Marketplace is offline and content region lock [UPDATED]

I’ve been using Xbox360 a lot, especially the demos and the videos. I enjoy the moments that I can view trailers and try out so many games.

Recently XboxLive offered a web based Marketplace. You don’t have to turn on your Xbox to purchase or download your 360 content, now you can queue them from your favorite browser. I like the idea, I enjoyed the idea so much that I immediately logged on to the store to try it out. As soon as I try it, I was surprised to see that there was so much content. More than what I usually see when I use my 360. I try to download a free video called “The Guild”, suddenly, I was greeted with this message “This offer is not valid in your region”. I presumed as much, but it feels like it’s not fair to show these items to me and not let me get it. What’s this supposed to mean? Like Live teasing me? Telling me that living in the Philippines is not worthy to see free video? I mean, if the marketplace don’t intend to give it to me, then don’t let me see it anymore. I understand region locks, they are there for a reason, but don’t tease me. It’s irritating once you feel like you can get it, then you suddenly notice that you can’t. The Xbox Live Marketplace needs a lot of work, other than the region lock, they should really do previews of the Premium themes. I just hope Microsoft improves their service.

About the Marketplace again… for some reason, I can’t get in. What’s irritating is that once it has this problem, logging in your profile takes very long, to the point I thought my Xbox hangged up. I actually had no problems that Microsoft is working on it, but if you are online it’s a requirement to log into Live, and with the Marketplace down it takes like less than a minute for it to respond. Even when I’m already logged in, there are times that the NXE takes a little longer to load properly. I haven’t tried logging in today, but yesterday was a pain. It’s not an intense pain since I was still able to talk to my XboxLive friends through it’s chat system without a problem. Again, I just hope that Microsoft improves their service.

UPDATE: Looks like the problem with my connection is related to my internet connection. I had to change my DNS and suddenly, everything worked fine again.

Playstation Home Beta Invite! Why just now?

I had my fill of playing the PS3 for a while, since I just borrowed one before. Today, I just received an invitation to join Home Beta, now that I don’t have a PS3. I don’t know if a lot of people have received this, but if not, this is an opportunity that I will miss sadly. I know Home is just like a social MMO with tons of advertising, but I’m a video gamer, I like those small little things that make a console unique. I enjoyed playing around with the NXE (New Xbox Experience), but having this rare chance to play the beta version of Sony’s new interface is something I’m also wanting to try since it was announced the first time, especially it’s home and character customization.

Follow up on Level Up! Live on the final day.

Second day at Level Up! Live, still at World Trade Center. I came a bit late though, around 5PM. The Playground booth was now focused on PinoyPS with their PS3 and Monster Hunter Philippines with PSP multiplayer galore.  I was also able to attend the World Cyber Games Soul Calibur 4 competition at SM Mall of Asia.

Super FamiCom Controller for the Wii

Why can’t we get a controller like this one? Nintendo released a Wii version of our Nintendo’s 16 bit gamepad. I wonder if we will ever find the same love here in our country.

Anyway, you can see or read (if you can read Japanese) more about this on Inside Games.

World Cyber Games / Asian Cyber Games 2008 – Guitar Hero III and Virtua Fighter 5

Here’s an update on the World Cyber Games (WCG) / Asian Cyber Games (ACG) for 2008. For console gaming, the Philippine team will be looking for players on the Xbox 360 platform and these are the games:

GamEX Magazine issue 3 is out

After a few months of waiting, the third issue that I worked on has now been released. I was wondering what happened and if was even going to be released since I finished the magazine since December for a January release. I did mention “happy new year” on the message I wrote there.

Unang Hirit and RockBand

I was invited to demonstrate Harmonix/EA’s RockBand while representing GameHopper on the show called Unang Hirit. It was shown yesterday morning. It was an interesting experience, since on stage it all went wrong. I don’t know if it went well on screen. Hehe.

Stephen King on Video Games

I was surprised to see that Stephen King had to say something about video games. Read up if you know what he thinks about Video games and violence. It’s a good read for us gamers.

EW’s pop-culture columnist peels away the hypocrisy a Massachusetts proposal to ban sales of violent games to minors, another attempt by politicians to act as surrogate parents that he says is not only doomed to fail, but is undemocratic to boot.

Read more on EW.com

Nintendo Wii outsells PS3 3-to-1 in Japan in March

Reuters

TOKYO – Nintendo Co Ltd’s Wii game console outsold Sony Corp’s PlayStation 3 by 3-to-1 in Japan in March but its DS handheld machine fell behind the PlayStation Portable for the first time in six months, a game magazine publisher said.