Xbox Gaming in South Africa

Latest reports from Microsoft SA say Xbox Live is nearly ready for a South African launch and we should soon have the full Xbox Live experience, along with the latest blah, blah, blah...

Sorry if I don't see the light as much as ITWeb do in their article with Xbox product manager John Press. Don't get me wrong, my interest has been peaked, but considering Xbox Live has been coming to South Africa for quite some time, I'm not holding my breath. I also understand why it hasn't been easy for Microsoft, considering how expensive bandwidth is in South Africa and how slow the progress has been in this area.

I don't want to paint it as all doom and gloom, because this does show that there's a clear intent to launch Xbox Live in South Africa. An interesting figure shows that there's over 4,000 local Xbox Live users. I'm sure when the service is launched, that number will increase dramatically. Press also pointed out that they have will push forward the local development market. This reflects Microsofts intentions to focus more on independant developers.

As sales increase for the Xbox 360 in South Africa (currently over 35% market share), the pressure for a local Xbox Live service should help accelerate the process. It will be interesting to see over the next few weeks if any more information is released, as this would signal that we could be enjoying the full Xbox Live experience sooner than expected.

[via ITWeb]