Trigger Finger

If there is one thing that has gotten this site more hits than any other topic, it is the billing problem described here when moving from one country to another with an XBox Live subscription. After two years of inaction from Microsoft, it’s time to take it the top!

Major

I know that in the USA only 33% of the population even own a passport, let alone go abroad on vacations etc. So I imagine that the number of our star-spangled comrades-in-arms on XBox Live that actually move to another country to live is absolutley minute. However, as you know there are 6 other continents on this pale blue dot called Earth that also have real living and breathing people, who to your surprise may even be Xbox Live subscribers.

I am one of them, and we have a problem. On these other crazy continents we often share the same landmass and this means that we often move to another country (yes with a different national anthem, different customs, different languages, but always playing football). This move is as routine to us as someone moving from Florida to Texas is to an American. However, unlike our merry brothers in the USA, we are punished by a vast and evil bureaucracy. No I am not talking about our governments because as vast and bureaucratic as they may be, they manage to move our taxes, change our voting rights, health care provision and numerous other important yet difficult things. The bureaucracy is in fact the richest, most widespread and popular software company in the world. Us XBox Live users are smacked about the head with a stark choice when moving between countries:

1) Continue to use our Gamertags which we have been attached to for years, that our buddies are attached to, and that all those hundreds of hours of achievements are attached to BUT lose the ability to pay for anything on XBox Live, no downloads, no renewal of subscriptions, no expansion packs, no gamer points period.
2) Lose our Gamertags which we have been attached to for years, that our buddies are attached to, and that all those hundreds of hours of achievements are attached to BUT keep the apparently great honour of the ability to pay for anything on XBox Live

Why? Because our friends from Redmond don’t want our money, they COULD allow users to simply change their billing country, but they don’t. A simple database transaction you would think, but the empire says NO! Lose your friends, lose your achievements and lose that precious centrepiece of the community features – the gamertag, else we don’t want your filthy foreign money.

Seriously we understand you are worried about people hopping around regions to try and get cheaper gamerpoints, or access to content that shouldn’t be in their region etc etc. But hey, here is a novel idea I came up with in less than three nanoseconds of semi-concious thought, limit the number of changes that can be made! The limit could be once per year… or even 3 times in a lifetime, it doesn’t matter because we do not flit around from place to place THAT often. I run one of the tiniest blogs in the universe http://tf.erzz.com , not even a blog, just a place to vent the bile that fills me time-to-time, yet posting this problem two years ago has seen a constant stream of comments from people in the same position. If a sub-standard blog like mine can attract that many similar complaints, then problem is obviously widespread and affecting people all over.

Please Major, King of the community, fix this for us. We would just like to give you money – and everybody knows Microsoft likes money!

Thanks
Seer (aka ChoccieStarfish formerly known as Seerr formerley known as MajorSeer)

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