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Stricter region locking quietly implemented on Xbox One?

Caayn

Member
Games in America cost $60. Games in Europe cost €70 ($95).

Microsoft wants that extra money.
This for me is the main reason why I'm using the US marketplace. The prices in other marketplaces are outrageous compared to the US.

And my country doesn't have a marketplace yet
I must have missed something - when did they encourage European (and other expensive region) gamers to buy from the US store? The original used game DRM had region locking like this.
They never stated that out loud, for obvious reasons. But read this post from Albert Penello for example ;)
Third - You can use one of the 13 digital marketplaces corresponding to our launch markets, assuming you have a valid payment instrument for those countries. Lots of people in Europe specifically travel, move, and visit family.

Now, of course, if you were using Pre-Paid cards... :)

You will still find that music and video content can be geo-restricted based on licensing. (e.g. Netflix works only in supported countries)
 

jsnepo

Member
Microsoft can't catch a break. It's like Microsoft is further giving Sony some more sales if only this is intentional. I doubt it is though for Microsoft's sake.
 

Hammer24

Banned
I must have missed something - when did they encourage European (and other expensive region) gamers to buy from the US store? The original used game DRM had region locking like this.

I don´t remember exactly which thread it was in, but I think it was in the launch OT. They came out saying, that as long as you have a legal method of payment for a marketplace, you can buy from it, no matter where you are located. Wink-wink nudge-nudge included.
 

Illud Vindicare

Neo Member
So we have:

Article(s) saying DRM added, proof is people who bought game codes through EBay getting error codes

One poster saying a game he bought through the store not working

A lot of other posters saying all the games they bought are fine

hmm
We should also not that the person who bought the game on the store did this by way of prepaid cards. So also in this case there is a "redeeming" actions. I think people buying with credit cards are unaffected. Unaffected at this time that is.
 

Hammer24

Banned
We should also not that the person who bought the game on the store did this by way of prepaid cards. So also in this case there is a "redeeming" actions. I think people buying with credit cards are unaffected. Unaffected at this time that is.

I bought all of my games via prepaid cards and am unaffected. I´ll never put my credit card up.
 

Zok310

Banned
I can confirm - my DR3 Premium Edition I bought from digital store don't work anymore. 79USD down the drain. I am currently in China, imported my Xbone from Amazon. US account, bought prepaid codes for XBL on Amazon, then bought game itself through console. No shady ebay stuff.

Digital was my way to go here, since importing is time consuming and expensive. I guess I will get rid of Xbone while I can and prices are high. No such bullshit on PS4.

Nothing sucks more than this. I would not wish this on anyone.
MS should grandfather you guys in and then region block anyone with prior notice after March 2014.
 
We should also not that the person who bought the game on the store did this by way of prepaid cards. So also in this case there is a "redeeming" actions. I think people buying with credit cards are unaffected. Unaffected at this time that is.
I think he's not using credit card?
I have downloaded a couple games using a promotional code and they all work fine. I'm not in a launch country.
And I use promo code to get FIFA14 btw,and works fine
 

Zok310

Banned
Spanish download of FIFA 14 is still working. I'm in the UK.

1. Seems to be codes only.

2. Appears to only work if you bought the game from Live regardless or region.

3. Does not work if you purchased a code for the game from a 3rd party online seller outside your region.
 

Illud Vindicare

Neo Member
Gaming news sites are starting to pick this up, that's good.
I've Googled the error code and saw a few news site re-reporting it. The more buzz it gets the better.
 

Illud Vindicare

Neo Member
I think he's not using credit card?
Well that's my point, my question, trying to figure out the scope of this issue. Is it limited to codes or is this issue about a possibly imminent lock of digital games, even those bought on the store in a combination where the store region does not matches the XBOXLIVE region.
 

Zok310

Banned
Well that's my point, my question, trying to figure out the scope of this issue. Is it limited to codes or is this issue about a possibly imminent lock of digital games, even those bought on the store in a combination where the store region does not matches the XBOXLIVE region.[/QUOTE]

Nah, that would be suicide. Either way it's suicide but the bold comment is much worse.
 

Caayn

Member
I can confirm - my DR3 Premium Edition I bought from digital store don't work anymore. 79USD down the drain. I am currently in China, imported my Xbone from Amazon. US account, bought prepaid codes for XBL on Amazon, then bought game itself through console. No shady ebay stuff.

Digital was my way to go here, since importing is time consuming and expensive. I guess I will get rid of Xbone while I can and prices are high. No such bullshit on PS4.
Have you tried reinstalling the game? If your XB1 is not connected to the internet can you make sure that the console your on is set as your "Home console"?
Gaming news sites are starting to pick this up, that's good.
I've Googled the error code and saw a few news site re-reporting it. The more buzz it gets the better.
Why? Only one user thus far has reported problems with it in this thread, and even he only has problems with one digital purchase his other purchases are unaffected. Everything points to a bug. Reporting that as if MS is bringing the region-lock back is nothing more than click-bait.
 

