Xbox Live's Major Nelson » Xbox LIVE region migration is now available :

http://www.facebook.com/wcarnby Oscar Riba

What can I say… Finally!

http://twitter.com/GusRoDah Gus

Yeah, but is it really worth it? I mean the promotions, prices and specially the content are never the same.

90180360

Nor will consequences be.

http://twitter.com/xl_Kamui_lx Ricardo Reis

So basically, in my case I live in Portugal, I don’t have such applications as Youtube, and I can’t use the voice option on kinect because my console is in english but in my region it’s not available, can I change the region anyway just so I can do those things? Because I didn’t see that in the restrictions, got me thinking…

90180360

Some apps definitely check your IP, which means they wouldn’t work as long as you’re in Portugal (unless you use VPN), no matter the region you select. I think it has to do with the licensing of music and movies, mostly. Pretty sure YouTube and voice recognition would work though.
- http://twitter.com/xl_Kamui_lx Ricardo Reis
  
  Thank you!

http://www.facebook.com/felipeng84 Felipe Nogaroto Gonzalez

UOWWW finally, thanks MN, now the only thing the xbox 360 needs it’s a external subtitles support (.srt) to make possible to use DLNA

90180360

Very interesting. Does anyone know all the things the Xbox region affects? Does is affect matchmaking? I’m currently in Switzerland, but we get very little apps / content. US would surely be the best region, but then I’d have to get US MS Points from now on… Maybe UK would be a good choice?

m1nh0ca

For sure UK is the best choice if you live in Europe. The MS points are valid for the whole EU and you get access to XBL Rewards too, as well to some apps that are region free.
- 90180360
  
  Thanks! Any idea if Xbox Video will work? We only get dubbed movies here and I’ll never pay money to see a dubbed movie. Ever.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Bush-O-Connor/555604190 Bush O Connor
  
  you cannot buy games on demand on the uk dashboard outside the uk. im in ireland i tried it around 2 years ago, might have changed tho
  - Indie_Adventure
    
    You can buy games that aren’t restricted in your region from the UK dashboard. I know, I live in Taiwan now and often buy arcade games and have bought a couple of GOD games in the past, a couple I can remember off the top of my head were Assassin’s Creed Revelations, and Code Veronica.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Bush-O-Connor/555604190 Bush O Connor
      
      can you buy indie games? did you use MS points or credit card?
      
      there’s a couple of indie games id like to get/try we dont have them here.
    - Indie_Adventure
      
      Yeah, I’ve never had a problem with Indie games. Bought all my stuff from the marketplace using points, normally with a points card from eBay.
http://twitter.com/boe2BE Boe2

What you want you can already accomplish by simply making a new account on your xbox with different region settings. That way you don’t have to mess with your main account (and windows 8 throws a tantrum if you dare to use an account with different region settings than your windows install)

fantomena

It worked great for me! Migrated my Norwegian account to the US, so now I have everything the US people have. I’m also probably going to try using Kinect voice commands since it is not available in Norway.

The biggest reason I migrated is because of the prices. Both LIVE, Games on Demand and MS Points is now way more cheaper for me.

90180360

Probably you won’t be able to buy GoD if you don’t have a US credit card…
- fantomena
  
  it worked by using Mastercard.
  - 90180360
    
    Nice. But didn’t they request a billing address in the US?
    - fantomena
      
      I pasted in my entire Norwegian address, except I wrote in California as state and a random Californian zip code.
    - 90180360
      
      Hilarious. Can’t believe the payment went through. I also had to move to Beverly Hills just to spend my MS points on an indie game…
extens

Prices are cheaper, but you’ll have to buy US MS points gift cards to buy GoD, you local credit card won’t work and be prepared, that lots of those games will be region locked by IP so you’ll have to connect your xbox to PC, where setup a VPN bridge or something like that and pay for US VPN, so, basically it’s not that cool at all.

http://raptr.com/silverdoe AMi Tr

The irony is that I want to migrate to my current location, so I can add new payment via paypal or new credit card, but I still have the old one that was expired & still tie to Gold subscription, so I can’t migrate, got 40001 with Paypal when adding & cannot remove the expired card. Solution?

http://www.facebook.com/buddha4248 Brandon Arespool Roberts

all you have to do is call microsoft n they will take the card off
- http://raptr.com/silverdoe AMi Tr
  
  only US-UK support, I no longer live there …

http://www.bazajaytee.com Bazajaytee

Doesn’t work

“There’s a problem completing your move right now. Please check the Region Change Support Page to make sure it will work for you, and try again later. ”

