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Remember the little big Microsoft announcement that we talked about some time back? With over 2 hours to go before the clock hits zero, we’ve got some news that will totally make you want to hug us. That’s how awesome we are. So revel, Indian gaming fans, in the knowledge that Xbox LIVE will be launching on November 5th, just in time for us to get our chainsaws revving in Gears of War.
Talking to the press at the Shangri-La hotel in New Delhi a couple of hours back, the Microsoft Awesome Foursome – Robbie Bach (President, Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division), Alan Bowman (Director, Home and Entertainment Division, Asia Pacific), Ravi Venkatesan (Chairman, Microsoft India) and Mohit Anand (Country Manager, Entertainment and Devices, Microsoft India) – knocked everyone over with a barrage of announcements.
First up, Xbox LIVE. Announcing that the online service would be made available on November 5th, Robbie also said that PC gamers would be welcomed into the fold as well with Games for Windows LIVE, in addition to a ton of new accessories that should find their way onto shelves pretty soon. A complete list of Xbox LIVE susbscriptions and accessories include:
- Xbox LIVE 1 Month Pack – INR 350
- Xbox LIVE 3 Month Pack – INR 880
- Xbox LIVE 12+1 Month Pack – INR 2200
- Xbox LIVE 12+1 Month Halo 3 Pack – INR 2200
- Xbox LIVE 1600 Points – INR 1070
- Xbox LIVE 1600 Points Halo 3 Pack – INR 1070
- Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter – INR 4210
- Xbox 360 Wired Headset – INR 1020
- Xbox 360 Wireless Headset – INR 2620
- Xbox LIVE Vision Camera – INR 2040
- Xbox 360 512 MB Memory Unit – INR 2830
- Xbox 360 Text Input Device – INR 1600
In addition, Microsoft India also revealed that the Video Marketplace would be rolled out across Xbox LIVE in India soon enough, with regional content being made available over the Marketplace. Oh yes, we’ll even have Hanuman, everyone’s favorite monkey-god-boy heading over to the Video Marketplace soon enough. To add icing to the cake, they’ve even tied up with Seventymm, India’s very own NetFlix, to rent Xbox 360 games out to poor gamers like myself who’re already broke trying to keep up with the sheer amount of games being released these last couple of weeks. We already carried an article on this, but hey, we didn’t know Microsoft would be happily jumping on board!
All downloadables on the Marketplace, provided they aren’t restricted for Asia, will be made available for India, including Xbox LIVE Arcade games and all game-related content. Talking to us, Robbie and Mohit also spoke to us about developing games for Xbox LIVE Arcade and how they’re working with local game development companies to generate content via XNA.
But the strangest announcement of the day seems to be the release of “educational content” on Xbox LIVE! Talking to the press, Microsoft announced that India will be the first country to see the release of education specific learning aids for grades 1-12 that will, presumably, help kids score better on their tests. Or they could just be playing Gears of War online in secret and say “But Mooooom, I’m learning!” Oh wait, Parental Controls! Not that your Mom has to know anything about that, but, shhh…
And finally, after days of poking and prodding, we are thrilled to get an answer on the Gears of War PC launch. Talking to our happy folks at the event, Mohit Anand said that the game will be made available in India “on time”. Now this could mean anywhere from Day 0 to a week or two later, but still, it’s better than waiting months for them, which is what we seem to be doing for a whole bunch of games.
For those eagerly waiting for any news on Assassin’s Creed (for those that aren’t in the loop, UbiSoft strangely seems reluctant to release their games here), sorry, you’re probably going to have to get this from Play-Asia or your local importer. Whatever problem there was with UbiSoft is still very much present and we don’t think they’re ready to kiss and make up.
We have lots more video interviews with the Microsoft team, photos and extended details on the event, which we’ll have up here as soon as our idiots closest friends stop playing Halo 3 with each other and get back. In the meantime, I’ll just go slog over more articles as I eat my crummy lunch and make voodoo dolls in Reggie’s and Vijay’s likeness.
UPDATE: We’ve also just heard from our crack team that there will be no price cuts for the existing consoles and the only offer available right now is the “Super Stylish Super Saver Offer” we’ve already covered, along with the Holiday Bundles. There will also be no Arcade version coming around anytime soon, and Microsoft, surprise, surprise, can’t really comment on when the Arcade version will replace the Core version here. Sorry, guys!
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October 24th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
So, how many of you folks are finally gonna come on XBL?
I might just end up having to speed up getting my account up (Those support bastards are…bastards D:<) or make a new if there’s gonna be folks playing from TAP XD
October 24th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
We are already there on XBL, using spoofed IDs. At least me and Krish have been gaming regularly on co-op mode. You can catch me online mostly playing COD3 and Halo 3 MP. I suppose Reggie also got his account but he has been unable to get any time.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I’m from Poland. We don’t have our own Xbox Live service, so we are using “fake” addresses to register accounts in UK or US. Situation in India is (AFAIK) the same.
So my question is: will Microsoft let you to migrate existing XBL accounts into new ones located in India without losing a GamerScore?
October 24th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
@Toszcze: Seriously crazy on MS’ part to just launch the console and then delay the LIVE launch. I suppose they have problems with the local governments in most cases, but in the end, that really doesn’t help us gamers a whole bunch.