Illud Vindicare

Neo Member
Why? Only one user thus far has reported problems with it in this thread, and even he only has problems with one digital purchase his other purchases are unaffected. Everything points to a bug. Reporting that as if MS is bringing the region-lock back is nothing more than click-bait.
Because the more buzz this get's the closer we are to official comment on this. I would love to have your level of confidence in Microsoft, but I do not. I think a lot XBOX ONE users, in unsupported countries, would definitely like some clarity on this. After all, whether the thread is true or not, this is about the heads of everyone that is buying on a foreign XBOX ONE store.
 

Gowans

Member
According to Penello, this wouldn't happen.

It's most probably a mistake/bug. It would be incredibly stupid to silently change this, even retrospectively for already purchased content.

Everything I've bought on the web store has been through the default US site and PayPal, I'm all digital now and will be mega pissed off if I get locked from my games.
 
Because the more buzz this get's the closer we are to official comment on this. I would love to have your level of confidence in Microsoft, but I do not. I think a lot XBOX ONE users, in unsupported countries, would definitely like some clarity on this. After all, whether the thread is true or not, this is about the heads of everyone that is buying on a foreign XBOX ONE store.

I don't even know why people still trust MS. It's baffling.
 

Jawmuncher

Member
Wow it's like MS wants to hurt it's most hardcore supporters.
The people who're grabbing codes from other regions and the sort are going to be some of your best customers going forward more than likely.
 

GorillaJu

Member
Not being able to play because the region you are connecting from is different from the region you bought from is really painful. I pray Sony doesn't implement this - everything I own would be unplayable, given that I live abroad despite my permanent address and thus my account all in the US.
 

Kiant

Member
This is the true meaning of balance, after all, they release the good news of the price drop and then have to balance it out with some bad news.
 
I don't even know why people still trust MS. It's baffling.

RRoD is all they needed to do to turn me away forever. I learned my lesson then.

They couldn't get me to take an Xbone, not even if Larry Hryb himself delivered it to me free of charge on a silver platter.

I dislike the brand immensely.
 
Well that's my point, my question, trying to figure out the scope of this issue. Is it limited to codes or is this issue about a possibly imminent lock of digital games, even those bought on the store in a combination where the store region does not matches the XBOXLIVE region.
I don't really think they're gonna region lock,i tried visit a lot of chinese forums and none them reported this issue.
 

Dlacy13g

Member
RRoD is all they needed to do to turn me away forever. I learned my lesson then.

They couldn't get me to take an Xbone, not even if Larry Hryb himself delivered it to me free of charge on a silver platter.

I dislike the brand immensely.

If you dislike the brand so much why do you care to comment on a thread specifically to users of the brand? Not sure you brought anything insightful to the commentary outside of your dislike.

On topic. I think its pretty clear with response on GAF that this is not some new plan from MS but rather more isolated incidents.
 

BradC00

Member
i'm in south korea (not even a region xb1 is released in yet) and all but 3 of my games are from the US marketplace. Those 3 are disc versions from november. forza is still working.
 

BloodR0se

Member
RRoD is all they needed to do to turn me away forever. I learned my lesson then.

They couldn't get me to take an Xbone, not even if Larry Hryb himself delivered it to me free of charge on a silver platter.

I dislike the brand immensely.

What did it for me was all of the crap they rammed into the 360 dashboard. That console's OS went from being sleek, quick and well designed to a crippled whore that looked to throw advertising in your face whenever the system was powered on.
 
Almost all of my purchases were made on the Us marketplace (I'm from Brazil) and I still can access all my games with any trouble no matter if I set my console to Us or to Brazil.

Even games that still aren't available to the Brazilian marketplace... So if they are indeed changing it, still haven't reflected on my end.
 

flkraven

Member
Sounding like an isolated incident affecting a handful of people. However, since it is Microsoft and it involves digital downloads, it will be front page on every gaming site.

As an aside, I hope those affected get this fixed promptly. Sucks losing access to your digital goods.
 
If you dislike the brand so much why do you care to comment on a thread specifically to users of the brand? Not sure you brought anything insightful to the commentary outside of your dislike.

Fair enough.

I'm a Canadian living in Asia and I have a Canadian PSN account and a PS3, PS4, and PS Vita all purchased here in Taiwan. I benefit greatly from the region-free model Sony has implemented, but it's still flawed and very inconsistent.

I can imagine what this would mean for Xbox owners, and it's really quite unfortunate.