Checked the Region Change Support and there is nothing that would stop it being moved

I have a UK account and live in the US and been waiting for this option to migrate accounts for years now so I can get full account access back again and buy content for games.

http://www.facebook.com/doc.tari.9 Doc Tari

I have the same error msg (only localized into my language)… I called XBox Support in my country and they said the service is disabled atm and that I should try again in a few days… I’m having trouble believing them though… Did you find a solution or cause yet?
- http://www.bazajaytee.com Bazajaytee
  
  Nope, Customer Support told me the same thing, it isn’t fully functional yet and try again in a few days to a week.
- http://www.bazajaytee.com Bazajaytee
  
  I managed to get this sorted, I noticed I couldn’t do anything with payment options so I had Xbox Support give me a phone call and they fixed my account within minutes. Apparently the account had locked (probably cos I was using UK XBL codes from a US IP address) and wouldn’t allow modifications. They unlocked it and it allowed me to migrate my account while they were on the line.

http://twitter.com/paulopinheiro__ Paulo Pinheiro

Legal. Compartilhando para todos que conheço.

uss_liberty

So if I as a swede change my region to USA, will the bloody Kinect Voice control work all of a sudden then?

fantomena

Yep, I live in Norway and migrated my account to the US and now Kinect voice commands works.
- http://twitter.com/xl_Kamui_lx Ricardo Reis
  
  Yeah same here, migrated to UK, all fine now!

http://twitter.com/MKTheory John Doe

Right now, thousands of idiots think they can exploit this to get regional benefits.

Jordan Mcdonald

and can i?

tabicat

Nice work, Microsoft. I don’t think I’ll ever use this feature, but I’m sure it wasn’t easy getting this it resourced and working, and it will be a great help to some people.

Now how about coming up with a way to have multiple local licenses for Marketplace content? It would allow me to have multiple Xboxes in my house but still purchase all content from one gamer tag. The current DRM scheme discourages owning more than one Xbox.

Alex_Atkin_UK

Please explain why you, a single person, would need to use your content on more than one Xbox “at the same time”?

I think the current DRM is the lesser of all evils, compared to PSN or Stream.

I would rather be able to have an unrestricted license on my primary console and an open roaming license for ANYWHERE I CAN SIGN IN, as we do now. Than the PS3 option of not being able to roam my profile without constantly shifting licenses/profiles from one place to another, and some content (eg Singstar) is locked to just a single console whereas on Xbox 360 ALL content works on any console, as long as your are logged in to Xbox Live.
- http://twitter.com/CyberKnight1 Yakko Warner
  
  When my nephew came to live with us while he went to school, he brought his own Xbox. We could trade disc games back and forth all day long and never have an issue. Downloaded games? Not so much. If I wanted to play one of his games, either he had to sign in to my Xbox while I played (meaning he couldn’t be signed in on his own), or I had to play in his room.
  
  Now that my son is getting older, we are considering putting an Xbox in the rec room for him and his friends to play away from his little brothers. Again, all disc-based games will work fine, but games that I’ve purchased for the family as digital downloads won’t work.
  
  Hope that satisfies your request for an explanation why someone might have a legitimate reason for having free access to their content on more than one Xbox in their own house.
  
  I don’t disagree that this is not a trivial problem to solve (how do you make sure it’s only in one household?), but you can’t dismiss it as a non-issue.
  - Alex_Atkin_UK
    
    Very good point indeed and actually I can think of a partial fix.
    
    How about if they made it so that all people who are a member of Xbox Live Gold Family are able to play each others games?
    - http://twitter.com/CyberKnight1 Yakko Warner
      
      I think that would go a long way. It would certainly help in my case.

http://www.facebook.com/fernandosibaja Fernando Sibaja

Why so many flags? Is not like it makes sense moving to your country if there is not xbox live gold, It doesnt matter how big the dropdown is.

http://twitter.com/ENich1 E.Nich

Those are very good news, I may get to use it in the future.

Jordan Mcdonald

WHY EVEN HAVE REGIONS?

