Talk:Regional lockout

"benefits"

i changed the heading of the "Benefits" section to "Advantages for Producers." it was absurd and laughable to have "Allows items to be launched at different times in different places, without allowing people to obtain the item 'ahead of time' by purchasing from abroad" and "Allows price differentiation between markets, thus increasing the potential revenue from worldwide sales" listed simply as "BENEFITS". they're obviously the advantages for the producers. if somebody wants to make a section for "Benefits for consumers", go right ahead, if you can possibly think of any. but don't forget this is an encyclopedia, not a jokebook. --which is why i changed the subheading. 128.119.236.133 01:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, I would suggest a benefit for producers is "reduced competition from foreign cinema." Paul Coddington (talk) 06:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

First things first: Why?

Why does Sony want Region Locking for UMD movies anyway? They're the only distributors of UMD media, they have no competition to be feared, games are already region free, why are movies locked.------ 13:55, 13 September 2005 (UTC)darthanakin

This is a classic case of giving only one side of the argument. While I am indeed against regional lockout, the article lacks any mention whatsoever of its motives or advantages.

Is there any legitimate reason for regional lockout? The other day GameCentral (part of British Teletext) claimed in answer to someone's letter, "so that they can direct their country-specific advertising at you at a time of their choosing". But why would they want to do that? And even when they do, I fail to see how putting barriers in the way of import sales can be good business practice. -- Smjg 11:51, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I understand it to be about distribution rights. Reub2000 14:40, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Would you care to elaborate? -- Smjg 15:46, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The article says: "In addition, most handheld video game systems, including all Game Boy systems, are made region free because many people travel with their game systems."

I don't think this is exactly the reason. Handheld consoles use their own proprietary video display system, however video game consoles that use TVs are faced with the issue that some countries use 50Hz video systems (most PAL formats, and SECAM) and others use 60Hz systems (NTSC), so games have to be re-designed/re-programmed to be sold in certain countries. --Zilog Jones 23:11, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, the sentence about handhelds doesn't make sense at all. Anyway, 50Hz and 60Hz don't relate to the television formats. They are the frequencies of the European and American AC power supplies respectively. Moreover, PC games manage to work regardless of the AC frequency or the screen refresh rate. So why can't console games do the same? (For that matter, where did the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 et al fit into this equation?) -- Smjg 09:34, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The PAL and NTSC analog video signal formats use frequencies of 50hz and 60hz respectively, just like the AC power supplies (they're interlaced, so this translates to 25 fps and 30 fps respectively). The reason they decided to tie the frame rate to the AC power supply frequency is rather complicated, and I'm too tired to explain it, but I'm reasonably sure it's in the PAL and NTSC articles. The reason it works differently with PC games is that modern computer monitors (and graphics cards) are much more complicated, low-definition colour television is essentially 1950s technology, computer monitors have much higher resolution, and are capable of handling variable resolutions and refresh rates. Hopefully, the next generation of digital televisions will be able to handle both European and North American signal formats without problems.

True, but that doesn't by itself explain regional lockout, as at face value games would still work even if they would play more slowly and have black borders at the top and bottom (because of the differing number of lines, as the European SNES indeed did as far as the games I ever played go). -- Smjg 10:04, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that regional lockout is used for DVDs primarily because of exclusive sales and distribution contracts.

You mean so exclusive that anybody who buys a DVD enters into a contract, forbidding it to be posted across the ocean? I doubt they could ever have enforced such a thing if regional lockout didn't already exist. So, which came first, the chicken or the egg? -- Smjg 10:04, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

For the most part, DVD region lockouts are really just an industry tool to gain more profits through market segmentation and selective pricing. Whatever legitimate purposes do not outweigh this, BUT this does not change the fact that there are legitimate purposes. It's not just a matter of black borders or slower gameplay (not the case at all, since we're talking about the output video signal and not the actual game!), we're talking about a game that will just flat out not work because of the PAL-NTSC differences. From the company's perspective, it's a lot easier to forbid a user to do something than to let the user do something and then have the user flood the customer support department with complaints. --Code65536 7 July 2005 11:53 (UTC)

It's selective pricing. They can't possibly hope to sell a DVD for $40 in Angola but they sure as hell can get £20 for it in the United Kingdom. It allows them to sell globally without actually being subject to market forces. It's a great idea for studios, ultimately it just results in the consumer paying more. The PAL-NTSC argument is silly, as if that were the case clear warnings to the effect of "PAL game: WILL NOT WORK ON NTSC SYSTEM" on the product and similar markings on the device would do the job, at least, as well as the current regional encoding logos do! Nobody seems to have tremendous trouble understanding those.

