xBox around the world?

November 18, 2009 1:05 PM

PS3 allows players to play with players from other countries. xBox 360 appears to restrict players in North America to only play with other players from North America. Is there a workaround here?

It's fun to play with players from all around the world, and unfortunately xBox seems to prevent this from happening. Does anyone know any workarounds to this? Thanks so much for any help!

posted by fantasticninety to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

That's not true at all. I've played against international players in games like Blaz Blue and SF4 many times. It's up to each developer to limit it or not on each game.
posted by Oktober at 1:25 PM on November 18, 2009

2nding the Xbox's ability to play internationally. I regularly run into people chatting in a foreign language on Live. Could be that they live in NA, but it's happened enough times that I doubt that's the reason. Anything in particular that makes you think different? A specific game?
posted by InsanePenguin at 2:00 PM on November 18, 2009

No, it's just that the only people who talk in Xbox Live games are 12 year old Americans. Everyone else stays in party chat to avoid them.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:17 PM on November 18, 2009 [2 favorites]

I'm in Europe and I've played with people from Europe, USA, Australia and Japan, and I don't even play online that much.

Keep in mind that roughly half of 360 owners are North-American, and I believe games try to choose the best connection when matchmaking, this may explain the bias you're experiencing.
posted by Bangaioh at 2:27 PM on November 18, 2009 [2 favorites]

I have a friend from the UK on my buddylist. Good to have when you play during Non-Prime Time EST hours.
posted by yeti at 2:52 PM on November 18, 2009

By "friend", of course I mean "guy on the other side of the world I've never met, and don't know their real name."
posted by yeti at 2:54 PM on November 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

Also, some games (fighting games, in my experience, and 2d shoot-em-ups) tend to have large numbers of foreign players, while others (some FPS games, american sports) tend to be NA-only.
posted by Oktober at 2:58 PM on November 18, 2009

Response by poster: Ok, so it seems to be a case of it just being North American dominated. Any idea how to find Buddy Lists of players from other countries?

Thanks for the answers!
posted by fantasticninety at 3:53 PM on November 18, 2009

Is there any reason in particular you'd want to play with foreigners? I mean, I'll play with friends living overseas, but you'll take a huge lag hit while doing so.
posted by Oktober at 5:22 PM on November 18, 2009

Response by poster: The languages.
posted by fantasticninety at 6:05 PM on November 18, 2009