Polish Xbox 360 owners were told again recently that there are no plans to make Xbox Live officially available in their country. This continues six years of unavailability for the service there.
A site called wewantlive.com hosts the Polish protest for Xbox Live and details various effects that the lack of Live has on Xbox 360 games sold in Poland. Polish gamers have been told repeatedly that they would eventually get Live, but with no fulfillment so far.
“Polish gamers have been hearing about the introduction of Xbox Live to our country for 6 years,” the site wrote. “Ever since Peter Moore said the hope-inspiring ‘Xbox Live will eventually be available in Poland.'”
Although the protestors understand the nature of the promises, they allege that Microsoft is at least aware of the problem. “Those were not concrete promises and we are aware of this fact,” the site wrote. “That was definitely an indication that Microsoft is aware of the potential the Polish market has.”
Contacting and working with Microsoft Poland has failed to bring We Want Live any results. “The Polish branch of Microsoft doesn’t have anything to say in regards to the presence of Xbox Live in Poland.” The site’s next step was to contact Microsoft proper and give them 30 days to respond.
We Want Live wrote an official letter to Microsoft in Redmond on January 28th with further protests and ways in which opening Live in Poland would help Microsoft’s business. At the top of the site is a countdown that seems to have already ended.
The absence of Live in Poland has had several wide-reaching effects on the functionality of Xbox 360’s registered there. The entire Xbox Live Marketplace is unavailable to Polish gamers including Games on Demand and Live Arcade. Collector’s Editions of Xbox 360 games are sold at full price but without the extra content that depends on Live. Microsoft Poland even sanctions official tournaments that depend on Live, and therefore don’t work there.
Just signing up for accounts in supported territories doesn’t get Polish gamers full functionality. Things like downloadable content require Polish gamers to jump through a lot more hoops. “We need to create a VPN connection, pay additional money for their use, perform in-depth research.” We Want Live even allege that employees of Microsoft Poland use fake Live accounts.
Poland is not the only country without official access to Xbox Live. The service is officially available in 26 countries throughout North America, Western Europe, Oceana, and a few Asian nations. PlayStation Network on the other hand allows accounts to be registered in 57 countries (though not all have access to the PlayStation Store).
Both PlayStation Network and the PlayStation Store are available in Poland. Other countries with PSN but not Live access include much of South America, South Africa, Russia, most of Southeast Asia, and a few Middle Eastern countries.