QuixoticRocket

Licencing restrictions and trade agreements.
I wish they’d get rid of those too, but that’s the reason =(
- The Dukenator
  
  That’s how everything works. Not just limited to gaming, but also to movies, tv and music.
  - QuixoticRocket
    
    Yeah. I know. And I know the economic supply demand blah blah money blah reasons. Doesn’t stop me from wishing that I could buy what I want when I want from where I want though
  - http://twitter.com/damashedavenger kit walker
    
    what about windows isnt that just pretty much the same whereever u r?

http://www.facebook.com/Jonathan.Oo.Pedroza Jonathan Pedroza

There’s no GoD Dead Space in my region, and if I try downloading it @LIVEUS, it says that that item isn’t available in my region. F*** my country, really. We have the Xbox 360 selling officially here in Brazil, and we have 1/2 the XBL content. BTW the prices here are outrageous.

http://twitter.com/di3gotiroc3rto Diego Cavalcante

Tem sim, eu baixei.
chiron69

I saw Sony made five times more money on a game, after they made it free-to-play. (Instead of when people paid a monthly fee.)
That supports my thinking if MS could remove a zero at the end of each XBLive-content, it would probably sell over ten times more. Now, do the math….. And the social benefits is also an issue, the more people that own a game, the more people can play together. Who here hasn’t waited for an opponent for an hour (or indefinately) when trying to play a game on XBLive? I sure have, with a lot of titles.

Lee Thomas Rayson

Nice to see little improvements to the service. whats next maybe friends cap will increase? or cloud space will increase?

http://twitter.com/incphi incphi

Unfortunately, it’s one of the many features hindered by Microsoft’s continued support of LIVE for Xbox Original— oh, wait… :-
- Alex_Atkin_UK
  
  Indeed. Many had also hoped for the ability to create friend groups/clans once Xbox Live Classic was turned off, yet it never happened.

balshetzer

Thanks for finally doing this. Using an account in the wrong region has been a huge headache and finally it’s done.

Russell Gorall

Apparently it doesn’t work, great job!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Curtis-Isabell/1036013363 Curtis Isabell

be warned EU kids moving to the US and vice versa, this doesn’t mean you can take your physical xbox and use it, EU uses PAL disks and can’t be read with NTSC disks that US/japan use.

Indie_Adventure

Unless the game is Region Free, which a lot of them are nowadays! Source: UK ex-pat living in Taiwan (PAL -> NTSC/J)

http://raptr.com/silverdoe AMi Tr

speaking of region migration, can I migrate the Microsoft account’s region & billing address itself? Want to add some payment to Windows Store, not just Xbox …

http://www.facebook.com/Ben.Hovell Ben Hovell

Major Nelson and Microsoft I would like to say a very big thankyou in regards to this have been living in Canada for a while now with my Australian account and am very happy to now have migrate options. Australian accounts are very limited apps wise in comparison again soo happy this is now possible. thanks again.

keep up the good work!!

http://twitter.com/di3gotiroc3rto Diego Cavalcante

Microsoft only care about US and UK, they get all the apps and XBLA games, while the other countries get 1/10 of them. They should learn with Steam, they just released a version for Brazil, and we get ALL the games, at a great price (sometimes even cheaper than the US). Digital distribution will be big Next-gen. Thinking of going with Playstation, on the next generation, at least the have a lot of exclusive IP’s. Or maybe make a PC, to get Steam.

http://twitter.com/gazmaster3D Gazza!!!

You may want to consider the steam console in that case, I know I am.
- Alex_Atkin_UK
  
  I highly doubt the Steam console will be comparable to a mid-range PC.
  
  I recently built such a beat in the smallest ITX case I could cram all the guts into.
  
  Considering the graphics card alone takes up two expansion slots to fit the cooling system in, I doubt the Steam console will have as high a GPU as I do not see how they could sufficiently cool it in the space available. Bearing in mind this is the minimum specification for an average 30fps at 1080p on current games, I don’t think its going to be as good as people think it will.
  
  However Steam as a service, no complaints so far as I bought a TON of games over the holidays for about the price of two full priced Xbox 360 games.
  - chiron69
    
    The next/new generation GPU’s are VERY power-effective, compared to older chips, so thermal issues might not be a problem, actually.
    - Alex_Atkin_UK
      
      Its always been the case that each new generation can do more while using less power and producing less heat, but my current card is a GTX 660 which is pretty darn efficient in itself but still has a pretty huge cooler.
      
