[adelante]

The usual lock-if-old:

If you’re still one of the few persons that only have one single Xbox Live on their Xbox 360, you can stop reading here. If on the other hand you’re one of the many thousands that have registered a second or third account in another region using region lockout circumvention, you will be interested to know that Microsoft is planning to ban those accounts soon. Everyone knew how to do it and many people did. The Xboxic crew actually uses the ‘trick’ frequently to make sure our reporting is correct on when what Xbox Live Marketplace content became available in which region. No more, according to usually quite well informed German site Xbox Archiv (Babelfish translation follows): For approx. 2 weeks we know that Microsoft will delete in the near future Xbox Live Fake account to serve to procure itself e.g. from US the Marketplace of contents. Unfortunately we could not publish these information, since they originated from a confidential discussion. Since many sources however already on it report, we can do you the information also admit now to give. What will happen?: As soon as Microsoft notices that US Xbox tries a Live account with a IP e.g. from Germany something of the market place to download, then this account will be closed/deleted in the future. That applies also to accounts as gold members was put on. This is justified with legal and copyright regulations for films of the content offerers or indicated titles etc.. There will still be updates for games, but new game content or video/demos of the foreign market place probably belong to the past. Apparently the sudden need to act upon this ‘abuse’ has risen with the release of the video marketplace and its inherent copyright implications. In short, when you log into Xbox Live from an IP address that does not correspond to the correct country for a given account, the account will get flagged for deletion or banning. To check where your IP is located you can go here for example, and read the WHOIS-information that is known for your current IP address. Although we haven’t received firm confirmation yet of any actual banning, we at Xboxic consider it safe to state that it’s only a matter of time before the hammer gets dropped on some foreign accounts: the video marketplace publishers will make sure of that to ensure their regional copyrights are not violated. Too bad for the legit users that are just curious about content not released in their home region for often dodgy reasons.

BELIEVE.

[bud]

:lol

[Uncle]

That's not cool. :(

[Karg]

That's not cool. :(

So not cool. Man.....

[ShutEye]

It was good while it lasted.

[NeXuSDK]

Then get the damn content to everybody else. I know there's a lot of legal issues and stuff, but there's no excuse.

[adelante]

Bummer. Was gonna happen sooner or later....

[dark10x]

Thanks Microsoft.

[critch]

The legal issues are the excuse, though. They have contracts with the content providers that they can't go around. Some content providers may have other deals for certain areas, like what happened with the Rainbow Six demo. It's not up to Microsoft a lot of the time.

[Danj]

Yet another company making it so that Europe is

[Sho Nuff]

So Microsoft is going to ban my Gold US account on my Xbox in Japan?

[Frenck]

Wow, great.

MS finally squishes these leeches.

My poor swiss account *cries*

[NeXuSDK]

The legal issues are the excuse, though. They have contracts with the content providers that they can't go around. Some content providers may have other deals for certain areas, like what happened with the Rainbow Six demo. It's not up to Microsoft a lot of the time.

Yeah, I know it's not just something you do right away, but it's certainly not impossible either. Microsoft has influence, especially with the XBL installed base growing all the time, and they need to spread the content fast or they will loose their momentum.

[StuKen]

Globalization LOL

[tetsuoxb]

So Microsoft is going to ban my Gold US account on my Xbox in Japan?

If they ban mine, it is not going to be pretty.

[scarybore]

So Microsoft is going to ban my Gold US account on my Xbox in Japan?

Oh dear, this won't go down very well at all. As long as I can keep my legitimate UK account and lose my other region Gamertags I don't mind , but for peeps in your situation I feel for you. I think the last thing I would want is to be limited to a JP Gamertag.

[soul creator]

I've never played an import game in my life, and I only have my single US Xbox Live account, but I've always thought separating stuff by region in this way was pretty silly.

So if some guy in Sweden buys a tv show from the US Marketplace, are they worried that "Swedish NBC" loses out on some money? Is that the reason for all this?

[The Innocent X]

I've never played an import game in my life, and I only have my single US Xbox Live account, but I've always thought separating stuff by region in this way was pretty silly. So if some guy in Sweden buys a tv show from the US Marketplace, are they worried that "Swedish NBC" loses out on some money? Is that the reason for all this?

The problem is that global contracts for 99% of things don`t exist. they are stuck in the non-internet era. I should imagine in 10 years time things might start to change, but until then, sucks to be us.

[Scotch]

Yet another company making it so that Europe is

Some demos (among them Rainbow Six Vegas and Lost Planet MP) actually released earlier in Europe than in the US.

[Nino]

I'm surprised that they don't just region lock more demos like they did with the Love Football demo.

Not that I would encourage that stuff but you know, the ability is there, weird that they didn't use it for that R6V demo for instance.

[AtomicShroom]

Well if they would just please stop ****ing around and releasing content only in some regions, this wouldn't happen to begin with!

