Spring Update: increased controls against foreign content downloading

Is it legitimate access to content that hasn't hit the US/EU/JPN Xbox Live Marketplace yet, or is it smuggling under Microsoft's noses? If you're one of those who have a foreign Xbox Live account for the purpose of accessing content not available in your home region, prepare to be hit by border controls.

Deine papiere, bitte. Your papers, please. - Image 1The Spring Dashboard Update, UK community manager AceyBongo reports, will revamp the way those accounts work.

If you have signed up for an Xbox Live account in a country different from where you live you need to read the following carefully. When the Spring Dashboard Update goes live we’re making some big changes to the way Xbox Live accounts work. Within around 24-48 hours after the Spring update hits you will no longer be able to access Xbox Live Marketplace content that is not available in your region. That means that, for instance, if you live in the UK and you want to download content that is available in the US and not available in the UK, you will no longer be able to do it.

The justification provided - as in the official line from Corporate - is that this is meant to protect "the quality of Xbox Live content" by ensuring that licensing agreements are not broken in the distribution (and restriction of such). The between-the-lines message is that Microsoft could not police the borders, it seems that there will be less incentive for content providers to provide premium content to Marketplace.

AceyBongo clarifies a couple of things: if you have foreign content on your HDD already, it won't disappear - it's already yours (no matter how Microsoft frowns upon you). Additionally, if you have accounts outside of your home region, they won't be banned or deleted either. They just won't work anymore to download content from that region's Marketplace (there goes the utility).

It's as though the Marketplace knows the actual location of your Xbox 360.

News Source: xbox360.qj.net