It so happened today that I was not able to change country for my live account associated with my XBox Gamertag. After looking into lot of forums including the Xbox forum, I found the problem was that my Live Account was registered with Microsoft Billing with country set to US and there is no option to change the country there.
Problem with my Live Account :
My Live account is pretty old, around 10 to 12 years and probably while registering I did not properly choose the country option and Microsoft does not allow to change country option, probably for Billing reasons.
Moreover I already played couple of games and have 520 Points now in my XBox Gamertag Account. But since my country is set to US, I am not able to add any billing information as there is no option to change country and you cannot add your credit card before completing this information.
Hence I cannot take any advantage of Gold Accounts and any other promo if they get introduced for my country.
Choosing what is Important :
Using another Live Account was the only option which has country set as my country, India. But doing that I will loose 520 gamer points + My Gamer Tag. But if I have a new account /gamertag where country is set to India, I can take advantage of Gold membership,Play Online games, buy games using my credit card etc.
What I wanted to do
I knew that I will loose all my points anyways but I did not wanted to use another live account either. What I wanted is to start fresh using my existing account. This can be important factor for many of you, because using another account means one more thing you need to manage.
What I did to remove Live ID Association with current XBox Account / Gamertag
Step 1:
Create a new Live ID which right country set.
Step 2 :
- Go to XBox Console
- Select your Avatar > Account Management > Manage Account > Windows Live ID > Change Windows Live ID
- You will be asked for current account password and then the new account password.
- Once done, all your points, gamer points etc will be transferred to the new live account.
Step 3: The Magic Step
- Next I signed in using my old Windows Live Account into XBox and I was taken away with complete surprise.
- I was once again asked to setup the XBox Account and this time I was asked to choose country, AWESOME.!!
- The association was completely removed and Now I can use my current live account to start fresh instead of doing it with new account with all advantages of Gold Membership, buying games etc.
- Also when I checked my Billing Info I saw the country is now set to India.
Before realizing this step, my assumption was if I change the Windows Live ID my country also changes. However I was wrong. There is a Universal Account which Microsoft Billing maintains. So even if you change your Windows Live ID, your account stays and links to new Windows Live ID.
What You can do with the account for which you changed LIVE ID association ?
You can mail XBox Support and ask them to delete it or keep it as is. Totally your choice. I am not sure if you can use the deleted accounts gamer tag again but I doubt that would be possible.