This has affected me as well.... I bought a friend in Malta a gift Certificate from the MS store and sent it to her. First just being able to use the gift certificate was a major hassle and took 3+ hours with tech support to make the gift available to her. Then she didn't have enough to buy the game, so she sent me a little $$ which I turned into another gift card and sent to her. She then had to spend 3 more hours with tech support to get that added $ combined with the original. Then after another 3 hours with tech support, she is told that because she is on Malta, she can't buy the game, and even if she did source a copy, because she lives in Malta, she would not be able to play it.
MS... it is 2018... we are now a global society. Do we have to drag you into this century??
Further, there is no place on these forums to address these issues and I only found this thread by searching for "country" in titles...