It’s been a long time coming, but the switch that Microsoft highlighted would be finally making its way for Xbox gamers this season is being circulated around consoles right now. Yes. Gone will be the weird price conversions and recalls of the basic calculator you have to go through every time you want to make a purchase via Xbox Live. What was 800 Microsoft Points, again? `600? Umm, no? Well, it doesn’t matter anymore.
From what we know, everything is moving back, and not only to US Dollars, but to what Microsoft likes to say is our “local currency”. That would mean we can still pay in INR, right? We sure hope so.
If you open your console and try and log in, now, in fact, you should get some sort of notification saying that your current points balance is being or has been converted to the appropriate money, and the same is then credited to your account’s balance. Easy peasy. From now on, you can pay for all stuff in INR like you did for the Games Marketplace content. Spiffy and neat, we say. Spiffy and neat.
The current conversion rate, we hear, is going at $1 = 80 MS Points. We’re still to get word from Microsoft on what this is for Indians, though we’re suspecting it would be something to the tune of 1 INR = 1 MS Point, at the worst. These are hard times for the rupee, at the time of writing, and hard times, indeed for gamers. Nevertheless, if you were getting ready for the year’s holiday releases, beginning with Grand Theft Auto V next month, you now have a way to think of things straight in the currency we respond most favourably to.