For me, I'm never sure if the DLC that's available on the Canadian/North American PSN will be compatible with the disc-based game I purchased here. As a rule of thumb, I can generally be sure that Sony first-party titles have region-locked DLC (which makes absolutely no fucking sense to me because they're the ones who were proudly stating that the PS4 would be region-free), but then some third-party studios seem to be fine. Anything 2K published has been fine for region-free DLC or season passes (Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite, etc.)

Region locking, in general, is an abomination that needs to be put to bed once and for all, across all platforms. I really hope this isn't the case for Xbox One owners.

And I still dislike the Xbox brand...immensely.
 

Dire

Member
RRoD is all they needed to do to turn me away forever. I learned my lesson then.

They couldn't get me to take an Xbone, not even if Larry Hryb himself delivered it to me free of charge on a silver platter.

I dislike the brand immensely.

FWIW I don't think that's very fair. The RROD was not intentional. Much of everything that's gone terribly wrong with the XBone has been by design. Even then I don't think it's enough to turn me away forever. The thought of buying an XBone seems just silly at this point, but should Microsoft come out with a new console and actually seem to learn from their mistakes then I'd happily hop on board. I mean last gen Sony and the PS3 were giving out similarly arrogant and clueless vibes:

"We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games."

"Without being too arrogant about it, I don't think we worry too much about building up the hype in the first six months..."

Sony thought they could release an overpriced overcomplicated glorified blu-ray player and sell a billion units because they did well with the PS2. Learning from others' mistakes is apparently impossible so now we have Microsoft doing the exact same thing because of their success with the 360, but they decided to go ahead and up the ante by throwing in underpowered to the mix of adjectives as well. But that's OKAY because you can't spell power without cloud! I don't know how companies as old and large as Sony and Microsoft could let something as menial as success with a console go to their collective heads, but that seems to be the only explanation. Which to keep at least somewhat to the topic of the thread is exactly what makes me feel that this could be intentionally by design. It's like Microsoft simply doesn't believe their actions will have any repercussions, so long as they pay enough to their hoards of PR firms to toe the line and try to turn their shit into diamonds.
 

Illud Vindicare

Neo Member
Stick to the topic please; as it currently stands two questions pop out:

  • Is this an isolated event related to redeeming (some) codes?
  • Some thing larger at scale, affecting all purchases in some mixes of circumstances ?

So far most reports are going in the direction of this being an isolated event related to redeeming codes obtained on the internet. Currently the majority, not to say nearly all, of the users here buying their digital games on a foreign XBOX ONE store report their games as working. Fingers crossed.

So no tangible proof something is ongoing, but it wouldn't be the first time it eventually becomes a fact. Given Microsoft decisions prior to the 180 turn in 2013 does not inspire confidence. Hence would be great if buzz (doubt it, everyone is busy on the EU price-drop and Titan Fall bundle) gets out on this and we get some official recent clarification where Microsoft stands on this.
 

Gowans

Member
This seems to be fud, just tried my US purchases of Strider and Lego movie on my UK xbox and account and all is fine!
 

PAULINK

I microwave steaks.
I dunno why it even let them redeem it in the first place, someone fucked up and now the customer is getting punished for it.
 

Tunesmith

formerly "chigiri"
I am fairly certain that Xbox Live store purchases are not affected/region locked and that this is related solely to Xbox One digital game key codes that are restricted to a specific country or region in the vein of US, UK, EU, Russia, or Worldwide which are being sold by re-sellers either knowingly or unknowingly to customers that don't reside in the regions the codes are for. These sort of codes to exist for Xbox One games, I've dealt with them first hand.

The Gafer quoted in the OP who resides in China that bought via Amazon could be affected for any other number of reasons. Could be many different fraud flags in place simply because his location is China (yes China is regarded as a high-risk territory and many merchants employ strict restrictions on customers from such areas, sometimes to a fault).
 

bidguy

Banned
I am fairly certain that Xbox Live store purchases are not affected/region locked and that this is related solely to Xbox One digital game key codes that are restricted to a specific country or region in the vein of US, UK, EU, Russia, or Worldwide which are being sold by re-sellers either knowingly or unknowingly to customers that don't reside in the regions the codes are for. These sort of codes to exist for Xbox One games, I've dealt with them first hand.

The Gafer quoted in the OP who resides in China that bought via Amazon could be affected for any other number of reasons. Could be many different fraud flags in place simply because his location is China (yes China is regarded as a high-risk territory and many merchants employ strict restrictions on customers from such areas, sometimes to a fault).

yep, all my games work fine (bought from us store with a german CC or US gift cards)
 
Spaniard XB1:

Ryse: US code bought from a gaffer: working
Lego Marvel: bought from the US marketplace using Windows store pre-paid cards: working

no problem here so far
 

Kurtofan

Member
Digital region locking is still region locking.
Better hope this is a bug or else...

Incoming:
jcfz.gif

What the hell is this.
 
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