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Discussion HOW TO PLAY HALO: THE MCC 18 HOURS EARLY

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Whenever you purchase a preload it will unlock at a specific time in your region, normally 12.00am.
Xbox One can have it's region switched very easily, to enable you to purchase games from other regions. The main reasons one would do this would be so that they
Pay the RRP of that particular region, a tactic used to save money for those living in Australia and New Zealand etc
Download content that in not available in your region (I'm looking at you China)
To switch to a region that hits 12.00am before your timezone, so that you can unlock that preload early
Information on how to switch regions and purchase content can be found here

I cannot stress how easy it is to do this. If you were preordering this digitally anyway, this will add an extra 5 minutes max. to your purchasing time and the best thing is as soon as your preload download starts, you can switch it back to your original location. So easy!
To be able to unlock the game at the earliest times, you are going to want to purchase from these countries, starting with the country that will unlock it the quickest for you


  • New Zealand (UTC+12:00)
    Australia (UTC+10:00)
    Hong Kong SAR (UTC+08:00)
    London (UTC+0.00)
    New York (UTC-05.00)
    Los Angeles (UTC-08.00)


according to time map found at timeanddate.com/time/map/

Let's assume that everyone is going to preorder the NZ version, as it is the earliest.

If MCC unlocks at 12.00am 11the November in NZ, it would be (roughly) the following times in these zones:


  • Australia - 10pm Eastern, 7-8pm Western (Depending on daylight savings) 10th November
    Hong Kong - 8pm 10th November
    London - 12pm 10th November (half a day early, potentially days early if EU are not getting until 14th November)
    New York - 7am 10th November (17 hours early!)
    Los Angeles - 4am 10th November (20 hours early!)


The above times are based of the assumption that the game will unlock at 12pm in each area (west,east etc.) however this may not be the case, but the above times are still accurate.

There are a couple of downsides to purchasing through the New Zealand Region, which are
You need to add Credit Card details, you cannot pay by paypal at all, points cards need to be purchased from New Zealand
You need to pay New Zealand's RRP for The Master Chief Collection. New Zealand are known to get just as ripped off as Australia when it comes to pricing. The NZ RRP looks to be $109.95NZ, which roughly converts to $86USD. (Other countries can enter their conversion rates via www.xe.com) This is the price we pay to unlock the game at it's earliest possibilty ;(
(You can purchase the game from the Hong Kong Region and it will download 2 hours later than the NZ version, however will be significantly cheaper. Probably around the $45 - 50USD mark. I would not recommend using the Hong Kong marketplace as it seems to be heavily filtered and censored, so MCC may not ever release on the 11th November there.)

We will have to wait and see when the preload says it will unlock and take it from there. My advice would be to not purchase the preload until you are happy with the Region you are purchasing it from and understand when it will unlock.

The above times are based of the assumption that the game will unlock at 12pm in each area (west,east etc.) however this may not be the case, but the above times are still accurate.

There are a couple of downsides to purchasing through the New Zealand Region, which are
You need to add Credit Card details, you cannot pay by paypal at all, points cards need to be purchased from New Zealand
You need to pay New Zealand's RRP for The Master Chief Collection. New Zealand are known to get just as ripped off as Australia when it comes to pricing. The NZ RRP looks to be $109.95NZ, which roughly converts to $86USD. (Other countries can enter their conversion rates via www.xe.com) This is the price we pay to unlock the game at it's earliest possibilty ;(
(You can purchase the game from the Hong Kong Region and it will download 2 hours later than the NZ version, however will be significantly cheaper. Probably around the $45 - 50USD mark. I would not recommend using the Hong Kong marketplace as it seems to be heavily filtered and censored, so MCC may not ever release on the 11th November there.)

We will have to wait and see when the preload says it will unlock and take it from there. My advice would be to not purchase the preload until you are happy with the Region you are purchasing it from and understand when it will unlock.

Regarding paying (potentially) half price for MCC digital version:

Well, if you have a friend/roommate/relative, you can combine this digital preload with the Xbox One sharing program, also known as a licence transfer and it will enable two people to play 1 copy of the game simultaneously on different xboxes on different gamertags and only pay the one fee. Essentially, you could split the cost in halves!