      Using a mobile version of the GPU will shave a fair bit off that, but how then would it be priced competitive? Gaming laptops to come anywhere close to my home PC cost as much as six PS3s, much more than the new Xbox or PSN will cost.
      
      You also have to remember that games on dedicated games consoles are pushed to the limit, optimised down to the specific hardware configuration. However the Steam box is (presumably) going to be running standard PC games which have to cater for a million different configurations. So the Steambox is never going to be as efficient as the same hardware in a games console. That basically means they need to use more powerful hardware than the new Playstation or Xbox are going to use.
      
      I just can’t see a good reason to do that unless its still a standard PC inside allowing you to swap out the GPU for a beefier model, but then the argument is why bother making it in the first place when you could just buy PC?
      
      I will be watching with interest, but I won’t be holding my breath.
QuixoticRocket

The apps are local to your country and depend on local businesses / branches. MS can’t force your local TV channel to make an app if they don’t want to. Put pressure on your local businesses if you want their apps in your region.

Steam is a great platform though.. especially with big screen mode out now. It makes a good competitor.

http://twitter.com/boe2BE Boe2

A gold-only region change service. Because silver members never change regions.

http://twitter.com/KodSerge Serga

well i’m pretty happy with my solution… i’m in Bosnia which i’m not sure even has a XBL market, but my account is set to US (cheeper the UK).
I may not be able to buy all the GoD but a lot of them are available.
With proper US VPN service, i can use Xbox Video, Netflix, Xbox Music Pass and all other apps which is cool and again cheaper then in UK.
Also there is a site where you can register virtual Visa Credit card which is not region restricted, and that way you can pay for XBL content.
So basically for $14 I get my VPN and Netflix subscription.

http://twitter.com/Ganon255 Ganon255

the whole region concept is annoying, anyway we can just go global next time around?

Alex_Atkin_UK

No, because even if you ignore the licensing problems – it has to be regional so they can apply regional laws regarding which content you are allowed to access in your country and what ratings system you use.
- http://twitter.com/Ganon255 Ganon255
  
  like I said, the whole region concept is annoying
  - Alex_Atkin_UK
    
    Annoying yes, fixable no. Gotta love that I was down voted for explaining known facts.
    
    I never said I didn’t want
    harmonisation of the regions, just clarifying why its impossible to do.

http://twitter.com/t0o_cRaZe3 t0o cRaZe3

This is great!! Finally moving my Belgian account to UK, that means, done with all the french stuff( you know ms, belgium is NOT a only french speaking country) now we can finally buy indie games and we have voice control. Only live rewards doesnt seem to work

http://twitter.com/RafaelByGears [CJBr]RaFaeLByGears

I migrated my account to u.s, but I can not get into the system of rewards, someone had the same problem?

http://www.gaminglives.com/ NeoVampyre

Nice. A friend of mine, Zach, has had an Irish account for years that wouldn’t let him purchase MSPs on or access a lot of UK market place stuff, hoepfully now he can unless we have lost him to PS3 forever.

Some guy

Does that mean I can change my region to Japan or Hong Kong and buy Virtual-On Force?

betosobreira

I’ll keep in XBL Brazil since at the fist moment this seems to me like problems ahead.

http://twitter.com/Sicho Sacha Galgon

First of all I wanna say “Thank you” for finally making Luxembourg available as a region!
It was always angered me hat our small country wasn’t “recognized” by XBL but at the same time, when you subscribe to Live (and live in the EU) and read the agreement wall of text thing, you saw that you are entering a contract with Microsoft Luxembourg!!

I found it insulting that you chose Luxembourg as the location for your European operations (surely because of taxes!) but putting Luxembourg on the XBL map has always been to much of a hassle! And besides that, Sony and Nintendo (and Apple and Amazon and others…) never had this issue and always had Luxembourg available on their online services. So thank you Microsoft for finally catching up with your competitors!

But there’s still a MAJOR issue … I changed my region from Germany to Luxembourg and now ALL the Live content is in French! While French is one of the three main languages we speak here, it’s only ONE of THREE and for most Luxembourgers, it’s not necessarily their favorite one when it comes to media consumption! So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make at least German available for us … English would also be very much appreciated!

I’m fluent in French but it’s the hardest language for me and I always choose German or English when I have a choice since these languages are very easy for me.

Forcing French on us is like forcing people from Switzerland to only get the XBL content in Italian, simply because they ALSO speak Italian besides other languages!
I know that French is one of our official languages … but so is German! And considering Luxembourg as a country that only speaks French is very ignorant, especially since we have OUR OWN language!

