on from India?

    Reply

  6. Evilredzombie

    August 20, 2007 at 12:30

    Well ….we will pay for the server with our subscription etc….
    Just for interest say that they only get 5000 Xbox live SA… it will be more as most of Africa will use the SA live.. And for each subscriber they take R50 for the serer that’s 250 000 enough for a server..IL give them 50 right now… so u see MS…

    Reply

  7. thyon

    August 21, 2007 at 16:56

    Well, I tried to download Bioshock DEMO, but they have now introduced IP banning. This means that XBOX UK checks your IP as being from South Africa, so they BAN you from accessing certain content. This really sucks. Now the PS3 Network seems to have the upperhand when it comes to a local service. They already have my PS3 working in Rands. (no flaming please, I have both consoles).

    Reply

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