Xbox One Will Only Work In Certain Countries At Launch Excluding India
If you were thinking about ordering the Xbox One via a relative/friend abroad and use it in India before it officially launches here, Microsoft wants you to forget about it.
Just when you thought Microsoft couldn’t go a day without some new anti-consumer disaster it’s been revealed that the Xbox One is so reliant on its online connection that it won’t even turn on in some countries, no matter where you buy it from.
Microsoft’s Xbox One preorder information page states that the console will only support Live in only 21 countries at launch, and therefore presumably won’t work anywhere else.
The problem is there are only 21 supported countries at launch (depending on who you ask there are around 206 countries in the world) and that doesn’t include Portugal, Poland and most of Eastern Europe, or Japan and the rest of Asia (including India).
The full list of supported countries is Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States.
Microsoft have described this as a “staged approach” to marketing their new console. Their regional vice president for sales and marketing in Asia stated that they were still working on allowing Asian gamers a “great experience”, including localised content.
The only alternative for people residing in India (or the other countries omitted) would be to create a new Xbox Live account that pretended to be based in a supported region
In contrast, Sony has said that the PlayStation 4 will be region-free, like the PlayStation 3.
