An initiative has been taken up through an alliance between Rubicon Group Holding and MEC which distributes Sony products in Saudi Arabia, which could result in the regular bans that videogames faces in the region being averted.

They plan to “localise” games to suit the needs of the Arab world. This has been taken up after numerous games, including recent releases like Dead Rising 2 and Mafia II were banned from the UAE.

The localisation process would see the games being dubbed in Arabic and also omitting certain things that may be offensive for the people of the region. That may go as far as the introduction of a completely new character.

“Those games that are extra-violent, or have sensitive issues for the region, will be edited for content,” said Ghassan Ayoubi, the executive director of Rubicon Holding in the Gulf.

“It’s not purely dubbing in Arabic, but eliminating things that may be inappropriate for the region. [It's] introducing one or two elements that will be specifically for the region – maybe introducing a new character.

“It’s not censoring … it’s tailoring or customising it for the market. It’s not deviating from the game itself.”

However, the big news which seems to have slipped through this interview is that Mr.Ayoubi has mentioned Uncharted 3 as being in development. He mentions the name while saying that the focus of this localisation process will be PS3 games which have already released and titles that are in development being worked upon.

Mr Ayoubi said FIFA Soccer 11 and the third instalment in the Uncharted series could be among the first games to be “Arabised and localised”. There is “a big market here” for video games, he said, but regional distribution can be “difficult” because of cultural sensitivities.

According to him, the company will work on “”two to four games per year”

They will also be producing new games tailor-made for the Arab nations in the future which will focus on Arabic stories and history.

Rubicon’s pretty big in UAE and a quote from them can’t be ignored. It seems like Sony’s already developing Uncharted 3 and are collaborating with these guys so that it’s not banned from the UAE. However, this can’t be considered as a confirmation of the title being in development in any way.

We will try and get in touch with Sony and see if we can get a answer from them.

Source

So 3rd installment 2011? R3 and UC3 for late 2011 for West and TLG and Versus for Jp? Think it's gonna happen. Good times

and I'm glad Sony are tapping into these markets, lots of potential there

I think getting into China and all these places early will be really beneficial to Sony later on.  Hopefully all this work they do in these places pays off!

yey!! Mohammed Drake 

There is an high chance that Uncharted 3 would be treasure hunting in the Middle east killing sand people so having an arab do it is fine since uncharted has no connections to any country or faction related to an country. But i dont care about this because we get the normal version and the arabs get the special version. 

This has a great chance of happening !

maybe nate is going to look for Atlantis Now? :O 

Oh, GOD no. Have any of you heard Naruto in Arabic? If you thought the English dubs are bad, you've seen nothing.

Edit: I swear to god, if they even DARE make only these localizations available in the Middle East and nothing else (or don't even include options for the normal game)...then Sony have lost a customer.

But this already happened!

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "sand people"?

this is just a waste of time since most people in the middle east buy the imported US version.

these "bans" mean nothing more than those guys trying to act important.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

I seriously hope the shops nearby will still bring in US/EU imports.