This is one factor as to why regional lockout was created - it took time to convert games for 50Hz regions (as most games originate from 60Hz regions - Japan and the US), and publishers did not want people in 50Hz regions playing games (by importing) before they were officially released in their country. --Zilog Jones 23:11, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean they want people to experience games at full speed from the moment they get their hands on them? Even if they're being cruel to be kind in this respect, this doesn't seem to be always the case. Just before the Nintendo 64 was released in Europe, there were complaints that the games would run slower over here, as apparently a lot of developers hadn't bothered with the conversion process. And anyway, having to convert games strikes me as trying to fix the wrong problem - the real problem being a lack of portability in their means of developing the games in the first place. -- Smjg 09:34, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the speed of the game! Have you ever tried to watch a PAL video on an NTSC TV? Obviously, TVs that don't play both NTSC and PAL aren't very common these days, but when I was a kid (not long ago) I remember we had a dual-region (PAL/NTSC) VCR with a PAL-only TV. If you pressed the mode-change button on the video, it was unwatchable: the screen goes wack colours with a whole lot of noise and the sound changes pitch and everything. --Taejo 20:14, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there are other differences between NTSC and PAL besides the frame rate and even the number of lines. However, the picture processing unit is in the console, not in the game cartridges. If it weren't for regional lockout, a PAL console would be perfectly capable of playing games from Europe, US and Japan alike, rendering the picture and sound in PAL format regardless. -- Smjg 14:53, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. PAL runs at 50Hz and NTSC runs at 60Hz (There are other differences as well). Back in the bad old days, when videogame consoles were relatively low-power devices and the graphics system was intimately tied to the video refresh, the easiest way to approach the console design was to make the PAL system identical to the NTSC system (except for the colour system) and just slow the CPU's clock down by 1/6. That way, all the fixed 2D sprite animations and tightly-coded processes in the games would still run smoothly, if not quickly. Nezuji 07:05, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm puzzled - surely it's easier and cheaper to put the graphics rendering hardware in the console rather than on each game cartridge individually? -- Smjg 16:51, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry! I meant that I wasn't sure about a game working flawlessly on another region's hardware if lockout were removed from the equation. Nezuji 13:10, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Nowdays there isn't -- stricly speaking -- any need to do things this way, but old habits die hard, and introducing micro-pauses coupled with a reduction in the vertical resolution is still the simplest way to convert an NTSC game to PAL. Otherwise, you have to start worrying about things like how many polygons you're drawing per frame, and how long it takes to draw those polygons in a higher vertical resolution. Thankfully, with the release of Metroid Prime 2 on the GCN, it seems that developers are starting to realise that PAL 60 (a 60Hz signal with PAL colour encoding) is fine for PAL mass-market (I have a 30-year-old TV which handles PAL 60 just fine), not to mention the proliferation of NTSC-compatible PAL televisions (I don't know that it's even possible to buy a new PAL TV that isn't NTSC compatible) so this entire issue may soon become a thing of the past. Nezuji 07:05, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I see. But like I said, there ought to be portability in the means of developing them in the first place. Just as the C runtime library makes it possible to write code that compiles on many different OSs, it ought to be straightforward to code up videogames such that they will compile straight into smoothly-running, full speed and full screen NTSC and PAL versions alike. Most simply, it would mean making use of symbolic constants that translate as "CPU speed", "video refresh rate", "horizontal resolution" and "vertical resolution". -- Smjg 16:51, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that there should be portability. This sort of thing would be a big step toward a platform-independant game format. Unfortunately, there isn't any simple formula (that I've seen, anyway) for adjusting polygon counts and other rendering-related items based on refresh rate and resolution. Besides which, generating polygon meshes for game models is a rather involved process, and console games ship with their models constructed from a fixed number of polygons, not as mathematical models. So-called "Level of Detail" systems have been built into many 3D games which substitute lower poly-count models for high poly-count models when they appear small on the screen (i.e. at a great distance from the camera), but more or less all of these work with a discrete number of pre-built models, not by altering models on-the-fly. Interestingly, relating back to the issue of movies, there is more than one digital motion picture codec which records motion in terms of differences over time as opposed to differences between frames, being therefore essentially "frameless", and replaying smoothly at any framerate. Nezuji 13:10, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

So rendering just the right number of polygons is their way of regulating the speed of a game? Seems strange. I'd think a timer to be a much more reliable way of regulating speed. -- Smjg 14:11, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I know I'm joining into this discussion late, but while PAL/NTSC differences affect the video output, they are not entirely the same as general regional lockout. Japanese games, which run on the same NTSC output as the United States and Canada, often contain lockout which prevents them from being easily played by those in North America.

