I recently returned to the U.S. from living in Switzerland for two & a half years this last April. I've preferred PC gaming pretty much since 1998-2000, so it wasn't hard for me to keep up on my hobby over there with a good gaming laptop and Steam. However, there have been a lot of good console exclusive games that made me decide to get a 360 when I returned to the States. (Red Dead Redemption, Mortal Kombat 9, Catherine, Castle Crashers, Shadow Complex, the Assassin's Creed games--yeah, they're on the PC, but the always-online DRM they had until last week made them non-buys). I'm really liking this console, especially some of the XBLA games. That leads to my question.

How good is the XBLA service in Europe?

I don't just mean in the U.K, but in continental Europe like Germany, France, & Switzerland. For example, did Mark of the Ninja come out this Friday over there, or is it going to be a while before it's available? Do you not get some games? My German & French are passable, but how's the voice over work? (Not exactly the most important thing for XBLA games, but I might as well ask). Thanks for the input.

Every once in a while you don't get retail demos at the same time, that generally tends to be it. Ads are tailored for the UK at least (meaning less free corporate gamerpics) and there was that whole Trenched incident, but from what I can tell (I have a US silver account) the service is largely the same provided you don't care about Netflix (which we have, but with different/less stuff on it) and the sports coverage.

My main issue is that in the EU you may only buy points in denominations of 500. Where as in the US it's 400.
 
Hence, to pay the standard 1200 points for an XBLA game you have to buy 1500 points. Where as in the US you can just buy 1200 points.

@mwng: Are they not phasing out points entirely soon though?

A lot of premium services are missing you'd have in the U.S., yet you pay more for XBL in europe. Updates are infre uent, lot of content plainly missing.

And still it manages to be ad-ridden...I wonder why anyone still pays for XBL, but unless corporations take europe seriously, just don't subscribe to them.

besides the free months i got when purchasing my xbox i have never paid for Live (never have for PS+ either btw)

@mwng said:

My main issue is that in the EU you may only buy points in denominations of 500. Where as in the US it's 400. Hence, to pay the standard 1200 points for an XBLA game you have to buy 1500 points. Where as in the US you can just buy 1200 points.

I only found out that's something other countries don't have to put up with earlier today. I was fronting points for Mark of the Ninja and decided to buy three sets of 500MSP separately so they'll incur whatever credit card fees three times over. But considering what an intuitive and transparent system Microsoft Points are, maybe one day we'll be able to buy everything with them, then I won't have to worry about the surplus points anymore. Grande Latte has to be about 200MSP, right?

@mwng: If they decide to phase out points they would probably wait until the next xbox comes to make the change.

You pay more and don't get access to stuff like ESPN. Netflix is coming this year though.

At least if you pay in Euros, you are paying more for the same game. The usual stuff, really: €1=$1. But, yeah, apart from not having some streaming options, the service is mostly the same. I don't think there's much delay between US and EU release dates for XBLA stuff. I live in Spain but play all my games in English, so I wouldn't be able to tell you about translations and voiceovers in other languages.

Oh, and @Paul_Is_Drunk, Castle Crashers and Trials HD are coming to PC later this year. You may want to hold on and not buy many XBLA games for the moment, most seem to be getting a PC port sooner or later.

@JoeyRavn: So the games still arrive in English? That'd be good for me, but kind of a bummer for most people in that country.

I already got Castle Crashers on my 360. It was fun, but I don't think I'll be getting another copy on Steam, even during a Steam sale. Red Dead Redemption on the other hand...

@Paul_Is_Drunk said:

@JoeyRavn: So the games still arrive in English? That'd be good for me, but kind of a bummer for most people in that country.

I already got Castle Crashers on my 360. It was fun, but I don't think I'll be getting another copy on Steam, even during a Steam sale. Red Dead Redemption on the other hand...

I guess it depends on how you've configured your console. I have set mine to English, so everything is displayed in, duh, English. I assume that if you have it on Spanish, the games you download will be in Spanish (if the game has been translated, that it).

Oh, and I meant Trials Evolution, not HD :P