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Forums - Gaming Discussion - How Region locking is screwing people over (Video)

menx64 on 15 April 2012
Joelcool7 said:
Region locking is a very sensitive issue. Their are so many reasons to lock the content. The problem is are you better off unlocking it or do the benefits of locking out weigh unlocking. I am guessing Nintendo's next system the WiiU will be far more confusing for consumers in regions less supported simply because Nintendo is opening up online and leaving it in the developer/publishers hands. Meaning their won't likely be any consistency.

Now if I was Nintendo I would look for a business partner in the Arab world to bring my content into the region. Their are several regions growing in market influence that Nintendo could tap. Potential customers who remain unreached.

Though I do not think unlocking software is a smart idea. Rather Nintendo, Sony and MS should see the regions potential and invest in the region and bringing content to it. Services like NetFlix are not available due to legal issues as are most games.


So many reasons to maintain region locking. Though piracy is a wild card the benefits of unlocking could greatly reduce piracy. But what about the other issues. I would say the opening of Nintendo AL (Arab League) and maybe Nintendo India would be very smart ideas. Though unlocking the content for sale in all regions would not be. It works better for Valve because Valve is small in comparison to other companies and is not operating in most regions. For a bigger company region locking is almost necessary!

I dont see the logic behind blocking content for severak regions. 

 

 I mean when I look at Latinamerica, a 600 million + market, even if only 5% of the population are gamers we are talking about 30 million people... If you live in US, EU, or JP you dont really know what the region lock really does. No access to online-shops, we cannt use our own credit cards, all the add-on things blocked due to copyrights, overpriced consoles and games ($1500 ps3, or a $600 wii)...



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SvennoJ on 16 April 2012

I gave all my region 2 games and movies away when I moved from Europe to Canada.
Luckily I already bought most of my movies online for region 1. It wasn't hard to get a region free dvd player in Europe and tvs there all support 60hz NTSC, unlike my tv here that doesn't support 50hz PAL. It still sucks because some movies don't come out here and I currently don't have a region free blu-ray player.

There's more then just those big regions though. For example xbox live points and subscriptions are 20% more expensive in Canada for less then half the available content. American point cards are locked out here.
It took years before Canada finally got access to the ps3 video store.
But at least we have some content now, there are still plenty of countries that do not have access at all.

Internet is no better, plenty of sites simply state that the content is locked out for your region.



Epke on 16 April 2012

living as an foreigner in Japan, i know what region locked issue is, it sucks. i have to check everytime at the import store where a game is from, and don't start me on the frikkin PSN store!



Galaki on 16 April 2012

Region locking is mainly a supply control issue. They could price their stuff accordingly depending where you are.

Minor issues probably has to do with language barrier and politics.
You could say the same thing in 2 different countries and it totally have different meanings.



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Chark on 16 April 2012

It's nice that the Vita is region free, not sure about DLC though. I could get Gravity Daze...but I don't know Japanese so I'm waiting till June. Anyway, I remember having to use a device to trick my PS1 to play a few Japanese games.

Region free is the way to be.



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UltimateUnknown on 16 April 2012
Galaki said:
Region locking is mainly a supply control issue. They could price their stuff accordingly depending where you are.

Minor issues probably has to do with language barrier and politics.
You could say the same thing in 2 different countries and it totally have different meanings.

I don't know if you need to region lock content to price them accordingly in countries. I mean the UK and the rest of Europe fall in the PAL region, but the pricing for games in UK is different from the other regions due to a difference in currency.



 

Damnyouall on 16 April 2012

Region-locking is anti-consumer and anti-gamer. Just like its buddy DRM, all it does is encourage piracy.

Region-locking is the sole reason I won't buy 3DS until it's hacked. Really Nintendo, a region-locked HANDHELD (=a system you take with you while travelling to other regions)? For shame!



"Well certainly with the Xbox 360, we had some challenges at the launch. Once we identified that we took control of it. We wanted to do it right by our customers. Our customers are very important to us." -Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb (10/2013). Note: RRoD was fixed with the Jasper-revision 3 years after the launch of 360

"People don't pay attention to a lot of the details."-Yusuf Mehdi explaining why Xbone DRM scheme would succeed

"Fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity; it's called Xbox 360,”-Don Mattrick

"The region locking of the 3DS wasn't done for profits on games"-MDMAlliance

Mendicate Bias on 16 April 2012

Is that you in the video?



                                           

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TomaTito on 16 April 2012

Sounds like he is more angry that his area adopted region 2 rather than the more active and cheaper region 1. Curiously, behind him you see Xenoblade and Last Story, the few games region 1 has had to wait for.



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Damnyouall on 16 April 2012
TomaTito said:

Sounds like he is more angry that his area adopted region 2 rather than the more active and cheaper region 1. Curiously, behind him you see Xenoblade and Last Story, the few games region 1 has had to wait for.


That's like saying Rosa Parks was really just angry about not being white when she protested an unjust system by refusing to sit in the back of the bus.



"Well certainly with the Xbox 360, we had some challenges at the launch. Once we identified that we took control of it. We wanted to do it right by our customers. Our customers are very important to us." -Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb (10/2013). Note: RRoD was fixed with the Jasper-revision 3 years after the launch of 360

"People don't pay attention to a lot of the details."-Yusuf Mehdi explaining why Xbone DRM scheme would succeed

"Fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity; it's called Xbox 360,”-Don Mattrick

"The region locking of the 3DS wasn't done for profits on games"-MDMAlliance