DVD Regional Lockouts

One of the key reasons for DVD regional lockouts is the fact that studios often release films in theatres outside the U.S. at later dates then in the U.S. In some cases, a movie is allready appearing on DVD at the same time it's appearing in theatres overseas. Thus to protect foreign ticket sales then lockout region 1 DVD's overseas. I would also think that regional distibution contracts would also play a part as a regional DVD distributer would not want allot of people buying from outside distributer and cutting it out of it's share. --Cab88 16:34, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If for no good reason some company is against releasing stuff at the same time everywhere, that's their problem. They shouldn't turn it into ours.

OTOH there may be work to be done, such as translating the product into different languages, which may delay releases in some places. But still, can't exclusive distribution contracts be on a per-language basis? If something is released first in English, then in the time that it takes to prepare a Japanese translation, anybody in Japan who buys the English language version from overseas isn't cutting the local distributor out of its share of sales of the forthcoming Japanese language version. (Can this argument be adapted to a system where versions can be multilingual?) -- Smjg 14:44, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

My memory is that back at the time when DVD region coding was developed it was still quite common for movie releases to be staggered internationally across several months even in the same language markets, partially because the cost of film prints meant that a film would play in cinemas in one country and then the prints returned to the distributor who would then send them to a new country, partially because different markets have different optimum times for releasing films, not least holidays. For instance some films targeted at children that had releases in the US summer holiday often didn't get released in the UK until the Christmas holiday. At the same time the 1990s saw the period between a movie leaving the cinemas and coming out on VHS in that country getting smaller and smaller. So it was quite probable, and may already have been happening, that movies were available on VHS in one country whilst still being in the cinema in another.

(There used to be the problem of the incompatibility between the NTSC and PAL systems, but technology was developed that allowed VCRs and TVs on one system to playback the other. By the mid to late 1990s this was a standard feature in new equipment in many PAL countries, allowing the import of NTSC tapes. The feature has been carried forward to DVD with the result that some releases in PAL countries, even those encoded only for PAL countries, have been in the NTSC format, though this is rare, perhaps because of the inevitable complaints and bad publicity stemming from those with older TV sets who find they can't play the release. NTSC equipment that can play back PAL is, however, much rarer and not a standard feature because the demand for it is far smaller.)

However this reasoning has become increasingly anachronistic with many films now having simultaneous worldwide releases, plus region coding has often also been applied to archival releases of older films and television series where there were never timelag issues in the first place. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:24, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Are DVD Regional Lockouts legal anywhere? I think all WTO governments except New Zealand allow CCS compliant DVD players to be sold within their borders, but they are illegal in both the USA and EU under their respective fair trade statutes. In fact, CCS cartel has been sued in civil court in California by a number of manufacturers for their violations of the Organized Crime and other federal statutes. I believe the fact that regional lockouts are criminal in all capitalist countries should be noted in the article. Zenyu 21:36, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

That's a huge sweeping generalisation that would need major sourcing, preferably with actual case citations. Few countries have long standing laws requiring manufacturers to make their output compatible with particular technology (for instance in the recent Blu-ray-HD format war there were no notable legal cases against any entertainment company for choosing only one format at a time when both were still viable) and what restrictions are in place are generally concerned with protecting consumers both personally (e.g. safety standards such as requiring plugs to be prefitted rather than requiring the consumer to wire them up) and financially (such as the requirement to display quantities in a recognised system of measurements). And the main complaints about region coding stem from cross border issues and people importing/transporting DVDs from outside the region - why is US law expected to provide protection for non US based consumers of products released in the US market? Timrollpickering (talk) 11:40, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Are we going to expand this article then -- it seems quite short for such a topic, but I don't know if it arrived that way after long arguments?

Does anyone know details of how the EU free-trade laws affected region coding? I heard that region-coded DVDs would be breaking EU law in this regard, but perhaps it was dropped when 'region-free' players became widely-available enough for it not to be an issue

Should this article cover websites which restrict access from certain places, or give different content to different places?

