R300mil is not that much if you consider the infrstructure and support behind Live. Sure they make money off live, but I don’t think that comes from the subs.

Some things to consider…
- Salaries and facilities for technical support teams. 1st, 2nd and 3rd tier.
- Salaries and facilities for devs
- Vast amount of servers, which require maintenance and support
- HUGE Network infrastructure
- Marketing
- Accounts and legal departments
- Manufacturing and and distribution of subscription codes

If you put all of that together, I don’t think they make a lot of money of subscriptions, I reckon most of the profit comes from DLC and the marketplace.

Even though I want live in SA as well, we’ve got to realise that its not as easy as just putting a shitty server in some dusty server room and we’re ready.

The ting is they are not losing out on any money, since everyone in SA pays in pounds or dollars via ebay/online sites.
So they are actually making more money by not brining official live to SA, if you agree with what Rudolph said.

What they need to do is not block DLC!!!

Hmm you all make interesting points… So how does Sony do it? Some how I’ve spent the same amount of money on my 360 as what I bought my PS3 for (although my 360 doesn’t have blue ray) just to get the same features (I understand the reasoning but my point is I personally wanted the same features on my 360 as my PS3 and I coughed up enough dough for it)and I still have to pay to play. Hardly any marketing goes into selling the 360 from MS in SA, it’s all up to the retailer and as for 360 support line – I was told that it would be cheaper to buy a new console that to fix the LAN adapter – that was a great help, so I bought the wireless adapter at half the price of a console! They are willing to drop the price over and over but don’t keep the price and provide a service to keep current customers happy. We pay the same price for the goods as the US, are we just some extra dollars on their sales list and nothing more!? To hell with that, why should we get the short end of the stick then be told to be happy about what we have. I don’t particularly think MS are struggling with the X-box sales; they are doing better than Sony…

I’m thinking: Great picture, but the screw needs to go in the other way, with the guy bend over!

1. We don’t need a server
This all depends on the architecture of XBL. There is no way that they’re going to change the entire architecture for such a small amount of users (if a change is neccesary).

2. We don’t need marketing
So you reckon they will just be happy with the initial sign up and leave the rest of the country in the dark?

3. We dont need accounts or legal
If people are paying for something, you needs people to do the accounts. Legal is even more important, especially when it comes to stuff like DLC. Every little bit needs to checked, whether they have the right to distribute it in SA, can they obtain the rights, how much will it cost etc etc etc.

You make a good point about the fact that we don’t want the whole service, but unfortunately, its a bit of a catch-22 for MS. If they only give us the ability to pay in rands, and nothing else, then they are still not allowed to advertise XBL in SA, as it is not the same service people who read up on it expects.

Also, we might be happy with only getting to pay in rands, but how long do you think it’ll be before other people start bitching about “not getting what they’re paying for” and then MS are the bad guys once again.

Keep in mind that I’m on your side here, I also want XBL out of the box, all I’m saying is that its just not as easy as we might think. And MS, being a company, will not do something if its not financially viable, which I’ve got to say, I don’t think it is at this stage.

rudolph.. re-check the article… its $300m
and i can tell you $300m id more than enough to cater for world wide support if you consider its per annum!!

Or go to http://www.evogames.co.za
yip good ol SA. The guys are awesome, their service is fast and I have never had a problem!

Yeah R599 or R451.35(P29.99×15.05) for a 12 month Xbox Live card? You choose.

okay now its just to get a hdd and and ADSL line i have iburst but read on other forums its a waste to even try and play live on it

It also depends what you want to play. twitch games suffer more.

Sorry, but where do I put in the code? I use google check out.

“Microsoft is losing out on R9 806 250 per annum by refusing to support our country”

Firstly, I highly doubt 25% of RSA Xbox users are actively on gold live. But let’s assume they are….(wouldn’t MS be getting that money anyway then?)

Face it lads, R9million per year = $75000 per month. MS writes that of monthly in rounding errors. They pay that for their coffee club. Perhaps the best they can do is to legally allow RSA to purchase with CC’s. Perhaps even through in a currency converter. As for official infrastructural support, that isn’t going to happen in our current telecoms climate. We’ll probably need 500,000+ subscribers before they’ll start looking interested. 18,000 (massive assumption imo) ain’t going to cut it.

This is not only a live issue. For yonks now South African gamers have battled and pleaded for official support for big gaming networks. Way back in the days of Starcraft rumours were always rife that mweb would host an official bnet server. Never happened. Same goes for WoW, WAR and the likes. We bound to pay subs in euros/$ and connect to EU or USA servers. Useless our broadband uptake does not dramatically increase, and unless we do not empower the 30million poor in this country to afford luxuries like xboxs, internets and live, local online gaming support will never happen.

TIA