PS3 or XBox 360?

[Scrobbs]

It's a long time ago I registered, but I think you can have as many 'active' gamertags as you like on live - as long as you pay for them. Just let the one expire, and put your CC (or code that you buy in a shop - my preferred method, as well as buying points that way) on the one you wish to keep. If you continue with your US one I think you get lots more advantages than you do with the UK one. Relatively, xbox points are cheaper in the US ($1.25) than in the UK($1.75).

[Erkki]

Thanks for the info!

PS isn't it funny that (as I just read somewhere) there is indeed no way to change the billing country associated with your gamertag, but they do recommend you to live anywhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Anywhere

[Scrobbs]

One last thing - sometimes they do promotions with certain games, for instance, the last live code card I bought was a 12 month thing, but as it was the 'Halo' edition and I got an extra month free. You might well get some kind of GTA IV deal (you don't have to buy the game) as that's the next 'big' release.

[miffy495]

With regard to the DLC ties, it's like I mentioned earlier. Anyone on the original Xbox and HDD can use the DLC, whether the profile that bought it is signed in or not. If you're trying to play the DLC on an Xbox that is not your own (carting your HDD to a friend's 360 for example, as I often end up doing with Rock Band so we can play more than the first 10 songs) the profile that bought the stuff will need to be signed in. This has actually screwed me a little bit. Before Rock Band DLC was available in Canada (but I had the game, as I imported) I created a US shell account with a Silver (free) membership so that I could download "Fortunate Son" and the Metallica pack. While these still work fine on my system, if I'm playing at a friend's house I have to log out of my own account (which has about 40 more songs) and sign into this US shell to play them. Swapping profiles like that is a bit of a pain in the ass.

So yeah, the other account will have no problem with DLC as long as you're on your own system and HDD. Just don't expect to be able to play it on anyone else's without signing into the first.

[Erkki]

http://forum.xbox-sky.com/xbox360_regional_compatibility_guide/

Hmm... I can't find Guitar Hero II 360 in stock in any European store that ships to Estonia. GameStop seems to have it, and I would possibly be even willing to pay the horrendous shipping rate (WTF? 60$) if I really can't find it anywhere else, but can I trust the info on that site that it's region free? That site only mentions the bundle with the guitar as region free (the unbundled version is not mentioned at all) and the back of the box visible at GameStop says "only" and "NTSC" in the same sentence. But perhaps even the games that are actually region free have those sentences on the back of the box?

Nevermind, found it on Play Asia and it said it's region free.

[toblix]

I'm going to Heaven!

[twmac]

It's a long time ago I registered, but I think you can have as many 'active' gamertags as you like on live - as long as you pay for them. Just let the one expire, and put your CC (or code that you buy in a shop - my preferred method, as well as buying points that way)

WAIT! I had this problem when I was living in Montreal. My profile was UK based and I bought a subscription in Montreal. It would no recognise that I had paid for Xbox LIVE because I was trying to put, essentially, Canadian dollars on an English account. As a result I had to create a separate account with a fake Canadian based account to play online. If your account is UK based you may have problems paying for a Xbox LIVE account with Estonian points.

My advice would be to find out what country will support your local points/LIVE stuff and make a hotmail account based in that country. Logging into a profile with that email will allow Microsoft to take most of the details instantly from the Hotmail information.

[miffy495]

Alternatively, you can buy points for whatever account you registered yourself as. Unfortunately, it's not very user friendly. The credit card you use has to be from the same country as your account. The way I got around this when buying points for my US shell account was to find an eBay auction which would sell the points for the same as they cost in the store. I bought the points, they emailed me the code, I entered it in, I bought my Black Sabbath, Bowie, Metallica, etc. I'm not sure how common autions are for UK points, but you should be able to find something.

...god MS made way too many weird restrictions for this. It's only been since I've found myself trying to explain them that I've realized how ridiculous it is I've been simply accepting it.

[Erkki]

Actually the locally sold LIVE card should work with any country I was told. At least the points card worked, I'll find out about the subscription card when the trial expires.

...god MS made way too many weird restrictions for this. It's only been since I've found myself trying to explain them that I've realized how ridiculous it is I've been simply accepting it.

And it's not very green either. They actually require plastic boxes and lots of packaging for something that should be entirely virtual. [ok, for the majority of people it probably is entirely digital]