And do we only discuss things which 'lock out' certain locations rather than offering them an alternative? (e.g. if there's a UK version of something and a US version, is it lockout to not offer the UK version in the US?) Is Apple Computer regional lockout-ing me from buying a keyboard with a dollar sign in the right place? Are weather websites regional lockout-ing me from seeing Mexican weather when they detect I live in the UK and show a Glasgow weather forecast?

Ojw 2 July 2005 14:54 (UTC)

I think the term "lockout" only applies if some technical method is used to prevent goods bought in one location from being usable in another, so if for instance Apple computers sold in the UK couldn't be connected to US-style Apple keyboards, and this was an intentional choice to prevent you from doing this, then it would be lockout. Lack of availability, or incidental reasons why it wouldn't work, shouldn't be lockout.

The EU free trade laws only require you to be able to freely buy goods in one EU country from another: as all EU countries are in the same region, I don't believe DVD region coding is considered a restraint on trade. I'm not an expert on EU law, though.

A couple of things that do strike me as odd about this article:

Ability to restrict content which may be illegal in some countries (e.g. Nazi material in Europe, or pornography in the Middle East)

I live in the UK, which is part of Europe, and Nazi material isn't illegal here. I know it is in France, and suspect it might be in Germany, but don't believe the rest of Europe has such laws?

Nazi material is illegal in most of the countries directly affected by the holocaust, which includes lare swathes of central Europe. The UK and Ireland are pretty unique in fearing infringement of basic rights more than the threat of bogeymen. At least, until recently.

When distribution contracts for each area are awarded to different companies, it allows a company to avoid "stepping on someone else's toes" (e.g. not displaying maps of england for fear of upsetting the Ordnance Survey)

Why would showing a map of England upset the OS? And what has that got to do with distribution contracts in different areas? I suspect the author of that comment misunderstood something, or I don't understand his intentions.

Effect on society and economic

I have added articles about effect on society and economic.

For the other part of the article, I truly believe that the clear advantages for consumers can only be pointed out by consumers, and the clear advantages of region locker's can only be pointed out by region lockers or manufacturers (which do usually not speak the truth on places like this, because they are biased with their NDA's and economic interests).

--Thedogg 04:31, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I have toned down the section on social impact. This is an article in an encyclopedia, not a manifesto against regional encoding, no matter how tempting it may be to make it such.

I would suggest that there are negative consequences that are more than consumer inconvenience: region coding is anti-multicultural. It prevents someone, say, originating in China or India, who is living in, say, Australia, from watching Bollywood and Hong Kong cinema unless it has been deemed popular enough to have a local release (and potentially "sanitised" for the local market). By "sanitised", I could point to anime as an example of how foreign cinema is frequently bastardized with bad translations (sometimes made up on the spot rather than translated and overdubbed with stereotypical US-accents in a stereotypical US-cartoon style without regard to the style and content of the original work), reduced production quality (video/sound) in the name of "localisation". Of course, this is probably more ignorant than malicious, but it is still something that has no place in the modern world. I would also note that Australian authorities are primarily concerned about region encoding as a mechanism for creating and enforcing "price-fixing cartels". Paul Coddington (talk) 06:36, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Splitting the DVD region lockout from this article

IMHO, the DVD region lockout is unique enough that it deserves its own article. It's very difficult, I think, to have a coherent discussion about DVD region lockout when it is mixed in with other things like games. There are a lot of DVD-specific issues like the RPC Phase I and Phase II requirements of the CSS license and the entire relationship between the CSS license and region lockout for DVDs. I think that, ultimately, this will probably give this entire article a lot more coherency if its separated from gaming issues.

--Code65536 03:19, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Import gamers having "buyer's remorse"? News to me.

Er...could someone get a source for this claim about import gamers having buyer's remorse? I'm an importer. I'm /glad/ that my games do not contain the localization edits that are rampantly found in translated games. There are also plenty of other reasons for importing besides getting a game before its local release, it seems to me that whoever wrote that paragraph knew very little of import gaming. A large percentage of games that are perfectly enjoyable aren't even released outside of Japan. Occasionally, a die-hard fan of a series that is given local releases will buy both versions to complete their collection. It's also a popular practice among those who study Japanese or speak it fluently (me again). As I hinted at earlier, many importers also do not want games that have been given purposely inaccurate translations or re-dubbed voice acting. -November 14, 2005 (Not a registered user)

Nov22nd -- I agree. I came to this talk page looking to see if anyone else had mentioned it. It doesn't belong in an encyclopedic article.

