Home Gaming Halo on Xbox One will never work properly in South Africa

Halo on Xbox One will never work properly in South Africa

2 min read
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HaloMCC

Update: What? Halo Matchmaking is working from South Africa! 

Halo: The Masterchief Collection launched with much fanfare, but there’s been a problem with its matchmaking since day one. Patch after patch and the matchmaking issues persisted. It’s now four months on. A brand new patch is out – and for many, it’s completely fixed the game’s matchmaking woes.

Here’s what the patch notes say about matchmaking fixes.

  • Made a variety of updates to improve matchmaking performance and success rates
  • Improved matchmaking search times/time to match
  • Improved stability throughout the matchmaking process across all titles

Unfortunately, South African users have found that matchmaking still doesn’t work from within South Africa’s borders. South Africans are unable to join a multiplayer Halo: The Masterchief though matchmaking. Private multiplayer games, where you invite friends and the like work as intended – but if you’re trying to use the system’s built in matchmaking, all you’ll be doing is waiting. Many local gamers had hoped that the newest patch would fix it – and it doesn’t.

No amount of patching will fix it though. We’ve heard from a rather reliable, trusted source that Microsoft and 343 are actively blocking South African gamers from using matchmaking. Their reasoning, we’ve been told, is that our internet infrastructure is too slow, and that by allowing us to join other players from around the globe, we’d be negatively impacting their experience.

The only solution to Halo matchmaking woes would be to have a local Azure datacentre – but we’ve already been told that’s not on the pipeline. The most egregious bit of all of this is that Microsoft South Africa is aware of the issues and the IP restrictions in place – and I think they should at the very least be selling physical copies of the game with some sort of a warning sticker, with a similar notice on the digital versions in the Xbox store. Those who waited eagerly for Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall would know that that game was denied a retail release here, for much the same reasons.

The problem, obviously, is with the precedent that this sets. This will very likely happen with other games. Will we  be able to play any matched game of Gears of War when that’s out? Will we be able to play Halo 5: Guardians? Until we have an Azure server here, the answer is “probably not.” While I understand Microsoft wanting to maintain a desired level of performance for the majority of its players – we have to realise we are a small market, after all – the very least that should be done is for them to warn consumers that they should expect a degraded experience.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft Global, Microsoft South Africa and 343 industries for official comment – to no avail. We’ll keep you updated on the responses we get, should we get them.

Last Updated: March 4, 2015

80 Comments

  1. RinceThis

    March 4, 2015 at 11:35

    Poor Pieter

    Reply

    • Rock789

      March 4, 2015 at 11:43

      Where’s the next pic? Where the dragon’s head is lying on the floor, with the psycho kid laughing his a$$ off?! o_O

      Reply

      • RinceThis

        March 4, 2015 at 11:44

        Whoa! What version of the story did you read?!

        Reply

        • Rock789

          March 4, 2015 at 11:51

          The truthful version! The dragon always dies… Just ask Skyrim. :p

          Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      March 4, 2015 at 11:54

      • Pariah

        March 4, 2015 at 11:55

        FALKOR!!! Who’s that fat asshole riding him though?

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          March 4, 2015 at 11:56

          Peter

          Reply

          • Pariah

            March 4, 2015 at 11:57

            Guess he ate all the pumpkins. 😛

          • Hammersteyn

            March 4, 2015 at 11:58

            From Family guy.

          • Pariah

            March 4, 2015 at 11:58

            I have taste, why would I watch that crap?

          • Hammersteyn

            March 4, 2015 at 12:00

            I googled Peter and dragon and that’s what I got.

          • RustedFaith

            March 4, 2015 at 12:43

            What does people with “taste” watch ? I’m just curious ….

          • Pariah

            March 4, 2015 at 12:48

            We usually start with English learning programmes, from about the age of 5. From there, anything that isn’t obvious or rather failed attempts at humour. It’s up to each individual really. What I can say with certainty however; Family Guy isn’t it.

          • RustedFaith

            March 4, 2015 at 13:09

            So you definition of taste is “English Learning Programmes”

            okay ….

          • Pariah

            March 4, 2015 at 13:13

            🙂

      • RinceThis

        March 4, 2015 at 11:57

        Falkor? Or LAST GUARDIAN! #stayStrongUmar

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          March 4, 2015 at 11:58

          BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

          Reply

    • Matewis Jubilai

      March 4, 2015 at 11:58

      Wow, Sarel Seemonster really let himself go 😛

      Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      March 4, 2015 at 14:33

      Wait… that dragon is a pedo? How come I get a damn pedo-bear next to a picture I posted on Facebook? Damn you Rincey! DAMN YOU!!! THAT WAS DURING MY HEAVY METAL PHASE BRO!!!

      Reply

  2. Loftus

    March 4, 2015 at 11:37

    I’m not going to bash Xbox One users, rather we should go toi toi at Telkom HQ and burn our old dail up modems and demand better and cheaper internet!

    Reply

  3. WitWolfy

    March 4, 2015 at 11:40

    “Dedicated Servers” MY ASS!! So glad I never bought a Xbone just for this game. Its like GeOW 2 all over again!!!

