Buying XBox Live Arcade content on a US 360 in the UK

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Ben7H

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Not sure if anyone can help with this, but my friend is living in Britain for a year and has his US 360 set up in the UK.

Everything works fine, but he wants to buy the All Fronts Gears pack and it won't let him. He has the MS points and he's changed his location back and forth between US & UK, but either way it says "This item isn't available from your current location."

Any suggestions?
 
I'm not sure what the problem is, I have 360's in the UK and US and have bought Live content on my UK 360 using a US based account and US live points.

It maybe that the account is US so he sees the US content, but because the console is US as well it's blocking it from buying stuff off the UK market.

Buying UK points may not fix it as they may not work on a US account.

When I was back in the UK I had the weird problem where I was getting the US Marketplace and couldn't get to the UK one. I was playing Army of 2 with a friend in the UK and I couldn't download the UK DLC because I was seeing the DLC for the US market, which wouldn't work for the UK version of the game.

I'm not sure what the solution is here, if he's seeing the US Marketplace it might be blocking him from buying stuff due to it coming from an IP address in the UK. If he's seeing the UK marketplace he might need UK points but they may not work on his US account. I think it's more likely to be the former.
 
Thanks for the replies.

If he's changed his location to the UK, why wouldn't he be seeing the UK marketplace?

I believe he is using US points, so maybe that's the problem, but if so, the "This item isn't available from your current location" message is very misleading.
 
[quote name='Ben7H']Thanks for the replies.

If he's changed his location to the UK, why wouldn't he be seeing the UK marketplace?

I believe he is using US points, so maybe that's the problem, but if so, the "This item isn't available from your current location" message is very misleading.[/QUOTE]

I think that location thing is ignored, when I go back to the UK and I look on XboxLive.com or Gamercard.net it knows I'm in the UK, it sets my location automatically, I've never changed it. I'm guessing its set from your IP address. That setting on the console is probably used for other things.

I'm guessing the reason I've been able to get stuff from Marketplace in the UK is because I'm using a UK 360. This is all supposition but perhaps the Marketplace content is filtered by your account region, but when you try and download something it checks your IP address and if you're running a console in a region that its not supposed to be in it blocks the download.

The only difference I have from your friend is that I'm using a UK 360 in the UK not a US one, even though my account and points are US based.

Sorry I can't be more helpful.
 
[quote name='benjamouth']I think that location thing is ignored, when I go back to the UK and I look on XboxLive.com or Gamercard.net it knows I'm in the UK, it sets my location automatically, I've never changed it. I'm guessing its set from your IP address. That setting on the console is probably used for other things.

I'm guessing the reason I've been able to get stuff from Marketplace in the UK is because I'm using a UK 360. This is all supposition but perhaps the Marketplace content is filtered by your account region, but when you try and download something it checks your IP address and if you're running a console in a region that its not supposed to be in it blocks the download.
[/QUOTE]

The location setting in the Xbox doesn't have anything to do with the Marketplace region. Once you've signed up for a marketplace account, you can never change the location of your marketplace account. Once on the US marketplace, always on the US marketplace. The big problem with this comes when you move to a different country. The Marketplace checks your location based on IP and will disallow you to download certain content based on this.

If something was released on your original marketplace (say, US) and the marketplace of your current location (UK), then in most cases you will still be able to purchase/download the item from your US marketplace account. But if it was released first in the US, or hasn't been released yet in the UK, then you won't be able to purchase it from your US account while in the UK. Occasionally, even though something is released simultaneously in both marketplace regions, they will still filter based on your IP location, so if you try to download something from the US store while in the UK, it will prevent you.

This is a big problem for anyone who moves from one country to another. There are a few workarounds but they all come with their own problems. Have your friend email customer support and start bitching at them. Maybe if enough people do it they will fix the marketplace as it is essentially broken. Location-based-filtering in this day and age is ridiculous and should be abolished in all forms.
 
In theory I think one of the only ways around this is to have someone who is actually in the US to recover his gamertag on their system, then use his ms points and buy it on their system. Then have him recover his gamertag on his system and go to his purchase history and redownload it. I wouldn't give just anyone my gamertag and password though, it's a stupid thing to do just for some maps.

He will always have to be signed online for the content to work at all though. He can use the license transfer tool if he hasn't done so in the last year to move the system license back to his console.
 
The recovery option sounds pretty good. He trusts me enough to give me his gamertag info and DL everything for him. Having to be signed in to play doesn't really matter because he's always logged on to xbox live (and in this case it's for online content). Is there any other potential drawback to the whole recovery process?
 
[quote name='Techsticles']In theory I think one of the only ways around this is to have someone who is actually in the US to recover his gamertag on their system, then use his ms points and buy it on their system. Then have him recover his gamertag on his system and go to his purchase history and redownload it. I wouldn't give just anyone my gamertag and password though, it's a stupid thing to do just for some maps.

He will always have to be signed online for the content to work at all though. He can use the license transfer tool if he hasn't done so in the last year to move the system license back to his console.[/QUOTE]

Isn't there a limit on how many times you can recover a gamertag in a year?
 
[quote name='Gothic Walrus']Isn't there a limit on how many times you can recover a gamertag in a year?[/QUOTE]
Not sure, I've had friends come over and recover theirs on my console, then go back home and re-recover it on their own without any issues.
 
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