I doubt MS is stupid enough to make a launch here. Face it, there are far too many pirates in Malaysia and how many actually support originals? 100? 500?

I actually put part of the blame to the government, then education. Why the government? On one hand they are trying to crack down piracy while imposing tax and duties (plus many other craps) to imported originals, making it more expensive and non accessible to the people. But of course, education is also important but some people just cannot be taught on this issue (very sensitive to elaborate).

If doing it the legal way, customs impose 20% custom duties on all disc based medias. In worse scenario, additional 10% sales tax.

And gaming has nothing to do with the economy. Sure you may put up the argument how much an average US worker earn against those here. But remember, development costs are all overhead costs based on their standard as well. If games are locally made (from development to marketing) then your presumptions hold true.

What about importing games ourselves? Not everyone has accessed to those reasonably priced games throughout the nation, nor every seller has the game that we want.

My last words regarding this piracy issue is "gaming is not a right, it's a luxury". If you can't afford to drive imported sports car, drive a locally assembled car. But I know this won't be accepted for most Malaysians as there are still many people modifying their locally assembled cars to look and performed like their expensive counterparts illegally.