Xbox One launches in tier 2 countries: Thanks for waiting – here’s less stuff!

UPDATE 2 (19/11/14 5:20pm)

The Ultra Edition of Killer Instinct Season 1 is available as of early October. Skin, accessory add-ons are yet to be made available separately.

You need to purchase the Ultra Edition to acquire these items, and if you already bought the Combo Breaker pack with just the characters, you need to buy the entire game again even if you just want the alternate skins and accessories – items that are available separately in other regions.

I called Microsoft Support and was given a refund on my Combo Breaker pack, and then proceeded to buy the Ultra Edition. It’s not an elegant solution, but it’s an option if you want the classic costumes and accessories and you’re stuck with the Combo Breaker pack.

Powerstar Golf has appeared also. The list in the original article is updated to reflect this. The rest, including titles like Super Time Force and Contrast, are still MIA.

UPDATE 1 (12/9/14 11:50pm)
In a post on the official Killer Instinct forums, detailing the progress on the upcoming Season 2, the issue described in this article – regarding the availability of the Ultra Edition and its associated content – is addressed briefly.

“We’re aware that some countries aren’t able to purchase the Ultra edition of KI in their respective countries’ stores. That is being resolved, and we’ll update you on it as soon as we can.”

You don’t typically “resolve” a decision, so I’m assuming somebody forgot to pull a lever somewhere. Hopefully the other missing content follows suit. I’ll update if the situation develops.

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Xbox One launched to little fanfare in Sweden on Friday. Granted, import units have been readily available for the past year, making the whole thing into a bit of a non-event. Those of us who placed that pre-order ahead of an expected November 2013 release, and held on to it, were promised some sort of compensation for waiting until March 2014 – that is until March turned out to be September.

Why wait, then, you ask? As somebody looking to have an all-digital future of video games, the black box itself would’ve been largely useless with a yet-to-be-launched digital marketplace, and I thought it’d be nice to be a part of the official launch of the system, however unspectacular. Getting one of those hugely ironic Day One achievements and what have you.

And so, ten months I waited — ten months vaguely justified by the willingness on Microsoft’s part to make sure their partnerships were in place to offer the best possible experience, and to thoroughly localise features for the regions concerned. And certainly; who would want a Kinect enabled Xbox One without the ability to just say “Xbox on!” to have it turn on, right? Who would want to miss out on the convenience of “Binging” for anything at a whim, just by blurting out what you’re looking for – right?

Right?

Apparently, we do. Or so Microsoft concluded after ten months of contemplation. Voice commands are entirely absent from the Swedish Xbox One UI. The same is true for nearly every country the system launched in on Friday. It’s also difficult to discern the supposed partnerships Microsoft spent ten months making sure were there, with basically every media app us swedes have come to expect suspiciously missing from the store.

The usual universal apps like Netflix and YouTube and Skype are there, but there’s absolutely nothing region specific about those. Sweden is missing SVT Play, SF Anytime, HBO Nordic, Viaplay, and several other local apps that would be no-brainers if they indeed wanted to offer the best possible experience. They’d be no-brainers if they wanted to match the most modest of expectations on an experience. This was pitched as Microsoft’s all-in-one TV box, and after ten months of extra preparation there’s essentially no region specific TV content to be found on it.

Content is missing elsewhere, as well. Killer Instinct was an – ahem – early killer app for me already back when the console was set for a 2013 release. Ten months down the line, all of the “season 1” content has been released, ostensibly making it an even more suitable launch game for me. Immediately after setting up the system I went to the store and purchased the most expensive version available, assuming it would give me access to all of the as-of-yet released content.

Once the game was ready to be started, I booted it up and checked out the in-game “Meld” menu – present in all of Microsoft’s own digital-only games – which in turn linked me to additional content for Killer Instinct. This is where I first discover the “Ultra Edition” – the top tier of the game supposedly available from day one, it turns out. The Ultra Edition contains all the characters, retro costumes and accessories, and comes with the original Killer Instinct arcade game. At first I feel dumb for not noticing it when purchasing the game, but when I select the content and it takes me to the Swedish store, there’s no actual “buy” button.

You see, the Ultra Edition along with the retro costumes, extra accessories and the original Killer Instinct game are nowhere to be found on the Swedish store. Ten months later I guess they decided the best possible experience is that of missing out on content everyone else has access to.

Which is a philosophy that seems to permeate the Meld menu in general, as it frequently parades numerous items that link to content that is unavailable to me. It even teases the completely free game Powerstar Golf, only to tell you you can’t have it a few button presses later. It makes me feel really special, and I can just tell that Microsoft value me as a consumer – taking every opportunity to make up for the long wait by revealing layers of things I can’t have.

None of this could be yours!

The following is a WIP list of items that you’d think would be available to tier 2 countries, but aren’t. I’ll update it as I find out more:

• Super Time Force
• Contrast
• Powerstar Golf Available as of 19/11/14
• Worms: Battlegrounds
• Killer Instinct: Ultra Edition Available as of 03/10/14
• Killer Instinct – additional “retro” DLC costumes
• Killer Instinct – additional DLC accessories
• Call of Duty: Ghosts DLC (yet to confirm specifics!)

 

Even though it’s far from unreasonable to expect that Microsoft would use the ten months to actually localise the Xbox One experience the way they claimed, it would have been an easy fix for the missing voice command functionality if we could just change the language setting of Kinect to English without changing our location. Setting the language to English brings up a list with suggested countries, and apparently Microsoft can’t wrap their minds around people being from anywhere but a natively English speaking country if they understand English.

I humoured them and agreed to pretend I was from the UK, but that changed the entire dashboard to reflect my sudden relocation to Great Britain. And hey! I could even see that content I’m not allowed to touch as a swede! But, alas, it wouldn’t take my credit card, and that effectively marked the end of my brief stint as a magical tier 1-country princess.

 

Earlier this year when Microsoft announced the Kinect-less SKU of the Xbox One, I received an email asking whether I wanted to change my pre-order. I told them no — I figured I’d go all-in, since I had my mind set on that anyway. I wanted to get my “Xbox on!” on.

For years I braved the vacuum cleaner level humming of the Xbox 360 to use streaming apps, and looked forward to ditching it in favour of something virtually silent. Ever since it was announced I had intensely been looking forward to playing the new Killer Instinct – a revival of a nearly 20 year old fighting game that I have a tremendous degree of nostalgia for.

There is absolutely no sign of Microsoft’s supposed attempt to put region specific streaming apps on the platform, sending me back to my 360 for those episodes of In Treatment. The very content created for Killer Instinct aficionados, like yours truly, is made unavailable to me – seemingly arbitrarily, as if to spite my level of excitement.

And, look; I can certainly shout “Xbox on!” if I want to, but even my Kinect enabled Xbox would be all “why is this plonker yelling at the TV?”

 

Missing content on the Xbox One? Broken hearted from other region omissions? Send me tips on twitter and I’ll update the article accordingly! @SimonLundmark