As most of you will know, Australians and many other different countries who are not American get seriously inflated prices on the Xbox Store.
For instance, a brand new title on the American store costs $60 USD, which in AUD is currently just less than $80
A brand new title on the Australian store costs $100 AUD which is just less than $80 USD
This is a $20 USD difference, which means a lot to a lot of people. Major Nelson has said they are looking into getting rid of that difference currently, but in the meantime - here is how to get games for American prices:
Two Methods:
Method One uses Xbox Gift Cards and Method Two uses Amazon.com - the first method is reccomended although if you want a really cheap game. You can get like $60 AGC for like $60 AUD ($46 USD) off of HF on currency exchange and get the games super cheap! If you don't want to do that then do method one. If you want to do that then do method two.
Method One:
If you have an American registered Credit Card or PayPal account already for some reason, then go to the next '' in this guide to skip unnecessary steps. If you do not have these things then do not fret and just continue the guide as normal.
Go to https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Xbox-Digital-Gift-Card/productID.289171900 or type into google: "buy xbox gift cards" and click the Microsoft link, that should be like the second link down.
From here you want to change your region - to do this you have to scroll down to the very bottom of the site and go to the very bottom left hand corner and click on the language/region, it will allow you to change it from the list it presents and you have to click on the United States.
From here you can now purchase gift cards in USD. There are other ways to do this through G2A or Amazon and if you can purchase some cheap AGC off here and buy off amazon you can get the game for even cheaper - but this is the regular method.
Games on the Xbox store get taxed 6.5% so you will need to account for that in your purchase - as you will not be able to use your Australian PayPal or Credit Card on the Xbox store - it must be registered American. Which if you have an American PayPal or want to create one, you can bypass this step and take it directly off of there - but that seems like a whole lot more work as it is not so easy to change PayPal region. So for a new title, buy $64 USD of Xbox Currency.
This process is instant after you pay for it using any card or PayPal that you want. If it asks for an American residential address (I can't remember if it will at this stage) then go to https://www.randomlists.com/random-addresses and make one, they all should work.
It will give you the key, but if you try to redeem this on the computer store without a VPN then you will find yourself in trouble because it will not let you. If you have a VPN then switch it to the US and it should work. But if not, then you will have to boot up your Xbox.
YOU DO NOT NEED A VPN FOR THIS STAGE, OR AT ALL IN THIS PROCESS, ONLY IF YOU WANT TO DO IT ON YOUR PC DO YOU NEED IT.
*Go to your Xbox and go to your settings and change your country/language to United States. Then reboot your console using the button provided for you on the page. From here you need to redeem a code on your Xbox and type in the code given.
Now you just have to go to the game you want and purchase it. It should automatically have the gift card as your preferred payment method, it will ask you to add a new billing address for United States and if you did not already add one in the previous step, then you can add one now. Go to https://www.randomlists.com/random-addresses and use a randomly generated one from here.
From here just type in that address and click next until you have your game. Did this last night and it all works and checks out and it's safe 🙂 You can just change your console region back and voila! You are back in the Australian store and stuff with your roughly $20 cheaper game!
Method Two:
There is a different method you can do here that works just as well. Go to amazon.com and go to any game you want. When you click on them they should have an option to purchase the digital version of the game, if not then you will have to find another or just follow method 1.
Click purchase and if you have not created an account already then do so. When it asks for an American address, go to https://www.randomlists.com/random-addresses and randomly generate one for use as it will not let non-US people buy US cards, although they are region free. You will be able to purchase with a non-american credit card though, which is good and amazon is good that way! So once you have purchased the game they should have the code emailed to you and you can redeem it and go ahead.
If the code is region locked which it shouldn't be, then go to your console, go into settings and change your region to United States and then redeem the code on there and then just switch back!