There are certain limitations and things to this, however it works perfectly for close friends/siblings etc that live in the same house or with someone who you trust 100% as it does involve signing and out with XBL Gold accounts.

More information on Xbox Sharing can be found on youtube here. There is also an article on the xbox website itself here.

Feel free to whack your questions in here, so I and others can try and answer them. I don't have all the answers, however I thought this thread would help at least a few loyal Halo fans unlock the game earlier (bad luck NZ players, you have to wait til midnight
icon_razz.gif
) as well as save a few bucks.
 
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NO GOD

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Yeah you could buy it from the New Zealand marketplace and pay almost double what the U.S. price for the game is.

Or you can get it from the Hong Kong marketplace, it unlocks only five hours later than New Zealand, and you pay LESS than what you would pay in the US marketplace.
 
Cakes

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OR you could just wait till Tuesday, lol. You waited this long.

i'll just see myself out.
 
SelfEvident

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You guys, I have been putting research and time into this all week, reading threads where people tried this for CoD, Destiny, etc. I myself have put some tests into it, and I'm having all kinds of trouble.

First, I tried running a test by downloading some DLC from the New Zealand marketplace (I'm from US). Normally this DLC would cost $1.99. The NZ marketplace had it listed for $2.79. Not a big deal I thought. I figured that equaled like $2.58ish USD. Nope. After making my purchase, I was charged 4 different charges from the MS marketplace- one for $2.16, one for $0.06, one for $1.03, and another for $1.57. No idea what all of these are for. I assume taxes and currency exchange fees. However, I ended up paying $4.82 USD for something that was going to cost $1.99 USD. This was a bit ridiculous. Also, I ended up getting a call from my bank stating that they flagged this as a fraudulent charge. I told them it wasn't, but it wasn't something I'd like to keep telling them, as I'm sure that would look suspicious.

So I then tried to buy it off the HK marketplace, and tried using a hotel's address as my billing address, and for a while I kept getting an error of "you need to use a different payment option" and then finally it told me my authorization failed. So, I think if you were to do this, try to get currency cards. However, I am having problems finding HK currency cards online. I think Play-Asia has them, but they advertise 2-4 days of a waiting period, which I dont want to do.

Anyone have any suggestions for me?
 
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If you buy something in a different country and then buy something that same day within your own country, your bank instantly flags your account and in some instances, freezes your funds. Thanks for the heads up SelfEvident!
 
Spyro

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If you buy something in a different country and then buy something that same day within your own country, your bank instantly flags your account and in some instances, freezes your funds. Thanks for the heads up SelfEvident!
Not unless you pay through your linked PayPal.
 
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You guys, I have been putting research and time into this all week, reading threads where people tried this for CoD, Destiny, etc. I myself have put some tests into it, and I'm having all kinds of trouble.

First, I tried running a test by downloading some DLC from the New Zealand marketplace (I'm from US). Normally this DLC would cost $1.99. The NZ marketplace had it listed for $2.79. Not a big deal I thought. I figured that equaled like $2.58ish USD. Nope. After making my purchase, I was charged 4 different charges from the MS marketplace- one for $2.16, one for $0.06, one for $1.03, and another for $1.57. No idea what all of these are for. I assume taxes and currency exchange fees. However, I ended up paying $4.82 USD for something that was going to cost $1.99 USD. This was a bit ridiculous. Also, I ended up getting a call from my bank stating that they flagged this as a fraudulent charge. I told them it wasn't, but it wasn't something I'd like to keep telling them, as I'm sure that would look suspicious.

So I then tried to buy it off the HK marketplace, and tried using a hotel's address as my billing address, and for a while I kept getting an error of "you need to use a different payment option" and then finally it told me my authorization failed. So, I think if you were to do this, try to get currency cards. However, I am having problems finding HK currency cards online. I think Play-Asia has them, but they advertise 2-4 days of a waiting period, which I dont want to do.

Anyone have any suggestions for me?
I have a suggestion. Just wait until the game comes out like everybody else, this is just a huge waste of your effort.
 
Selena Gomez

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How are you going to play it early when it doesn't even unlock until 12AM EST on release day...?
 
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