I don’t ask for you to translate everything into Luxembourgish (YES, IT IS A LANGUAGE!! ) I only want languages available, that already exist on Live …

It’s discriminating for the people here that prefer the German language! There are even enough people here that don’t speak French at all … so why not letting them choose a language? Nintendo and Sony are able to do it … when you chose you region, you can chose between Luxembourg (German) and Luxembourg (French). And since we have over 120 different nationalities living in Luxembourg, English would also make a lot of sense … lot of Americans and Brits and Irish people living here, among others …

For some of you who read this comment, I might not seem to be a big deal but quite frankly, this is really putting me off browsing the XBL store etc. If I’m still unable to chose German or English with my Luxembourgish profile when I have the possibility to re-change the region in three months, I’ll feel forced to re-switch it to Germany again (even though they have less content since they have retarded youth protection laws…) and once again play under the flag of a different country than my own

And truth be told: I would actually not mind playing as a “German” if there would not be a whole lot of small minded idiots out there that immediately start to shout “Hitler Hitler Nazi Nazi” in the headset as soon as they see Germany on a XBL Gamertag …

So while I’m very glad that I can now choose Luxembourg as my region, the language thing is a huge bummer for me I really REALLY hope you can fix this … it’s an issue for a lot of people here (although “a lot” here means proably not much to you since the whole country has only 500k inhabitants ….) and we would really love to have the same choice on our Xbox 360 than on our PlayStation 3!

Thanks for listening to my rant And keep up the good work!

http://twitter.com/LuchoAntunez Luis Antunes

Did you try it? I don’t see Luxemburg in the list of available countries for xbox live. For Uruguay is not available, I already tried it. Be careful.

http://twitter.com/AlexMSFT AliHK

Thanks for this Major, e and Live team, this is something I’ve been waiting for for quite a while! Much appreciated.

http://twitter.com/AlexMSFT AliHK

To be clear, I moved two times to two different countries so I really needed this feature a couple years ago, but I’m glad that its available now and that others like me can benefit from it.

http://www.facebook.com/AzmoD3uS Kent Nemenzo

Thank you so much for making this happen! The transition was quick and painless! I noticed that i gained a couple of months on my live subscription. When i checked the MS billing page it says “switch region offer”. Anyone have an idea what that’s about? A promotion maybe?

http://www.facebook.com/doc.tari.9 Doc Tari

When did you do the migration? Because mine gave an error msg and when I called support they told me that the migration system is disabled atm and to try again in a few days… I’m not very trusting of that being true though…
- http://www.facebook.com/AzmoD3uS Kent Nemenzo
  
  I did it about a couple of hours ago. What with a lot of subscribers probably waiting for this to get enabled, i guess the tool must be flooded with traffic. I hope you get your account migrated though!

90180360

Nice! Didn’t know that they accept it.

http://twitter.com/LuchoAntunez Luis Antunes

When I saw this, I thought “yaaaaay”!. Then I used a muletto account to try it, for my surprise, for Microsoft Uruguay is not a country yet and there’s no Xbox Live.
Thank you for your discrimination!

Guest

well thanks for delete my post

Edwin Villamizar

To change the region of USA to Colombia is lost kinect voice recognition

BlinkFandango

Now it looks like they replaced the previously announced Max Payne 3 sales with Red Dead Redemption sales. Isn’t Microsoft great? (Yes, that was sarcasm).

http://twitter.com/0kman Ott-Olle Kallas

Hello fellow gamers, MN, MS

After account migration I have a problem! My Xbox Live membership expired and I cant redeme any xbox live code I have! Xbox Live support didnt find any solution for my problem. They cant redeem the code for me or change my region. I can buy xbox live membership cards from my local shop but these codes are EU/UK and these dont work.

Xbox dashboard is kind a nice. Theres 4 sheets. Home, Social, games&apps, settings. It is even good: D No adds!

Estonia is in EU! Skype was written by Estonians. We have also Microsoft Estonia but no Xbox Live. Let us play/chat with our friends ! Give us the Xbox LIVE !!!

Right now I need to wait nearly 3 months so I can change my region back to UK like it was before.
Then I can talk and play with my friends again. But why I need to lie my region for LIVE ?

January 16th 2013 9:43 am PT

Xbox LIVE region migration is now available

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