Just bought a 360 (the 4GB+Kinect bundle). Unfortunately what I have is NTSC-J so I'm obligated to do some extra research before buying games. I have some questions regarding region locking on Xbox 360.

- Does it apply to digital content? When browsing XBL marketplace, I notice that some games don't have a "Buy" option. I guess it depends on my console/region?

- Is it safe to assume that if there is a "Buy" option, it will run on my console?

- What's this I read about GOLD membership being region free? Does that mean if I subscribe to GOLD all this worrying about region locked games will go away?

For physical media, it's easy enough for me to understand, as I had a PS1 and PS2.

not 200% sure but 199.9%

- yes region lock even for digital content

- no it might not run because of region lock

- does just mean it doesnt matter if your gold membership is bought in the us eu asia or japan. if you buy 12months in any region you will get 12months.
doesnt make the console region free, just the codes of the gold membership are region free

asume 99% of the games bought in asia/us region locked. many eu ones aren't though compared to other regions.
better safe than sorry.

also own an ntsc-j one but also an pal one (or 3 though 2 rrod :() for non import games.

from my experience (I have a US-NTSC XB360 in EU)

for physical games I import everything from the US it follows the regular DVD zonage you have on films....

now for digital... it is dependant on your XBL account you can have a US account on a EU or japan Xbox in which case you have to go either on the US xbox.com website to purchase and add to your queue or trick your console and MS XBL to think you are in the US with a VPN

so technically on any XB360 you could have an XBL account from any region but for it to work properly you need 2 things one to geo relocate your console in that country through a VPN and to have a credit card in that country or use pre paid cards or maybe (not sure with that one) a paypal account in that country....

if you are American I would not bother and get a US XBL account... your physical games from japan will work and your digital games bought from US XBL should work... at least it does for me I have 2 XBL account from 2 different continent and respective content from each zone work fine....

now just to be save maybe create a 1 month XBL account just to check if it does work properly that way.... but for me it works that way digital content work with corresponding XBL account location...

are you sure about that ?

it was a long time ago, but jp games which has a retail version and were region locked and then made available on the jp store are also region locked ...
at least thats what my pal consoles try to tell me when I wanted to start them.

arcade and indie titles might not have any region lock. I think games like banjo and kazooie bought on the pal store worked on my ntsc-j console.

wait what I'm saying is for games bought from the US store with  US XBL account, with a console physically located in the US (or redirected to appear to be in the US through VPN)

pretty much for me it works like that... your XBL acount regon defines what you can get from where.... in other words if you have a canadian XBL account you need to buy on the caadan store with a console located there....

so if yu wnat to buy from japanese store you need t have an japanese XBL account with a console IP located in japan....

I have a jp account and bought some games from it.

dling to the ntsc-j console and starting the game no problems.

dling it to the pal console no problem. starting it not so ... wrong region :(

edit:

misunderstood you ... you have an us xbox, obviously games from the us store works for you
he has a jp xbox, games from the jp store works for him, but pretty sure games from the us store wont work for him like games from the jp store wont work for you.
even if you have a jp account and dl it via vpn the games wont start because of the region lock the jp games have.

the only thing I'm not sure off is the NTSC format but it shouldn't be an issue in theory... usually that depends on DVD drive for physical games.... but not for digital when I was in the US I had a EU XBL account also and it was working on my US console even thugh EU is in PAL region....

to simplify when you have an account in a region XBL shows the features ad store of that region but to use them and buy on it you have to physically be n tat region or have your IP coming from that region... and pay with something from that region too....

but come to think of it... it is easy to check that out he doesn't need a gold account to purchase on XBL, he should just create an account from his current location and see if he can purchase from it and if it works....

and if doesn't want to bother with geeking out a router to have a VPN service redirection he should be able to do that quiet easily from a PC just using a free VPN service to buy from the xbox.com location he wants and add it to his queue from the PC.... then his console doesn't need to have it's IP in the region... when I'm at my parents house and I have my XB and there is a good deal that's what I do and even if my console IP is in EU it starts downloading once I bought it from the US store on my PC....

so even with a US XBL acct on a a jp console if he is in the US (or fake being in it) it won't work because of video format ??? that was the only thing I wasn't sure of....

liek I said he can try that easily with a free silver account and buy a really cheap game to see if it works....

well obviously you can have a xbl account on every region.

I have one jp, eu and us account on each of my console and I can use them without any problems.
even buying things is no problem. thanks to the point cards you can buy and charge your account with.
I don't know if you need an vpn anymore to dl things. You needed one in the early stages, but the last game I bought from the jp store didnt need one I think.

but starting it is a different beast. if it starts yeah your good. but many games in the jp store wont work with the pal/ntsc-u version. you will get a region lock error when you try to start them.

not because of the video format, but because of the region lock they have enforced on most games.
this is to keep people from importing games from other countries, because its cheaper. like a game in the us $60 game in jp $80+

so if there was no region lock why buy a game like gta5 or cod in jp if you can get it for $30 less and weeks earlier if you import it from the us.

or different publishers and release date. like why buy a game from an eu publisher if the us/(jp) gets it weeks/months earlier.
they would lose money because of it because they are different publishers.
so the eu publisher says to the us publisher to region lock it so that the eu folks just cant buy the us version and canabilize the sales from the eu publisher

edit:
and since the eu versions comes last most of the time and are way more expensive then the us/asia except jp ones there is no real need for region lock the eu games.
thats why there are more eu games out there which are not region locked.