Matching the trend for Microsoft consoles, the Xbox One will region lock its games.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/05/26/report-microsoft-addresses-xbox-one-39-s-regional-restrictions.aspx?utm_content=bufferdc451&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Buffer

The Xbox One will be region locked, only allowing it to play games bought from the country of origin where the console was purchased.  It's not surprising, but it's nice to get some kind of confirmation from Microsoft.

A representative from Microsoft shared the details of Xbox One's regional shortcomings with Digital Trends saying, "Similar to the movie and music industry, games must meet country-specific regulatory guidelines before they are cleared for sale. We will continue to work with our partners to follow these guidelines with Xbox One.”

With only a few exceptions, all consoles have typically featured some kind of regional locking to prevent the import of games from other countries. The need for such a system mostly has to do with the differing regulations and taxation of media in different countries.

For more on Xbox One, you can check out all of our coverage here.

[Source: Digital Trends]

Man, this sucks... =(

like the Wii U then

The Wii U does it, as have previous MS consoles. So why is this news surprising? Unfortunate yes, but not surprising.

I thought most Xbox 360 games were not region locked but yeah it's not suprising.

Pff, they're really trying to use differing regulations and taxation as the reason for this? Sorry but won't work, PC is region-free no problem and so is PS3 (and the DS, I guess, and probably some other devices as well).

Damn.. I was hoping to import those hundreds of exclusive japanese XboxOne games...

...?

I would actually like to know how many people import games. I know you heard a lot of people complaining about this on gaming forums, but I really like to see actual numbers. Gaming forums represent a few local minority of customers, so depending on what the actual numbers are it wouldn't make sense to implement this if not many people are going to use it.

I personally never had any desires to import a game, the only time I even consider it was for Xenoblade, but it was just a thought, importing outside of America is simple to expense in my country. 

I hate region locking, I was so happy when I was able to import Persona 4 four months early from the states.