    Reply

  4. Nikola

    March 4, 2015 at 11:42

    BWahahahahaha!! Xbox LOL!!

    Reply

  5. DeLorean

    March 4, 2015 at 11:47

    The future of video games as a service that just doesn’t work properly.

    Reply

  6. Hammersteyn

    March 4, 2015 at 11:48

    “Microsoft and 343 are actively blocking South African gamers from using matchmaking” is that legal???

    Reply

    • Pariah

      March 4, 2015 at 11:49

      Yes. What’s not legal is the packaging & marketing not saying as much.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        March 4, 2015 at 11:51

        Would probably hamper sales.

        Reply

        • Pariah

          March 4, 2015 at 11:53

          Honestly, at this point if I’d purchased it I would be well within my legal rights to claim a refund in full.

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            March 4, 2015 at 11:55

            Ah, but i’m sure there’s some terms and conditions(which no human being ever reads) page you need to accept before you can play the game

          • Pariah

            March 4, 2015 at 11:57

            Usually it’s there to say that they can’t guarantee consistant service, but to outright block an entire part of the game, the part that actually made the game famous – it’s 100% false advertising. People play Halo for the multiplayer (mostly), and if that’s now been removed from the game, by choice, by the devs, then it’s false advertising. If the box says online multiplayer through matchmaking, then that’s what needs to happen.

          • Spathi

            March 4, 2015 at 12:31

            They are smarter than that.

            It will be: Singleplayer and Multiplayer* Action!

            * The multiplayer experience may differ** from region to region.

            ** There may be some services*** unavailable to the user based on their location.

            *** Matchmaking of multiplayer games is a**** service that may or may not be affected.

            **** There may or may not be others as well

            😛

    • Geoffrey Tim

      March 4, 2015 at 11:49

      Their service – they can block whomsoever they like.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        March 4, 2015 at 11:51

        At least they can still play the single player.

        Reply

      • RinceThis

        March 4, 2015 at 12:00

        Surely they would need to advertise that? Like they did back in the day with a sticker on the cover?

        Reply

      • RustedFaith

        March 4, 2015 at 12:45

        The CPA disagrees, if it doesnt have the features advertised you are allowed a refund. Why do you think Titanfall didnt get released here … its because of a CPA complaint and to protect them self they pulled out.

        MS will get slaughtered if 1 person makes a CPA complaint …. they are after all bound to SA law when trading here. You cannot contract out of law either so regardless of their terms the law supersedes it, at least in South Africa that’s how it works.

        Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      March 4, 2015 at 11:56

      • Hammersteyn

        March 4, 2015 at 12:00

        Order 66?

        Reply

        • umfezo

          March 4, 2015 at 12:14

          Sweet & Sour Pork with Noodles on its way

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            March 4, 2015 at 12:16

            That………….would be so delicious right about now

  7. eXpZA

    March 4, 2015 at 11:51

    Matchmaking works fine for all PS4 games in South Africa.
    Vote with your wallets.

    Reply

    • Uberutang

      March 4, 2015 at 12:03

      ‘works’, but still now they pair some poor eu dude with a local with 300 ping. Sony has no ethics!

      Reply

      • Geoffrey Tim

        March 4, 2015 at 12:06

        I have no issue with blocking matchmaking (but letting people join pvt games). The issue i really have is with not letting consumers know.

        Reply

        • Uberutang

          March 4, 2015 at 12:12

          Yeah I agree. Big sticker: this uses servers hosted in EU or this uses P2P, host may be on MARS.

          Reply

      • Spathi

        March 4, 2015 at 12:16

        It baffles me that you can’t choose a server on console. Why don’t they give people a choice like on PC?

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          March 4, 2015 at 12:17

          Because the server selection would likely be North America,Europe,Australia and maybe Asia in which case they’d still block South African IP’s

          Reply

          • Spathi

            March 4, 2015 at 12:26

            I wasn’t specifically referring to Halo, but multi-player games in general. Also, I would like to choose on which server I play based on ping, not just some random server.

  8. e1ace

    March 4, 2015 at 12:07

    This brings up the huge problem with MS Cloud Servers being used to offload processing power. It simply cannot work for many countries in the world. Once games start actually using this feature more, the more issues we will have playing them (even single player).

    Reply

    • Uberutang

      March 4, 2015 at 12:13

      Yup. But I find it funny that South Africans think we feature on anybodies list of ‘places we have to have market share’.

      Hell, most of the really cool xbone and or PS4 stuff only works in ‘Murica or Japan

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        March 4, 2015 at 12:15

        Like Playstation Now. I wonder how small a market we really are?

        Reply

        • Xcalibersa

          March 4, 2015 at 13:35

          Less than 0.5%

          Reply

        • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

          March 4, 2015 at 19:13

          Essentially, we’re insignificant – we might as well be Ghana. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole of Africa is lumped under “South Africa and the Middle East”.

