Grand Theft Auto; it's lost and I'm damned

There was only one choice of T-shirt to pull over my gorgeous torso yesterday, and that was my limited edition, highly collectable, oft-admired, Grand Theft Auto IV T-shirt. And the reason for the focused homage was the imminent release of the downloadable content pack for GTA IV, The Lost and The Damned.

By downloadable, I mean I fire up my recently fixed Xbox and spend about $20 worth of Microsoft Live points to buy the pack, which then downloads to my machine. That’s the theory. With release at 0300 SET, I reckoned that any time after 1500 Thai time would show the download as being available, and so it was.

So I clicked on the download button, the lights flashed for a few seconds and then…. and then I get a message saying “not available at your location.” In summary, WTF? In detail, what the fuck?

I try changing my location in the Xbox which of course makes no difference at all. Why does Microsoft make everything difficult? Searching the web I find people from a variety of countries complaining about this problem. Something to do with region locking plus not being able to download if your machine is in a different country from where you were originally registered, plus your eyes being the wrong colour; probably. Useless.

I go to bed feeling grumpy and vowing to buy a Playstation 3 instead. This morning I check the web again and it appears that MS has come to, what passes as, its senses and removed the region locking. I go and try again and it swallows my MS Live points and tells me the download is pending. Joy.

While it is downloading I need to go and get some exercise, for I am due for several days of couch based controller twiddling. Lost and damned indeed.

Comments 🔗

2009-02-21 | todd says

haha yeah I have a PS3 + GTA IV, not long after i bought it I read in the news somewhere that they banned GTA IV in Thailand… That could be why.

2009-02-21 | Spike says

Just spreading the download load I think. Not a problem now and I am whizzing about being Lost and Damned. GTA IV has indeed been banned, but of course you can still find it in the shops.