As for the whole migrating the XBL accounts issue, I don’t know how this is going to work. But what I’ve usually done is just go to Hotmail and change my settings to reflect whichever country I want LIVE to think I’m in (usually I keep switching between US, UK and Singapore) and then change the locale on the console to the same country. Seems to work so far and I’ve never had to lose my GamerScore, even though the country/location info keeps bouncing all over the place on my Xbox.com profile and on the console. I don’t know if the same thing will work when the service is launched here, but I guess we’ll know for sure on Nov. 5th.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
@Singh: Weren’t you already on Xbox LIVE Gold? I remember seeing you on the Gold service, or was it just the trial one you got for registering your console?
October 24th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I think the rental bit was more useful than the launch of Live, hey atleast we dont have to strave saving up for a God damn game…and WHY IS MICROSOFT GOING THE BLoody-wood way…
October 24th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
The pricing seems OK to me and with game on rent this is a good thing. I have a 360 and its NTSC-J so I will have to buy a Pal one I think for joining the live. I would buy the core and swap my old harddisk with it. Great this is one the biggest gaiming announcement in India till now. Also can anyone tell is BSNL broad band sufficent for LIVE.
October 24th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
But the showstealer really was the fact the GFW Live launches the same day as XBL! Oh, that and the free food!
October 24th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
@Krishnan: can you change a country in your Xbox Live profile? Because I can’t and it determines a really user location.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:28 am
@Toszcze: Nope, you can’t change your country in your Xbox LIVE profile, but the thing is, it all uses the same Passport information, so if you’ve signed in with your MSN Passport, sign in to MSN/Hotmail/Passport, head on over to Options > View and Edit your Personal Information, which will then take you to your Windows Live ID Account page where you can choose to change your secret question.
Which, as you can see in this image, also happens to be the place where you can change your country and other details. If you change it here and your locale on the console, I assume there shouldn’t be any problems. Some here are saying that the renewal cards won’t work if you do this, since LIVE remembers which region you first registered for. I think that most probably wouldn’t be the case and it’s just pulling the information from the Windows Live ID here.
I’ll just get a 1-month card and see if it works. If it does, great – I’ll get a 12 month card! If it doesn’t, well, let’s just say I ain’t too happy about losing thousands of GS points and would probably stand outside the Microsoft offices with a dozen voodoo dolls and a million pins. Let’s face it, people shift to other countries all the time. They can’t really expect users to start fresh every time, and it’s not right to assume they would. No, this should most probably work. But, then again, no guarantees!
October 25th, 2007 at 12:32 am
@Ravi: I personally am on a 256k BSNL HOME-900-UL line and while I have trouble connecting to a lot of international users in Ranked matches, co-op and player matches are usually no problem. The console and the game usually adjusts ahead for lag, and while this can be a problem in some fast paced matches, for the most part, it will serve you well, especially if you are playing with Indian gamers. Considering Xbox LIVE matches are usually on a peer-to-peer basis.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:06 am
[...] gamers have a reason to celebrate next month, as Live for both Xbox 360 and Games for Windows will launch there on November 5th. A 12-month subscription will run 2200 rupees ($55 USD) and a 1600 MS Point [...]
October 25th, 2007 at 6:06 am
[...] gamers have a reason to celebrate next month, as Live for both Xbox 360 and Games for Windows will launch there on November 5th. A 12-month subscription will run 2200 rupees ($55 USD) and a 1600 MS Point [...]
October 25th, 2007 at 7:15 am
http://youtube.com/watch?v=16NkX9WbyAU
Just check this out…
October 25th, 2007 at 9:30 am
@Neelesh: Ha, ha, yeah, seen that one quite some time back. That scene’s been practically modified to a LOT of things, including the Xbox LIVE ban, the Crysis demo delay, the Orange Box deactivation and so much other stuff.
But seriously, that’s one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:43 am
[...] Microsoft India Launches Xbox LIVE And Then Some De Niro Cast As Another [...]
October 25th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
@Enoon: Yes. Sorta. Kinda. The credit card for that acc expired ages ago, and I’ve been trying to get the bloody thing changed to the new card ever since. It’s incredibly troublesome, really – it refuses to accept (both online and in XBL) the new card no matter what I do.
I’m considering just changing the region to India (or if that isn’t possible, Singapore) and making up an entirely new account – that way at least I can get online and play a bit. I’ll update you if it gets online – which may be a while considering I’m currently playing too many online games anyway (EVE-O, WiC, etc) XD
October 25th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Great now I will be joining live just after my exams.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
[...] set a single foot on these platforms in any retail store in India. Any specific reason? When I last spoke with Mohit Anand, he told me the problem was Ubisoft. Oh snaps, you just know there’s some [...]
October 28th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
[...] Xbox Live and others is the “educational content.” According to those at the event held at the Shangri-la Hotel in New Delhi, Microsoft announced India will be the first country with [...]
October 30th, 2007 at 5:30 am
[...] what concludes our coverage from the Microsoft Xbox LIVE India press event last week, we have a quick two-minute chat with Country Manager Mohit Anand. Just right after [...]
November 5th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
[...] to launch officially on 05/11/07, we all waited for that day when Monday would be everyone’s most favourite-est day. But yesterday [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 11:38 am
[...] Xbox Live and others is the “educational content.” According to those at the event held at the Shangri-la Hotel in New Delhi, Microsoft announced India will be the first country with [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 3:38 am
[...] has become more and more difficult. First, it was the Halo 3 pre-launch party followed up with the XBL India launch announcement party, both in New Delhi. Come 16th November 2007 and these buggers will be getting lucky, three times in [...]
November 21st, 2007 at 4:08 pm
where are the indian content made available on xbl india…
December 14th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
hay guys i live in New York i love to play with you all my xbox live tag is: x Doubleteam