Microsoft Strengthens Marketplace Regional Controls

Microsoft has revealed additional details concerning next week's major Spring Update to Xbox Live, noting that the upgrade with introduce additional security measures designed to enforce regional lockouts of certain territory-specific content. The move by Microsoft is likely to be transparent to most users of Xbox Live, according to a statement posted on Microsoft's Gamerscore Blog. The update, which goes live May 7, instead addresses those users who have created multiple accounts tied to territories other than their physical location in order to access otherwise unavailable content, such as region specific game demos and videos. Following next week's Spring Update, this will no longer be possible. The weblog post states, "As a digital distributor of content, we are responsible and accountable to comply with those government regulations and the licensing agreements we have with our partners." "As a general policy we try to get global rights to content, but in some cases, it's not possible because of legal restrictions," continues the statement. "In other instances, we have to get legal rights on a country-by-country basis, which unfortunately results with us having content on the service that has to be filtered based on geographical location." The territorial enforcement is just one of many enhancements expected with the update, which was first announced in early April. The highly anticipated download will also bring Xbox Live users Windows Live Messenger support, as well as achievement updates, enhanced family settings, progressive download controls, and more.