What is the point of region locking?

[env963]

On the games that really dont have much voice acting such as Shmups. Why not make all languages available and you just choose the region your in? That way they could just release it everywhere on the same day. Is there something I am missing? For example, i would love to get undefeated hd for my PS3 over here. But its a Japanese game only. Doesnt make sense to me.

[Flake]

On the games that really dont have much voice acting such as Shmups. Why not make all languages available and you just choose the region your in? That way they could just release it everywhere on the same day. Is there something I am missing? For example, i would love to get undefeated hd for my PS3 over here. But its a Japanese game only. Doesnt make sense to me.

The PS3 does not have region locking.

[env963]

Oh yeah, that's right! I was just playing my PS2 and i have it modded to play panzer dragoon which isn't possible in the U.S. I guess i didnt think before i typed that up. LOL So I was wondering why they do that!

[Flake]

The most legit reason I have heard is that it is to control the release of the game into different markets in order to avoid third party retailers from buying stock in the launch country and then selling it in another country before that regions 'street date'.

World wide launches with physical media are very hard and very expensive.

[o.pwuaioc]

World wide launches with physical media are very hard and very expensive.

The reason being...?

[Cronozilla]

Short answer? Money. (It's always because of money)

There are legit concerns, of course, but in general the fact that they do profit off of the concept is at the core. Nintendo has argued, for example, brand protection.

Back in the 90s, Nintendo of America wouldn't have been able to censor out Christian symbols in games if they could just release it once and be done. Would this have hurt Nintendo? Who knows? Considering the general level of responsibility parents hold themselves to in the US ... it's not really far fetched to think people would have been mad specifically at Nintendo for these games being on their system.

I mean, parents generally thought the idea of the Super Nintendo was them "milking it" because the NES was all their kids needed (mindset of a toy).

The better question is ... can they really argue it now? And ... not really, no.

The reason why worldwide launches are difficult to do for physical media is you have different teams doing different localizations. And localization in one area doesn't take as long as another. Now, of course, the answer is to do all the languages at once ... but come now, we're talking about video games ... almost nothing about their development cycle is remotely logical.

[Flake]

World wide launches with physical media are very hard and very expensive.

The reason being...?

Licensing, marketing, producing product for all markets at the same time (warehouse space and factory capacity are finite), shipping, document printing, copyrighting, researching the product for potential patent or IP violations in every country you plan to release in....

That's a lot of balls to juggle for just ONE country. Now...multiply it by the entire first world.

[neilencio]

This is just a copypasta from wikipedia:

Pricing. It is difficult to maintain a single pricing structure that can be applied worldwide. Region-locking a console means that there is no need for pricing parity across the world; different territories can have different prices for games without people simply shopping "wherever is cheaper".

Sensitive regions. Some games could be regarded as offensive for religious or political reasons, and regional lockout may be required to prevent these games from being distributed in sensitive countries.

Staged launches. If a console is region-locked, then staged launches of the games would be easier, as console producers could easily control the huge bow-wave of people wanting a game the moment it is released.

Piracy. Piracy is more common in some countries than others. For example it is particularly common in China as compared to North America. Region locks can prevent pirated games from these countries from being played on systems outside of their designated region.

[ElkinFencer10]

Another thing that has always occurred to me (although I have no clue if this is actually a reason for region locking) is that the home region can be a "test." Take the Famicom Disk Drive and the 64DD. They didn't do well in Japan, so Nintendo didn't bother bringing them to America. Then again, we have the Virtual Boy. The more I talk about that idea, the less sense it begins to make to me.... lol...But yeah. That's something that always came to mind for me.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

That FDD isn't region locked. You can use it with a top-loader NES and a Famicom adapter. You could even use it with a toaster if you can find a way to plug it in. The most legitimate reason was on a technical level - the differences between NTSC and PAL TVs mainly.

Region locking is a pain for sure, but most consoles either have an easy NTSC-U/NTSC-J workaround. Many aren't locked at all. So it's annoying but not really an obstacle.