Xbox Live keeps SA in limbo

2007-11-19 12:04

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Ilse Arendse

Cape Town - Do you have a smart and cost effective way to find out exactly how many Xbox Live gamers there are in SA?

Then maybe you can help Microsoft SA build a case to roll out the subscription-based online gaming Live service here...

"We would love to have this information as it would help to build our business case, but unfortunately no official stats are available.

"If we could find a smart, cost effective and credible means to collect this data, we would love to have the information," Cindy White, Marketing Lead: Entertainment and Devices Microsoft South Africa, told News24.

According to Gavin Mannion, who runs a local website dedicated to console gaming www.lazygamer.co.za, it has been estimated that there are over 30 000 Xbox 360's sold in South Africa and over 2 000 are proven to be connected to Live.

In May Microsoft assured local gamers that the Live service will definitely be launched, but six months down the line gamers are still waiting and word on the web is that it's never going to happen.

However, White said the information is unsubstantiated.

"We recognise the demand for Xbox Live in South Africa but at this point in time there is no confirmation as to when it will arrive."

White stated that it will "eventually" be launched here.

Microsoft SA will also be looking at India, where Xbox Live was recently launched.

"We are delighted that Xbox Live has launched in India (the first of the emerging markets), and we will certainly leverage the learnings, processes as well as engage the teams in India as we continue building our business case."

In the meantime, it's "business" as usual for local Xbox Live gamers - importing memberships and gamerpoint cards via local e-retailers or international sites - usually at a high cost - also using workarounds, like registering a UK address to get access to the service.

The petition launched earlier this year to get Microsoft SA's attention is also still up an running at www.sayyoursay.com.

- News24

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"If we could find a smart, cost effective and credible means to collect this data, we would love to have the information," Cindy White. Is this a joke? Microsoft doesn't know how to collect the data on a product that they launched and own? The can tell you by your IP address that you are not allowed to download certain data cause it's not available in my region but they can't see how many people are on Live? Start here. http://www.mygamercard.net/leaderboard.php sort via South Africa.

Microsoft CAN collect stats from their own Live servers. This will show exactly how many connections to Xbox Live are coming from SA ip addresses. To me it sounds like this is just an excuse not to support Live in SA.

Is that thanks to Telkom most if not all traffic goes out to the world from SA within a small IP range. Thus MS will maybe gather a max of several dozen IPs at best. I presume most folks know what happens when you try to post on a forum in the US and get banned simply coz a previous SA forumite had the same IP as you? The petition seems to be the best route for this issue.

The problem however is that Cindy White doesn't in fact give a toss about Xbox Live. Her original recommendation of setting up UK & US accounts to access the service is falling through the floor as more and more of the local Xbox Live gamers are being blocked from the service due to Microsoft SA slacking. Eventually this will lead people AWAY from Xbox360, and off to greener pastures (read PS3) that support local online gaming, as well as purchases in ZAR Currency.

As was stated above, Microsoft can EASILY pull stats on the exact IP ranges that access the network, and thus conclude how many machines from South Africa are connected to the service. Never mind cost-effective, this is a SINGLE CLICK effort of pulling stats from the Xbox Live service. Cindy White doesn't have a clue how to run this business. First there is the 75% failure rate of the console itself, and further more it remains half a product lacking Xbox Live.

It's not a matter of hosting servers in South Africa... Just let me pay for things in ZAR and don't lump me into the lowest common denominator WRT your rating system (i.e. germany which has seriously strict censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy#Germany)

I've had an Xbox 360 for about a year now. My overall impression I've had about the after sales support from Microsoft is that they just don't care about the South African consumers of the Xbox market. There is no real support infrastructure in place here, but rather a help-line routed to some European country where they struggle profoundly to understand our accent. I doubt Xbox Live will be run locally soon if they can?t even sort out a proper help-desk here.

"... most if not all traffic goes out to the world from SA within a small IP range. Thus MS will maybe gather a max of several dozen IPs at best." I'm sorry but that's simply not true. Don't know what else to say. If you've ever used something like dyndns or www.nwtools.com, it will reflect your own adsl or external work IP. Not one of the "dozen" SA IP addresses. Browsing the web(http) through an anonymous proxy is a different story though. An Xbox Live connection will not use proxies.

If Cindi White would speak straight rather than in PR waffle, she would get a more sympathetic response from South African gamers. As it stands, she's insulting our intelligence. There's an Xbox 360 community site, there's a petition, there's Xbox Live's own IP tracing data, there's retailer and distributor sales data that she can use to get an excellent idea of how many Xbox 360s have been sold in SA and how many are online.

This information will be very easy to obtain using SA IP address range as stated on previous comments. Sayyoursay will also be a good place to start SA gamers are being forced to jump through all sorts of hoops just to play games on live. And dont come with the "xbox is a next gen system without live rubbish" Live is what makes the xbox next gen. Without it is just a glorified last gen console. We are sick of your lies. Please give us proper answers or even a time line. Feeback from MS US?

"We would love to have this information as it would help to build our business case, but unfortunately no official stats are available. "If we could find a smart, cost effective and credible means to collect this data, we would love to have the information," All I can say is: "When does my wii arrive?"

Why is it so difficult for Microsoft? All they need to do is enable us to select our country in a dropdownbox. We can even take it and pay in $US. Just enable us as a country. Like people stated the PS3 has no issue allowing one to chose SA as a region. Half the Xbox experience is live? Cindy do you have a Live ID? Have you even experienced Xbox Live? If Sony launches local servers for online play MS's Xbox is dead in SA.

Give us some credit people! I would be willing to spend money on this service and so would a whole community of xboxers. Why do i have to go and register oversees to get MS points or a gold subscription. I want to download local content and connect to local servers to play online. MS is supposed to have top people at their disposal to look at these issues and come up with a plan! Come on MS we want "Live"!!!!!

is that Sony Playstation SA doesn't even exist, they are run by Ster-Kinekor and even as a third party managed to get online connectivity sorted. However Microsoft one of the largest corporations on the planet is being badly represented by someone who doesn't have a clue about their own product.

"If we could find a smart, cost effective and credible means to collect this data, we would love to have the information" Go to www.xbox-360.co.za There are over a thousand of us who will be more than willing to help in any way we can to get local LIVE support, or at least just SA Billing support. Our credit cards are being blocked by Microsoft and a fair amount of content cannot be downloaded. Please, stop giving us the run around and get something done.

It really boils down to money. Microsoft are prepared to sell the consoles here because there is money to be made. Microsoft makes a killing off the consoles so why not sell them by the dozen to anyone and everyone. Supporting all of us who are supporting them however is not a given, the fact that they are wanting numbers means only 1 thing....if there is enough support (ie enough people who will buy to make them enough money) they will introduce it, until then it won't happen.

Can we get Local XBox Live? The service is celebrating its 5th anniversary, and MS can be assured that they will have plenty of support for the service, looking at the sentiment on sites like the local community and sayyoursay. MS Should even know details on what ISP's in SA are being used most for Gaming - Most DNS type lookup sites can tell that based on an IP Address. BTW, can they not also see this based on Mac addresses connecting to the service?

It really is disgusting how Microsoft can not fully support their OWN PRODUCT! Goodness, India of all places gets Live but no we can't have it. We'd have much more than the 2000 currently on if it was officially supported locally. Sony already have servers here in South Africa and they are free, so what exactly is the problem? I'm sure the Xbox has sold enough to compete with PSN or enough to totally crush it. This is nonsense.

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Xbox Live keeps SA in limbo

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