Xbox LIVE in South Africa: What we know so far

In the wake of the recently announced Xbox LIVE service for South Africa, XG fired off a couple of questions to product and marketing manager for Xbox 360 in South Africa, Yvette van Rooyen, to find out a little more about the much anticipated online service. This is what we've learned so far:

Xbox LIVE will launch in South Africa "by December 2010". A recent report suggested that it will be as early as 26 October, but this is unconfirmed.
The Xbox LIVE South Africa service will initially launch with only the core services of multiplayer gaming, matchmaking, friends lists, Achievements, Gamerscore, and a "tailored" Games Marketplace. In other words, there won't be any additional services available to local users, such as Netflix, Zune video, Facebook, Twitter, Last FM, etc. But these may be added at a later stage.
Xbox LIVE subscriptions and MS Points will cost the same as those in US / UK. We assume it could differ slighty depending on the exchange rate, but for the most part, there's no difference in billing fees compared to other regions.
Migration of accounts is obviously a hot issue, but there's nothing confirmed yet as to whether we can migrate from US/UK accounts to South African accounts without losing our profile history, such as Gamerscore. Microsoft SA has requested it and are awaiting final feedback.
All games after the official Xbox LIVE launch in SA will include additional Xbox LIVE DLC codes and content. Unfortunately, anything before that won't (such as Alan Wake). Microsoft SA are, however, investigating what versions we'll receive in the meantime - with Crackdown 2 and possibly Fable 3 releasing before hand - and will let XG know as soon as they do.
Region blocking and IP restrictions on downloadable content will be lifted once the local service goes live. South Africans will be able to download content such as the Gears of War 2 DLC without the need of a VPN.
Xbox LIVE subscriptions and MS Points will officially become available through local retailers.
Hopefully we'll see a local mirror for Limelight (Xbox LIVE's content distribution network) to help improve download speeds from Xbox LIVE, but currently there's nothing official from MS, saying that "The Live team is working on all elements".

As expected, the finer details are still being worked out over at Microsoft HQ, but the local office are aware of our concerns, and it's really just a matter of waiting on final feedback from the Xbox LIVE honchos. The good news is that Xbox LIVE is officially coming to South Africa by the end of the year, and that's something all local Xbox 360 gamers can look forward to.