The idea sometimes contradicts itself

I understand that the idea of regional lockout comes from wanting to vary prices in different countries (presumably due to different currencies), and so make more income. However, especially with video games, you have the issue of games that are not released in some countries, which are given regional lockouts to prevent people from those sountries from playing them, even though the game isn't available there. This, aside from being horreundously unfair, contradicts the whole purpose of regional lockouts.

It can be argued (quite strongly in fact) that this encourages piracy, especially emulation (which, ironically, the companies that cause this are firmly opposed to). This isn't mentioned in the article so far, and I really think it ought to. --12:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

While I agree, I'm not sure how it could be written into an encyclopedic article without coming off biased. Another thing about regional lockout: Determined people will always find ways to circumvent regional lockout (modchips, boot disks, software hacks). Often, these methods of circumvention also allow a user to run unauthorized copies, which could add to negative effects. People aren't going to stop wanting imported games, which are the main reason for these methods to exist. (The "homebrewn" software community also has a legitimate need for these methods, however). Alcy 02:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

"this encourages piracy, especially emulation (which, ironically, the companies that cause this are firmly opposed to)" This is nonsensical - high prices encourage theft, but is that something vendors want? PianoSpleen 07:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

EU

I have removed the reference to the European Union being one region, as since the acession of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (which as former USSR states use region 5) there have been two separate regions in the European Union.

Since entering the EU, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania now use two regions. Because these countries have very large Russian-speaking populations, plus the close location of Russia, there are many Russian language DVDs imported into the Baltics. Russia is nominally region 5, though most Russian DVDs have been released region-free. (This is now just beginning to change, but still not on a widespread basis.) The vast majority of the EU, however, is region 2. So, DVDs in Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian, plus DVDs imported from other EU countries, are released in region 2. Therefore, the best thing to do in these countries is to buy a region-free player to ensure that Baltic, EU, and Russian DVDs can all play with little problem. In fact, I've noticed recently that even some HOLLYWOOD films (at least as sold in St. Petersburg, Russia, very near the borders with the Baltic countries) are now being released in region 5 in Russian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian, which makes me begin to doubt that these same films are being released by the Hollywood studios in region 2 - yet further incentive to buy a region-free player in the Baltics. Ericdn (talk) 18:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

So is regional lockout now a barrier to free trade in the EU?

technically yes, but it would require a test case before a court, or a directive from the commission. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.191.227 (talk) 03:11, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Nintendo DS

Should there be a mention on this page that while the DS will play games from any of the three main computer game regions (EU, US & JP), games from different regions are not compatable with each other for multi player link up? JP Godfrey (Talk to me) 13:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I say no. I don't think that's quite the same thing. It's not so much locking you out due to region, but because you're using a different version of the software. It's just coincidental that in this case the different versions are from different regions. I mean, even if you have three people with NA, UK, and JAP DS systems trying to connect and they all are using the UK version DS game, it'll work, despite all three having systems from different regions. To me, that doesn't equal a lockout.

Error: PAL game not working in NTSC system

Hi! I'm kind of new here, and I just came across this article. Near the bottom it said that you can cut off the pins that block a PAL or NTSC-J N64 cartridge from being inserted into an American system, you can play it. Well, I did just that. However, when I put my game into the N64 and turn the power on, nothing happens. I cleaned it many times and nothing happened still. I tried other (American) games, and they all worked. Why is this happening? Is it because I have an older TV that doesn't support PAL hookup? Should I move to a different TV? What's happening?

Marikthechao 23:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC) Marikthechao Marikthechao 23:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Japanese games will run fine on a US system using that method, but PAL ones, nope. I'm not sure about a new TV. If you were getting a scrambled picture, I'd say it might work (assuming you can even find a TV that takes PAL in the US, which I'd guess wouldn't be easy) but if it's completely blank, my assumption is the US N64 just can't output PAL at all. Sorry if it's mostly guesses here, but at least I can confirm that it's not that you did the method wrong, it's just that PAL/NTSC is a lot trickier to fix than a physical cart blocker.

Well, is there any additional equipment that can let me play it?

