I know many of you have been wondering about the Video Marketplace in other places besides the US. Many of you have gone to great lengths trying to enjoy what the Video Marketplace has to offer while wondering why it’s not in your local region.
Well the VM team has listed a few reasons as to why the decision was made to currently have it available in the US only. I wanted to share those reasons so that you all can hopefully understand that some decisions are more complex than you think.
Here are a few of the reasons listed here on the Xbox.com message boards:
-While MSFT is a big company, but we don’t have unlimited resources to do whatever we want, we have to prioritize where and how we do things.
-The US is the biggest market, I think you would all agree that makes it a priority
-Most US content that is licensed digitially is produced and distributed by the same company - think about South Park - Comedy Central produces and distributes it. This makes it MUCH easier to license it because it is the same company and they aren’t going to fight about who gets the proceeds from the digital sale.
-Almost all US content distributed abroad is distributed by local companies that are seperate from the producing company, increasing the complexities and basically requiring that the producer and the internatioanl distributor amend their deal before they can do something with us.
-Securing local content would deal with that, but then you have the fact that we only have so many people working on this and the time and resources it takes to do 1 deal with a US partner for 700 hours of content for the US market is about the same as it would take to do a deal with a local partner with probably less content for a much smaller market - so the math clearly points you to focusing on US first.
-Lastly, there are more infrastructure requirements you need to have in place to do international well and we felt it better to get everything straight in the US before we add complexity with other markets and languages.
It makes sense to me. I hope it helps those of you in Canada, UK and other markets understand why it’s not currently available.
good stuff DeaconBlade. glad to be a part...
December 13th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
The fact remains that this could have been done had enough time and money been thrown at it, they were not willing to do that and hence I and many others get the short end of the stick. If they are saying they could do it down the road then they could have had it ready, albeit in a much more limited capacity, for Canada and the UK.
As they said securing local content would have bypassed the license issue, while they caught up with the content americans would have right off the bat. But again there we only have so many people excuse does not fly, if you didn’t have enough people then I think the solution to that problem is rather evident. [/rant]
December 13th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
the Intangible rant
December 13th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Hmm…I like living in the US
December 13th, 2006 at 11:37 pm
Whatever. Everyone will just download shows illegally, just like they always have because it’s the only way they can watch what they want, when they want, where they want.
December 14th, 2006 at 7:26 am
This could all be solved if the US and Canada joined the EU.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. Reminds me of the “open-border” plan Clinton proposed with Canada in the mid-90’s. To see how far we’ve regressed…now starting in January you are “supposed” to need a passport to cross the border.
December 14th, 2006 at 8:38 am
We’re already in the North American Union with Canada and Mexico, Bush signed it last March with the Presidents of both Canada and Mexico, circumventing the Congress of both USA and Mexico and the Parliament (I think that’s what they use) in Canada. It’s meant to destroy the middle class.
December 14th, 2006 at 8:52 am
We’re still in NAFTA also. Neither is the same thing as the EU.
December 14th, 2006 at 9:57 am
[quote comment="11400"]This could all be solved if the US and Canada joined the EU.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. Reminds me of the “open-border” plan Clinton proposed with Canada in the mid-90’s. To see how far we’ve regressed…now starting in January you are “supposed” to need a passport to cross the border.[/quote]
Yeah, that is so freaking ridiculous! I picked up my passport forms earlier this week, ’tis a sad day for both countries.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Yeah.
Just 12 years ago we came very close to not even having customs there anymore.
December 14th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Can we get back to the serious issue of Video Marketplace content?! lol
I think its completely ridiculous. Why should I be paying the same amount for XBox Live as the US gamers if I’m missing a huge feature? And lets face it, alongside getting late games, hardware etc this takes the cake.
I’m holding my account for one more month and then scrapping it. I don’t like getting jipped and thats exactly whats happening here.