Court decision may force Xbox out of the country

If you were planning to get an Xbox and stick a mod chip into it, you may find it a little hard to do if Microsoft decides to pack up and leave Australia with its system. If it decides to stay, however, you’ll legally be able to mod your system - to

If you were planning to get an Xbox and stick a mod chip into it, you may find it a little hard to do if Microsoft decides to pack up and leave Australia with its system. If it decides to stay, however, you'll legally be able to mod your system - to play DVDs and legitimately purchased games, that is.

This is a result of a July court case between Sony and a Sydney man who allegedly 'chipped' gaming consoles and sold pirated games. The ACCC stepped in as a 'friend of the court'. The end result being that the defendant (the chipper) was acquitted. The win however, also included making 'chipping' legal within Australia. The primary reason for this was that it allows users to play region coded DVDs in their PlayStation or Xbox consoles. The ACCC saw region coding as anti-competitive.

So did the judge apparently.

Anyway, this sparked a variety of comments from Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer, comments that seemed to indicate that if Australia does not change its stance regarding mod chips, Microsoft would have to seriously consider whether or not it should sell the Xbox console in Australia.

'Given the way the economic model works, and that is a subsidy followed, essentially, by fees for every piece of software sold, our licence framework has to do that,' he said.

'If there are aspects that are not allowed, it would encourage us to require a change in the legal framework. Otherwise, it wouldn't make economic sense.'

So what does this mean? Simply that it 'wouldn't make economic sense' for Microsoft to continue selling the console here.

If you'd like to read the whole story it is available here.