Marikthechao 20:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC) Marik the Chao Marikthechao 20:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

I seriously think criticism like that on this page needs to be cited, because right now it seems like someone just came on and wrote down why he/she is against region coding. Anyone else in favor of adding the template? -Unknownwarrior33 19:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. Majin Izlude ^talk 13:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

....well the criticisms are all true, aren't they? It's not a matter of citing sources, it's a matter of common sense and taking ten seconds to think about things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.195.119.74 (talk) 08:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

At what point does a common experience cease to be mere original research, and attain the lofty title of "common knowledge?" How does one cite Five hundred thousand angry posts on Gamefaqs, for example? Shall we cite specific examples of works which exemplify the dissatisfaction? Sirmadness (talk) 18:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, it doesn't happen, period. Anything that is supposedly "common knowledge" will be mentioned in some work somewhere. It's common knowledge that the sky is blue, but here, you have to have a source referring to it as such. Similarly, Gamefaqs is a forum, and cannot be used as a source, as there is no peer review. I hate recommending policy, but you might want to ready Wikipedia:No Original Research and Wikipedia:Verifiability. — trlkly 09:52, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction

I added the contradict-section template because the article states that the sixth-gen consoles are region-locked, while the tagged section says:

PlayStation 3 will be region free for gaming, according to Michael Ephraim of Sony of Australia. Sony Computer Entertainment has abandoned the practice of regional lockout. However they are hunting importers and import sites like Lik-Sang. Publishers will have the choice to release region free PlayStation 3 games.

-- VGF11 03:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The PlayStation 3 is a "seventh-generation" console, rather than sixth, so that is not a contradiction. However, I'm leaving the contradiction notice because I don't understand how the PlayStation 3 will simultaneously be region free and also allow publishers to have the choice of region free releases. Phlake 11:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

When Sony says that PlayStation 3 is "region free" it is referring to the regions of PlayStation 3 games only. I learned that the hard way having a Region 2 PS3. -Matt

Perhaps this little piece of dialogue - remembering it's from Sony Australia - is aimed at trying to ensure that the regulatory bodies don't drop from a great height onto him or his company. Remember that here it is illegal to sell region-specific machinery. As such, it might not have to make sense anywhere else . . :) Johno 14:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

decided to take out the contradiction template (look above what Phlake said ) and because PS3 (as [1] says) plays any regionPS3 games. Also to the reader what is contradictory is not clear.Dream caster 01:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, the Australia section is a bit weak because it claims that video games are more expensive in Aus than in USA or UK. In fact the UK already suffers from prices up to double those in the USA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.68.15.100 (talk) 12:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Advantages for producers

There are statements in this section without explantion. The reason why these statements are useful to producers would be great.--82.69.113.120 00:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Not that difficult. One reason is less legal hassle (e.g. censoring software/films for particular regions), the rest of them boil down to making more money and "streamlining" the "process" (e.g. the "stepping on other people's toes" bit boils down to making it easier to get different resellers for different regions -- because they don't have to be afraid of imports affecting their sales any more (yeah right)).

Of course you COULD try to find an explanation that makes it sound charitable or benevolent, but the only reason the economy would ever do something "good" is for better publicity. Big companies are not your friend (but they do not have to be your enemy either). In the end it nearly always boils down to making more money or losing less money. — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 06:37, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

GPS requirement?

I have read rumors of a requirement for NAVSTAR Global Positioning System receivers in players for some format in order to ensure that players exported from their intended region do not function. Can anybody find a source to back this up? --Damian Yerrick (☎) 20:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

i doubt it is true, but i dont think that it would be alloed to be sold in countries that prohibit region lockout from being enabled (though it didnt stop harvey norman from selling us one a while back), or the company would be required to set it so that if it detected that it was in a place that prohibits region lockout, it would allow all regions to be played. The problem with that is that such devices might not be alllowed in some countries due to different laws regarding products and the transmission/reception of certain signal types. --Alphamone 06:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

SPAM

Someboby has inserted "See DVDExploder.com" and point to that site, within the article

PS3/PSP really region free?

Well before I goto Bic Camera and buy that Japanese PSP or PS3 game, I want to know if its really region free. I read it in all the articles (although the articles reflect back as far as 2004) but if thats the case, then why do all the Japanese PSP and PS3 games have the region 2 symbol and a sign above the barcode which says "FOR JAPAN ONLY"? Keep in mind, as far as the PS3 games are concerned, the regions are still numbers and not letters like Blu-Rays are.

from: ryanyomomma

PSP and PS3 games are essentially region-free, meaning you can play Japanese games on an American system and vice versa. There haven't been any region-locked games for the PSP/PS3 systems and the only things that are still locked are essentially the movie-playing aspects of the systems. Also, the staff at Kotaku and Joystiq have been able to download games from PSN sites from other regions and play them without any issue, especially the PS1 games from Japan. Thing is, PS1 and PS2 DISC games are still region-locked on the PS3. I have a Hong Kong region PSP at the moment and I've bought a range of Japanese, Hong Kong, and American region PSP games and they all work fine on my PSP. I'm also picking up a number of Japanese PS3 games to play when I get back to the US. (Psychoneko (talk) 17:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC))

