 "Xbox One will be able to play games from any region")
While the Xbox One won’t be seeing a release in most of the world this year, Microsoft has somewhat softened this blow against international fans of its consoles by announcing that it will be region free. This essentially means that games will run on the Xbox One, regardless of whether the console and the games were bought from different countries.
However, this opens up a whole new can of worms for those living outside of the Xbox One’s launch regions, namely, in the form of inflated shipping and importing costs. Not to mention the fact that since it is a major next-gen console, hardly any store will have stock left after fulfilling pre-orders.
No region locking for you!
Earlier this month, Microsoft’s Marc Whitten had revaled a number of things about the upcoming console. Most importantly, Whitten revealed that like online, the Xbox One can run just fine without the Kinect being connected, but understandably, players won’t be able to use the Kinect-specific features of the console.
Whitten lists a bunch of things that the Kinect sensor is capable of, such as automatically assigning controllers to new players, and ends with, “That said, like online, the console will still function if Kinect isn’t plugged in, although you won’t be able to use any feature or experience that explicitly uses the sensor.”
“You have the ability to completely turn the sensor off in your settings,” Whitten said. “When in this mode, the sensor is not collecting any information. Any functionality that relies on voice, video, gesture or more won’t work. We still support using it for IR blasting in this mode. You can turn the sensor back on at any time through settings, and if you enter into a required Kinect experience (like Kinect Sports Rivals for instance), you’ll get a message asking if you want to turn the sensor back on in order to continue.”
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