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Report: Microsoft now blocking VPN for Xbox purchases/code redemptions in other regions

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I wont, if they don't want my money.......fine, Steam sure don't complain about my region or country.
Actually when I think about it MS is on the final mission to kill the console.

Using a VPN to buy cheaper games is against Steam's TOS as well, FYI.

 
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ManaByte

Gold Member
Using a VPN to buy cheaper games is against Steam's TOS as well, FYI.
Uh Oh Wrestling GIF by WWE
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
yeah but no subscribers=no revenue, I can bet there is more then 1million subscribers like me.
Yes, but they are forecasting that more revenue from fewer paying subscribers will be more profitable for them than lots of subscribers that got the cheap deals.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism




If you want confirmation on this, when I had Copilot translate the Tweets, it added this thanks to MS:

By the way, is it now the same as PSN?

So folks who are not living in a supported region will not be able to legally make another region account and purchase games? What happens to games like Sea of Thieves on Steam that require an Xbox account?

Will it be a similar situation as Sony PSN/Hellidvers 2 on Steam problem?
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
By the way, is it now the same as PSN?

So folks who are not living in a supported region will not be able to legally make another region account and purchase games? What happens to games like Sea of Thieves on Steam that require an Xbox account?

Will it be a similar situation as Sony PSN/Hellidvers 2 on Steam problem?

No you can still change your console region at any time. You just can't exploit VPN to get stuff cheap from Turkey anymore.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
No you can still change your console region at any time. You just can't exploit VPN to get stuff cheap from Turkey anymore.
Okay, got it. So "console region" and "location associated with your Microsoft account" are two different things? And both can be different at the same time?
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I don't care about cheaper games FFS, I CANT BUY GAMES AT ALL FROM MY COUNTRY/REGION !!! IS THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND ?
THAT IS FOR XBOX CONSOLE GAMES & GAMEPASS.
Is it FUCKING CLEAR NOW ?

vent out.....

relax man

martin lawrence GIF



There hasn't been an official announcement on this and other users have said they have been able to get stuff without issues in the last couple of days. Maybe this is a soft-implementation for specific regions and not universal.

We won't know until official PR comes out.
 
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ManaByte

Gold Member
Okay, got it. So "console region" and "location associated with your Microsoft account" are two different things? And both can be different at the same time?

Yea you can switch your console to any region at any time. Just needs a reboot to do it. It's how people play games early. Pre-order a game on your US console/account, switch the console to New Zealand and it'll unlock and you can play it early.
 

SenkiDala

Member
Wow that's a huge news in fact. I know dozens of people who play on Xbox for the ONLY REASON that you can buy games on sites... that I won't name here, but yeah Turkish keys of a game that's 60/70€ on the store and you can get the for 2 or 3€ sometimes...

I even know whole WEBSITES talking just about this.

I knew that someday it'd end, it was too good to last.

I remember CP2077 being at 6€ around day one, Teardown complete edition at 1€ on day one, 2 or 3€ for Rogue Legacy 2, 20€ for BG3 on day one...

I don't care about cheaper games FFS, I CANT BUY GAMES AT ALL FROM MY COUNTRY/REGION !!! IS THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND ?
THAT IS FOR XBOX CONSOLE GAMES & GAMEPASS.
Is it FUCKING CLEAR NOW ?

vent out.....
Dunno where you're from man but my wife is from Cuba and yeah in countries like that... no luck. Well anyway they're more focused to find places to buy food than buy games anyway.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member


If you change the location associated with your Microsoft account, you may need to re-acquire the material or applications that were available to you and paid for in your previous region. You agree not to access or use material or Services which are illegal or not licensed for use in the country from which you access or use such material or Services, or to conceal or misrepresent your location or identity in order to access or use such material or Services.

Edit: It only affects 3 countries so far:
 
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IFireflyl

Gold Member
Region locking just encourages piracy. Anyone licking MS's balls in this situation is an idiot.

I don't think anyone on this forum would consider me a Microsoft or Xbox fanboy. I genuinely don't see what's wrong with this move.

Regional pricing isn't a requirement. It is done so that people in poor countries/locals can still purchase and play the game. When people abuse this with VPN workarounds, it makes it less profitable for a company to support regional pricing. Cracking down on workarounds lets the company continue to provide regional pricing without being taken advantage of by people in first-world companies who simply don't want to pay full price for a game.

If this drives someone to piracy then they were already predisposed to pirate content anyway. If a company lowers employee wages and then that employee steals from the company, the employee gets in trouble. Resorting to piracy over this is no different.

P.S. In regard to making sweeping statements while calling people who disagree idiots: check yourself, man. You're not God's gift to NeoGAF. Don't come out of the gates being intentionally offensive.
 
I don't think anyone on this forum would consider me a Microsoft or Xbox fanboy. I genuinely don't see what's wrong with this move.

Regional pricing isn't a requirement. It is done so that people in poor countries/locals can still purchase and play the game. When people abuse this with VPN workarounds, it makes it less profitable for a company to support regional pricing. Cracking down on workarounds lets the company continue to provide regional pricing without being taken advantage of by people in first-world companies who simply don't want to pay full price for a game.

If this drives someone to piracy then they were already predisposed to pirate content anyway. If a company lowers employee wages and then that employee steals from the company, the employee gets in trouble. Resorting to piracy over this is no different.

P.S. In regard to making sweeping statements while calling people who disagree idiots: check yourself, man. You're not God's gift to NeoGAF. Don't come out of the gates being intentionally offensive.
VPNs allow

a) people who don't have a store in their country to have access,

b) content that's region locked to one country to be accessed in other countries.