I forgot to mention this. The reason why they now include those "region number" tags on the cases is to make it easier to tell people which PSN server/region they should visit to collect their DLC or which region server they need to connect to in order to play online multiplayer games. So if you have Killzone 2 (region 1 - America) and you're in Hong Kong, you need to connect to American servers in order to play the game online. (Psychoneko (talk) 17:42, 11 April 2009 (UTC))

Just encountered what may be further proof that a PSP is indeed region locked. I just bought a South-East Asian PSP Go (PSP-N1006). I am unable to get the comic reader to appear on it. I have upgraded the firmware to 6.20, downloaded the comic reader from the official site, and followed the instructions. Further search online shows that the problem is that the reader is region-locked to US PSPs. In fact, it fails to even display an Extra menu item in the XMB. I'm not happy about this. I paid a thousand and ninety-nine Malaysian Ringgits for this thing. And oh: http://kotaku.com/284371/stranglehold-on-ps3-+-region-locked . Now will people believe me when I say that there are region-locked PS3 games in the world? RAM (talk) 16:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Australia

This section has got its facts completely wrong.

As a gamer living in the UK I can tell you that every home console retail game is released between £40 and £50, NOT £25 as in the US which this article claims, and this has NEVER been the case EVER in the 20 years I've been playing and purchasing games here even from the day of the Atari 2600 and NES all the way to the current generation of home consoles. I've edited accordingly. A simple trip to Amazon, or GAME's websites to check new games' prices will confirm this for you, even with their online discounts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.111.154.117 (talk) 17:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Wrong information on the article

The article makes it seem that the PS3 is region locked, while the Xbox 360 has some region free games. This is untrue; it is the ps3 that is region-free (I own a ps3, and imported games from a variety of regions without altering anything on my ps3), and I also own an Xbox 360, which wouldn't play my friend's European game. I will proceed to correct the article.

Darkanius (talk) 11:05, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

According to my research on google, that isn't really the case. As far as I can find out, the PS3 does have region locking, but it is up to the developer of the games if they wanted to implement it or not. Also, it will honor region codings of PS2 and PS1 games, as well as the region locks of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. Refs: [2], [3]

Bootnote, it appears that EA is the only company in the world supporting region lockout on the PS3 and PSP consoles. For some reason I'm not surprised at this.

RAM (talk) 10:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The article should be changed. I only found information that the online multiplayer of EA's Army of Two ist separated into regions. But this is nothing special, many games do that. This is not a classical regional lockout that prevents the game from running on a foreign machine.--87.174.92.21 (talk) 18:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

In the absence of better references I support Darkanius and the IP's comments - the information should be removed. The EA lockout appears to be server/software-based rather than hardware based, from the link provided. The second reference provided, a forum post, does not comply with Wikipedia's policies on reliable sources, although that thread acknowledges, in any case, that for all intents and purposes the PS3 is region free. Debate 木 21:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, the game would have to probe something to figure out what region the console is from, right? Also, the article further describes that the Asian region version is censored. For them to censor the game where bypassing censorship is just as trivial as importing a game from another region strikes me as daft- there must be something blocking the NTSC/UC or PAL/E versions of the game from running on an asian (NTSC/J) machine, unless they're actually looking for lost sales. Remember, there are gamers out there who dislike censorship, and they know that bypassing it is as trivial as using eBay, PlayAsia, NCSX or even Amazon with a virtual postbox service. Lastly, the machine will still honor Blu-Ray, DVD, PS2 and PSOne regions, and to me that's not enough to classify the console as truly region free. I feel that if it was really region free, it would play Blu-Ray and DVDs of all regions as well as all PS2 and PS1 games irregardless of region. RAM (talk) 08:38, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Hong Kong

It is stated in the article that PS1 and PS2 are being sold with preinstalled modchips in Hong Kong. What about PS3 and Xbox 360, since there are no means to circumvent regional lockout in these consoles at the moment? 85.249.167.223 (talk) 11:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary

I deleted this from the Blu-Ray section: "Like their DVD counterparts, BD players can be imported from another region."

You can import any of the things on this page, so this seems unnecessary.