          Reply

  9. Decembermaloy

    March 4, 2015 at 12:32

    What if Halo: The Masterchief Collection is only the beginning? What if they start doing the same crap with other multi-player games?

    Reply

    • RustedFaith

      March 4, 2015 at 12:52

      Its already happening Titanfall was the first ….

      Reply

      • Decembermaloy

        March 4, 2015 at 13:08

        Yes, but at least we were informed about Titanfall up front. This sneaky, behind the scenes shenanigans is not on.

        Reply

        • RustedFaith

          March 4, 2015 at 14:41

          Yup because someone opened up a CPA case in SA before launch. They quickly ran away …

          Reply

  10. Francois Knoetze

    March 4, 2015 at 13:16

    Praise be to unotelly.com and the DNS setup. No problems here 😛

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      March 4, 2015 at 14:05

      How much is Unotelly a month?

      Reply

      • Francois Knoetze

        March 4, 2015 at 14:15

        $3,95 a month. its in my opinion a steal and worth the price. But will just check again tonight for you when i go online. don’t want to make bold claims and look like an ass afterwards. But I usually change the country setting on my console to US on the odd occasion it is needed. then play against the US guys then switch back to normal afterwards. Did it with the Halo 5 beta too.

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          March 4, 2015 at 14:19

          That’s not bad at all.

          Reply

          • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

            March 4, 2015 at 14:35

            Yep, unotelly allows me to use Spotify. More than makes up the cost, just from that one platform.

          • Scienide

            March 4, 2015 at 14:45

            unotelly should work.
            my spotify has stopped, but been too lazy t check why. hahaha

          • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

            March 4, 2015 at 14:59

            I know it’s bad, but because of geoblocking, I don’t even feel bad about circumventing blocks and streaming through services like hulu, crackle etc.

  11. DrKiller

    March 4, 2015 at 14:03

    I wish I understand why it is so difficult to get our international cables to give us lower latency

    Reply

    • L337J1MB0B

      March 4, 2015 at 15:01

      Because physics.

      Reply

  12. Tenacious_Dee

    March 4, 2015 at 14:03

    What if I join a party of a friend sitting overseas? Don’t I use their servers, or am I a noob?

    Reply

  13. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    March 4, 2015 at 14:32

    Amazing how this game got all those great reviews locally… and then it doesn’t even work for local gamers. On the other hand, other games didn’t get that “good will”. Take DriveClub for instance, it got panned, crucified and quartered. Months later the servers are up and running – the game is looking amazing and yet… it remains penalised.

    Halo…? Oh no praise it to hell!! blah blah xboner games can do no wrong blah blah. .. sigh!

    Reply

    • Dutch Matrix

      March 4, 2015 at 14:39

      They murdered any hope of me ever buying this game when they justified their huge day one patch with “It would be impractical to ship the game with another disc included.”

      Reply

    • 40 Insane Frogs

      March 4, 2015 at 14:52

      Old man Banana ranting? It must be Wednesday.

      Reply

  14. Droidanomix

    March 4, 2015 at 14:44

    Well then stop living in South Africa. Be normal and live in ‘Merica.

    Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      March 4, 2015 at 15:01

      But ‘Merica doesn’t want to give me a green card, bro! 🙁

      Reply

  15. veggiesaurus ZA

    March 4, 2015 at 15:04

    Well, there goes my reason for ever getting an XBone

    Reply

    • WitWolfy

      March 4, 2015 at 15:27

      Exactly, whats to say they wont pull the same shit with Halo 5?

      Reply

      • veggiesaurus ZA

        March 4, 2015 at 15:42

        I’d put money on it. They’ve probably removed half the planet’s access to MCC, and are being praised for it ;(

        Reply

  16. WitWolfy

    March 4, 2015 at 15:21

    • Hammersteyn

      March 4, 2015 at 15:39

      LOL

      Reply

  17. Johnny

    March 4, 2015 at 15:50

    Hahhaha

    Reply

  18. Illusive Man

    March 4, 2015 at 16:27

    So blame the South African government for not rolling out a faster broadband service. The world shouldn’t sacrifice matchmaking performance because of 1 country.

    Also there hasn’t been a single game that really uses processing cloud offloading. Titanfall and Forza use it for AI and drivatars neither which require a blazing connection or really low latency. multiplayer is a beast all to its own.

    Anyway MS shouldn’t invest any significant resources in any area that does not first invest in itself.

    Reply

    • Jihaad Boonzaier

      March 4, 2015 at 17:06

      We have bigger issue than providing faster internet for already “rich” people. Also why can’t private companies invest, why should government be forced to provide services that won’t really make a difference to the poorest of people

      Reply

      • Illusive Man

        March 4, 2015 at 18:54

        Have your own private companies invest. Seems to me you answered your own question. Private companies don’t invest because there is no demand for it. Does South Africa have a middle class or is it just rich and poor?

        Reply

        • Jihaad Boonzaier

          April 1, 2015 at 12:56

          Middle class gets screwed over too hard and we can’t use all of our disposable income on services that are sub par. Private companies are greedy as shit

          Reply

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