Saying that anyone who is forced to pirate because they're locked out is predisposed to pirating is retarded.

P.S. If you don't want your opinion to be called retarded, stop having retarded opinions.
 

SHA

Member
I don't think anyone on this forum would consider me a Microsoft or Xbox fanboy. I genuinely don't see what's wrong with this move.

Regional pricing isn't a requirement. It is done so that people in poor countries/locals can still purchase and play the game. When people abuse this with VPN workarounds, it makes it less profitable for a company to support regional pricing. Cracking down on workarounds lets the company continue to provide regional pricing without being taken advantage of by people in first-world companies who simply don't want to pay full price for a game.

If this drives someone to piracy then they were already predisposed to pirate content anyway. If a company lowers employee wages and then that employee steals from the company, the employee gets in trouble. Resorting to piracy over this is no different.

P.S. In regard to making sweeping statements while calling people who disagree idiots: check yourself, man. You're not God's gift to NeoGAF. Don't come out of the gates being intentionally offensive.
I live in Costa Rica and have a US account, now they don’t let me redeem gift cards bought in Amazon US, making my Series X and S expensive paper weights.

For countries that don’t have official store this is complete bullshit.
They found different audience, this move is risky, it's obvious, if you look back historicaly speaking, the industry do make risky moves, it happens but rarely.
 
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ManaByte

Gold Member
VPNs allow

a) people who don't have a store in their country to have access,

b) content that's region locked to one country to be accessed in other countries.

Saying that anyone who is forced to pirate because they're locked out is predisposed to pirating is retarded.

P.S. If you don't want your opinion to be called retarded, stop having retarded opinions.

Except that's not what this thread is about. They changed the policy so people who do have a store in their country can't use a VPN to access cheaper stores in three countries.
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
VPNs allow

a) people who don't have a store in their country to have access,

b) content that's region locked to one country to be accessed in other countries.

Saying that anyone who is forced to pirate because they're locked out is predisposed to pirating is retarded.

P.S. If you don't want your opinion to be called retarded, stop having retarded opinions.

We're not talking about content that is necessary to sustain life. We're talking about digital media. If digital content isn't allowed in your country, that doesn't give you a moral/ethical right to pirate it. Either what you want is worth moving for, or you can live without it. The only retarded take I'm seeing is yours.
 
We're not talking about content that is necessary to sustain life. We're talking about digital media. If digital content isn't allowed in your country, that doesn't give you a moral/ethical right to pirate it. Either what you want is worth moving for, or you can live without it. The only retarded take I'm seeing is yours.
I said using VPNs encourages people NOT to pirate it. Learn to read.
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
And I said, "If this drives someone to piracy then they were already predisposed to pirate content anyway." Learn to read. Also, quit going out of your way to be an asshole in every response.
 

Stafford

Member
Some people still buy gift cards for like Brazil and then buy the game, no VPN needed. But is that even allowed at all? They are not from Brazil.

Either way, I'm not risking my huge ass library. I mean whenever a good game comes out that me and my bro dig we'll split the costs, so it's still not too bad even at full price.
 
ResetERA must be fuming over this. Using VPN tricks has been a big part of many of them getting Game Pass on the cheap. Now that Microsoft are cutting that option out, we'll see how much they truly value the service.

This is something MS should've probably done a while ago TBH; keeping the loophole open (that's what it was) was just them currying favor with certain folks hoping the sub count would grow as a result. It didn't, so there's no point keeping the option around. Plus I think they're going to keep removing features from Game Pass anyway, and eventually lock Day 1 game access to just the highest tier.

For the tiers under that, it'll just become a glorified version of what PS+ used to be in the PS3 days, but maybe a few extra perks like game streaming and free/discounted MTX for various 1P & 3P GAAS titles. They'll probably still find a way to justify having online play paywalled behind those lower tiers though.

After reading some comments, it seems that using a VPN to buy games at a cheaper price was the only valuable reason to get an Xbox. Isn't this further deterring people from buying the console?

I kinda forgot about that. Although TBH, it's not like the B2P market on Xbox is as strong as it was in the 360 or even the early XBO generation. These VPN tricks just ultimately meant less money for MS & 3P in B2P sales, since the absolute number of customers wasn't growing on Xbox consoles over the past decade to offset more buying at cheaper prices via VPNs.

And Microsoft can thank themselves with that, especially in the past 4-5 years, thanks to their heavy push onto Steam.
 
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And I said, "If this drives someone to piracy then they were already predisposed to pirate content anyway." Learn to read. Also, quit going out of your way to be an asshole in every response.
Yes, because people who want to buy it and have no means to are automatically predisposed to piracy. You're retarded. Also, you're not the boss of me.
 
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Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
I guess this doesn't really affect me - the utility for me would be getting access to the JP lineup from the US. But... there hasn't been a Japanese release I've wanted on the Xbox since Cave was putting out games back on the 360.

Anyway, if this is to prevent people in the US from paying pennies for games by buying from other regions, I get it.
 

Shtef

Member
I have tested it, Turkey store is not working anymore, it gives an error saying you have to switch to correct region.
I changed my region to USA and i could buy games using my local debit card.

So thats it, ms has blocked Turkey, Brazil and Argentina regions, if you live in not supported country just select US as your territory, put some address from google maps (I have selected California becuase they dont charge you extra for taxes) add your local card and you can purchase games.
 
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I already got a mail from some sketchy russian site that their prices are going up. I paid 60 bucks for 2 years of gamepass ultimate just a month ago trough them.
 

Stafford

Member
So just to be clear. MS is solely against us using a VPN to then activate a code in a different country, right? I live in The Netherlands. So if I buy a EU code from say.....Kinguin, this is still fine?
 
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