I agree with the deletion. There's no reason that I can see why BD players should be singled out for their ability to be imported from another region, while everything else can be, too. --Ericdn (talk) 18:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Questions

Older generation consoles. Are they region locked? Because I want to buy Resident Evil 4 on my Norwegian Nintendo GameCube. Like for example, if I buy any Nintendo GameCube game from the British Amazon site, will it work on my Norwegian GC? And I have a Japanese PS3 which Norwegian games work just fine on it, but does anybody know if my Japanese PS3 will play British PS3 games? Thanks TK(film) (talk) 18:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes Nintendo GameCube games are region locked. People use Freeloader and modchips to play foreign Nintendo GameCube games: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=gamecube+freeloader&btnG=Google+Search&fp=cstJsZcXi7Y ----Akadewboy (talk) 01:01, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Any proof that BattleZone is really region locked?

I've been searching the internet looking for proof that it's true that BattleZone is really region locked, but I can't find any. Does anyone have proof or know by first-hand experience? It seems really strange that only 1 PSP game on the planet is region locked. --- Akadewboy (talk) 00:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

• To be truthful, I picked that up on a Singaporean forum years ago. However, I do have first hand account that PSPs are indeed region-locked. My Asian PSP Go refuses to recognize the comic book viewer app. I called Sony up on it and they claim that it has been disabled on Asian PSPs because the feature hasn't been launched in the region yet. Yes, the PSP has the latest firmware, obtained from the North American PSP site. And yes, I'm very angry with them for doing that, as I could just use a North American PSN account to grab material for the reader. RAM (talk) 06:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Wrong about PS3's DLC region locks

The sentence where it says that DLCs are region locked is wrong. I have a Japanese PS3 and I downloaded a DLC for my copy of Army of Two and it worked fine. TK(film) (talk) 19:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, just the region of the game and region of the DLC must match, more exactly it's the game code (BCES...). Console can be from any region.--87.174.101.138 (talk) 19:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I know this comes a bit late, but now we have one confirmed title- Persona 4 Arena for the PS3 is confirmed to be region-locked. RAM (talk) 17:40, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Clarify...

I find the following (the first sentence in this article) difficult to understand:

Regional lockout is the programming practice, code, chip, or physical barrier used to prevent the playing of media designed for a device from the country where it is marketed on the version of the same device marketed in another country.

It doesn't make any sense at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.192.100 (talk) 20:19, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I HATE regional lockout

I would take steps to ensure region-free playability if I published games. For instance, I would go out of my way to ensure that all of my games are on 3-in-1 media (NTSC/PAL/SECAM). Did anyone mention SECAM here before? The Russian laments, "Было бы здорово, если бы мы могли играть без SECAM игры у нас в России!" T3h 1337 b0y 02:28, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Broken Section Link Notice

I'm removing the broken section link notice from the talk page, as the link in question seems to have been removed some time ago. Evil oatmeal (talk) 20:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Which PS3 game is region locked?

The article says: "All PlayStation 3 games except for one are region free.[4][5]", but I see nothing at either of these linked pages that says there is a non-region-free PS3 game, or what it might be. If so, what is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.185.161.246 (talk) 15:42, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Persona 4 Arena. Look it up. RAM (talk) 18:08, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

The problem... =

Imagine if everything was region encoded...

* This CD was released in another country. You cannot play it here.
* This book was written in another country. You cannot read it here, even if you speak the country's language.
* This cat was born in another country. You cannot pet it here.
* This toilet paper is encoded for anuses in another country, and cannot be used for wiping in this country.
* This shirt was made in another country. It cannot be worn here.
* This water was bottled in another country. You cannot drink it here.
* This oxygen is encoded for another country, and you cannot breathe it in this country. *dies*
* This death is encoded for another country. You cannot die here. *goes to jail*
* This jail was built in another country. You cannot go to jail here.

See the problem? 108.66.234.28 (talk) 18:56, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Time Zone Region Locking

I remember for some web-based Japanese games (Kantai Collection springs to mind), a form of region locking was imposed in checking that the player's computer's time zome was set to GMT+9, the time zone most/all of Japan falls under. While there are many regions which can't/don't employ it, are there more examples, and does this belong on the page? 2601:603:4E00:4170:CAD:540B:D723:4DBD (talk) 00:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Sega-Mega-Drive-regional-lockout-error.png

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:51, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Way of the Samurai 3 (PS3)

I don't believe Way of the Samurai 3 on the PlayStation 3 is a region locked title. I have been able to run the PAL release on an NTSC-J PS3 system. But maybe I am missing some information and perhaps there is some configuration for which this game does not run? 106.68.158.126 (talk) 04:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)