[Bebpo]

This is bullshit. If they start doing this they can go **** themselves.

[Geoff9920]

Why dont they just prevent foreign IPs from purchasing stuff from the market place and allow everything else? I don't get it. Sucks for the jp gaffers.

[Foil]

Wait, so if I live in Canada and made a second account to get the Vegas demo will they ban the fake german account or both my accounts?

I'll sell my damn 360 if they even think about banning my normal one.

[BenjaminBirdie]

Wait, so if I live in Canada and made a second account to get the Vegas demo will they ban the fake german account or both my accounts? I'll sell my damn 360 if they even think about banning my normal one.

Sounds like "The Fake One".

[MirageDwarf]

Why can't they block video marketplace based on fake live account?

[Wario64]

Wow Microsoft go **** yourselves.

[jarosh]

there goes my hope of downloading hd movies in euroland

[Lakitu]

.

[Bebpo]

Why dont they just prevent foreign IPs from purchasing stuff from the market place and allow everything else? I don't get it. Sucks for the jp gaffers.

That doesn't make it any better.

If I own a Japanese X360 & a Japanese game & I want to purchase additional downloadable content that comes out for that game...MS should not be able to say "no you can't get any extra content even if it's available".

So if a Japanese X360 owner living in Japan moves to the US and takes his X360 with him...suddenly his account will be banned? WTF MS.

If the "Video Marketplace" is the problem, they why not just region-lock the videos like some of the demos are? This is a destroying an anthill to kill a single ant approach they're taking.

[Last Hope]

Come on MS, if you ban those accounts, you won't be able to gloat about your 4m subscribers since it will probably drop by 10k or so.

Ok, maybe it won't be that significant but it is still a lot of accounts.

[Ryu1999]

Globalization LOL

Looks like Sony's not the only one who hates Europe. Where's the Kaz laughing gif? Actually, a really tasteless but appropriate picture would be footage of normandy spliced with the kaz gif.

[Last Hope]

there goes my hope of downloading hd movies in euroland

You may have been their only customer too.

This will backfire on them.

[BenjaminBirdie]

You may have been their only customer too.

Damn, dude. Was he downloading every season of South Park available along with ATL and Poseidon Hi-Def or what? Because that downloading has been slooooooow.

[Patrick Bateman]

Um, how can I delete an account by myself? :x

[Nino]

Um, how can I delete an account by myself? :x

System blade -> Memory?

[Dimmuxx]

Use proxies for your fake accounts. :P

[Speevy]

I think arne resigned as the NeoGaf Xbox community leader.

[pr0cs]

I'm curious why people feel that this is Microsoft's fault? It's obvious that content providers are upset that Microsoft is giving people a way to providers content, I'm not surprised that Microsoft would be forced to try and crack down on this loophole.

[Patrick Bateman]

System blade -> Memory?

Thanks. :)

[BenjaminBirdie]

I think arne resigned as the NeoGaf Xbox community leader.

I think there should be spaces between "NOW", ":", and "Fake" and the spaces between "downloads", "=", and "BAN" should removed to make room. Right now the subject line looks quite awkward.

[storybook77]

I'm curious why people feel that this is Microsoft's fault? It's obvious that content providers are upset that Microsoft is giving people a way to providers content, I'm not surprised that Microsoft would be forced to try and crack down on this loophole.

Typical GAF drama. People getting mad about not being able to get stuff that they weren't supposed to get in the first place. It's like getting free cable, then the cable company realizes it and shuts it down, but you, somehow, get mad at them.

[hyp]

time to find a legit address and phone # to some restauarant in japan. including the name of the restaurant owner.

[CPaladino]

Hey guys - I just got back to the internets this morning - turkey had me shackled throughout the weekend.

I'm getting the story straight internally and will report back.

[The Faceless Master]

Typical GAF drama. People getting mad about not being able to get stuff that they weren't supposed to get in the first place. It's like getting free cable, then the cable company realizes it and shuts it down, but you, somehow, get mad at them.

sounds like people who do things like 'travel' worried about getting accounts banned

[Tempy]

Typical GAF drama. People getting mad about not being able to get stuff that they weren't supposed to get in the first place. It's like getting free cable, then the cable company realizes it and shuts it down, but you, somehow, get mad at them.

uh but it's not like free cable. People are actually paying for this content.

[Tiktaalik]

Argg I hate media companies and their old fashioned shit. It's a global world now, none of this crap makes sense anymore.

[BenjaminBirdie]

Hey guys - I just got back to the internets this morning - turkey had me shackled throughout the weekend. I'm getting the story straight internally and will report back.

That was fast.

[BuddyC]

Hey guys - I just got back to the internets this morning - turkey had me shackled throughout the weekend. I'm getting the story straight internally and will report back.

Thanks.

[adg1034]

Hey guys - I just got back to the internets this morning - turkey had me shackled throughout the weekend. I'm getting the story straight internally and will report back.

Please do.