Back From Korea

At time of writing I have basically just come from my trip in South Korea and I just thought I'd say a couple of things about my trip before going to bed since I'm absolutely shattered from walking around in 35+ degree temperature for such a long time.

Usually I hate capital cities no matter what country they are in.  Tokyo, London, Paris, doesn't really matter I fucking hate them however I don't quite have the same levels of hatred for Seoul.  It's not exactly what I'd call the nicest place in the world to be but it's definitely the least "offensive" capital city I've ever been in for lack of a better word.

Anyway I did the usual touristy bullshit like visit temples and little historical villages and stuff.  The temples/palaces in South Korea are really weird because they all seem to be copy pasted.  All sort of arranged like dungeons from the original NES Zelda game with large expanses of nothing much going on.  Granted the palace I visited this time had a "secret garden" that I didn't get to see but that was extra money AND only available as a guided tour so fuck that.

The food in South Korea is really good though, especially if you're into spicy stuff.  We were taken by my friend to some kind of beef restaurant and they give you about 7000 different side dishes for you to construct your own meat-lettuce wraps with.  The following lunch time me and my wife went to a place where they served something called Galbi.  It was chicken and rice in a spicy sauce that was served on a sort of huge hotplate and they cook it for you at the table.  Fucking delicious.

As far as the gaming scene in concerned out there I didn't really see much of what was going on.  According to the friend that we stayed with the famous net cafes are of course super popular but I think everyone in the world knows about that shit since Korea is famous for Starcraft 2 and shit pop music above all else really.  Outside of that the big thing seems to be mobile gaming.  We spent an afternoon in a big shopping area and I didn't see a single game store but the subway had adverts for mobile game apps fucking EVERYWHERE.  Sort of similar to what I saw in Singapore with PC and Mobile markets being huge while console users are pretty few and far between.  I could be wrong about this of course since my total time spent in Korea is probably equal to about 3 days.

Don't know if I could recommend it for a long trip but if you're passing through or you already live in Asia and need a weekend destination then Korea is a good bet.

I'm not allowed an Xbox One says Microsoft

Yet another post regarding the Xbox One blunder train.  It's like Microsoft really hate money

The story is that Microsoft have released a list of countries that Xbox Live is supported in upon the launch of the Xbox One and that list isn't exactly very big.  In fact, part of the reason that the list is so small is because Microsoft have said that Xbox One won't work in Asia AT ALL at launch.

However, they have said that the Xbox One will be getting supported in Asia some time in late 2014, but Japan hasn't been mentioned at all for a release.  So that one billion lifetime unit sales seems like a bit of an insane pipe dream now that you just cut half the world out of buying your console.

But this affects me personally, allow me to explain.

Right now I'm in Sweden, and I'm getting married to a Japanese person in a few months time.  Then, if everything goes to plan, I'll be in the UK for two years before moving back to Japan with my wife and settling down there.

So, if I buy an Xbox One (which I won't now but hypothetically speaking) I would be locked out of my game collection upon my move to Japan because Xbox Live isn't supported there and I wouldn't be able to verify my games.

What the actual fuck Microsoft, what the fuck is your goddamn problem.  I get why they are doing it, it's not like the Xbox 360 did very well in Japan but to just deny the entire country access to it AT ALL is just dumb when your shooting for such massive lifetime sales figures.  What's even worse is that if you are like me, and you live in a supported country but then move to a non supported one for some reason, Microsoft will not let you play the games that you fucking paid for.

The worst thing about this whole situation is that it could have been completely avoided if you just didn't have that fucking stupid 24 hour verification thing.  Sure, I might have not been able to play online in a region not supported by XBL but at least I would have been able to PLAY MY FUCKING GAMES.

I hadn't cut the possibility of getting an Xbox One completely out of my life because I wanted Crimson Dragon and Dead Rising 3, but after hearing this, Xbox One can officially go fuck itself.  Evidently Microsoft don't want my money, fucking morons. 

BONUS KICK TO THE DICK! Here is what Don Mattrick thinks about people who can't get stable connections

Oh and by the way, PS4 is region free