Australian Xbox Live details announced

Xbox News | Microsoft announced the details of their online campaign in Australia during the Xbox's birthday celebrations earlier today.

At an event to celebrate the first birthday of the Xbox in Australia, regional Xbox manager Alan Bowman announced that the Xbox's online service, Xbox Live, will officially launch this October.

Bowman spoke about how the Australian and New Zealand forms of Live will take a similar shape to the successful models in place in Europe and the USA. The Xbox Live starter pack, which includes 12 months subscription to Xbox Live, a headset communicator, and two demos (at least for the EU and US version) will retail for $99.95.

Bowman also took the time to announce that Microsoft has already begun it's testing phase with broadband ISPs. This test will end in August, and be followed shortly after by a limited beta test. Details on how gamers can join the beta test have not been provided thus far.

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7 Comments

DrSeus

9 years ago

i heard a while ago, that they might by plannign something with telstra
but that was ages ago

Slasher

9 years ago

'Telstra provides great deal with Microsoft for Xbox live'

Telstra have signed an agreement with creators of the game console Xbox to provide cheap broadband access for the forthcomming online gaming system dubbed 'Live'. The multi-billion dollar telco has stated that the standard adsl plan will have an extra 100mb of data added to the download limit for only an extra $50 per month. Official statement from Telstra CEO John Dicklicker is that gamers can rejoice with this ultra cheap plan that should accomodate and gamers online needs.

Whats the bet i'll see this in the paper end of september

Matt

9 years ago

Apparently there won't be any specific deals for Xbox Live, just the ability to use them for the packages, though apparently the Live service uses less bandwitdh than say CS on the PC or something.

Slasher

9 years ago

Yeah, iv'e heard that too. A lot of ISP's are doing either unlimited downloads or a fair amount more than Tel$tra. TPG have unlimited downloads, Aardvark have a 35gb plan as minimum and I'm pretty sure dodo will be releasing a descent package very soon too.

UltraGekko

9 years ago

This from www.whirlpool.net

Microsoft is expected to announce its XBox Live broadband gaming service for Australians today -- but will not offer any free bandwidth arrangements with ISPs.

"It's up to the telcos to determine their pricing models," Microsoft's Alan Bowman told Australian IT.

The online gaming service will also have no local servers -- customers will connect directly to servers in the USA. But Mr Bowman said this would not affect gameplay because XBox games only required data throughput of about 10MB per hour, compared to PC games which required about 40MB per hour.

The XBox Live kit will cost AUD$99, though the US kit can already be purchased for US$49.95 and used in Australia.

SubElement

9 years ago

Stupid Microsoft, it's not how much you download in an hour thats the problem, it's the Latency thats a problem. If It takes 2 seconds to get to the USA, then your screwed.

Matt

9 years ago

SubElement wrote

it's not how much you download in an hour thats the problem

It is if you are on a 3 gig per month plan, which speaks for at least half the broadband users in Australia.

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