While it was unlikely, I hoped Games on Demand would open the floodgates for import friendly Xbox 360 games from Japan. There isn’t much online that isn’t available in North America other than The Idolm@ster so I tried to download it.
The first barrier you need to pass (and the one that will stop many) is you need to pay for the game with a Japanese credit card or Microsoft Points registered in Japan. The Idolm@ster and so far all of the downloadable Xbox 360 games in Japan cost 2,000 Microsoft Points. Even if your account is loaded you’re blocked from downloading games since the “content is not available in your region.”
This could have been a quick fix to circumvent region coding, but unless you have a proxy pointing to Japan you won’t be able to download gems like Deathsmiles or Shooting Love 20XX if they ever show up online.
Published: Aug 12, 2009 12:13 pm