Changing Countries on Xbox Live

You can’t.

I work for XBox Live, and I can’t do it either. For most people, this is not really an issue: On the whole, most people never stop living in the same country. Nevertheless, the experience is horrendous for those of us who do. For moves across the ocean, this will always be a painful process because of region restrictions on the DVDs that Xbox 360 games come on. There are a plethora of reasons, it turns out, why it’s also tricky to do it on the digital content side. The best you can presently do is the following:

1. Use the Content License Transfer Tool to move all the content associated with your account from Country 1 to the Xbox 360 you’re moving with (or onto your new one, if you’re selling the old and buying a new one when you get there).
2. Create a new account, with a new Billing Address, and a new Passport - all of which should be in Country 2.

Pros:

• You still have access to all the content you bought initially. You don’t need to repurchase anything.

Cons:

• Any time remaining on your Gold subscription is lost.
• You lose your gamerscore and all your achievements.

This is not really a solution, but at least with the content transfer tool you keep anything you paid for. If in the future a work-around becomes possible, I’ll be sure to post it.

Until then, my new American Gamertag is:

Changed from the Canadian: