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Importing PSX2 Illegal?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the goddammit! dept.

An anonymous reader sent us to a gamepot article that tells us that importing a PSX2 (currently available only in Japan) is actually illegal. The demand on this box is amazing, but consider what it is capable of, its probably well deserved.

8 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sony don't want it exported yet by vitaflo · · Score: 3

    But, this way, they only get the one sale...
    I'm wondering whether this might actually be an unintended side-effect.

    Yes, they only get one sale, but it's one sale of a machine that loses them money. Remember, the real money is in the software, and this is the whole reason for territorial lockout.

    The premise is like this...Let's say JapanCo is making a cool fighting game and it sells like hotcakes in Japan. Because of this they're going to make it available State-side, but AmeriCo is going to publish it over here. What happens when everyone was able to easily buy the Japanese game when it came out instead of waiting for the American release? AmeriCo loses a lot of money, gets pissed off, and doesn't make as many games for PS2. This in turn makes Sony lose money (less games, less money). It's not about making people happy as much as it is not wanting to piss off publishers. This is why you need a mod chip to play Japanese games on the American PS1.

    I suspect this whole "illegal import" deal is just another phase of that. Every territorial lockout has had a solution provided at some point. Making it illegal to even export the product from Japan is probably the best way they could have done what normally is done in the hardware to stop Westerners from playing Eastern PS2 games.

  2. Sony don't want it exported yet by spiralx · · Score: 3

    Well Sony don't really want anyone exporting their console from Japan before they're ready to launch it overseas. That way they can change the setup of the console and charge what they like in the US and Europe, safe in the knowledge that this time it's illegal for someone to import one from Japan where it'll likely be cheaper. Remember Sega's antics with the Megadrive/Genesis? It's similar except this time Sony have actually managed to get the law behind them.

  3. Nothing to do with Crypto by Kagato · · Score: 3

    I doubt this story has anything to do with crypto or the ilk. Japan is a very protectionist country. If a large company like sony (Who's profits have been on the decline because of the yen) asks to Japanese gov't keep the PSx2's inside the country so marketing doesn't get ruined then that's what is going to happen.

    To date no japanese company has ever been purchased by a forign company.

    When the first American company (Cargill, Inc. the largest private company in the world) attempted to trade on the nippon market they were boycotted. They had to enter into a partnership with a Japanese company before anyone would accept their trades.

    This is nothing new to a country that has a long history of being over protective with their markets.

  4. Why ?? by 348 · · Score: 3

    Why would they need bullet proof encryption on a console anyway? This just seems like a real blunder on Sony's part. They know the restrictions, they had to know this could/would happen. I don't get it.

    --

    More race stuff in one place,
    than any one place on the net.

    1. Re:Why ?? by Genom · · Score: 5

      OK - here goes (hopefully I won't screw this up)

      Encryption: Needed to protect the DVD player code under license from DVD-CCA. They require this. If Sony wants their machine to legally play DVDs, they have to play by DVD-CCAs rules (unfortunately)

      Region codes: $$$. By implememting region codes on the DVDs and games and whatnot, they can charge $x for the game/dvd in Japan (where $x is the going price over there for such things) and charge $y for the game/dvd in the US (where $y is the going price over here for such things).

      Now, the industrious, smart person, in a world free of region codes, might say:

      "Hmm...Considering the exchange rate, I can import the game from Japan cheaper than I can buy it here in the US."

      ...and proceeds to do this. It doesn't matter to the companies if the game has been released here or not. They view it as losing $ since this smart person is getting the game for less than they'd like to sell it to him for *where he is*.

      Thus, region codes are implemented.

      Now technically, as far as I can understand, price fixing based on location is illegal (IANAL, so any who are, can you confirm this?) - but somehow they've managed to circumvent that by placing blocks in the HARDWARE that prevent playback of games/dvds from other "regions".

      Now...as for DVD-CCA knowing that DeCSS would happen? Sure they did. And I'm sure their thoughts went something like this:

      "We should encrypt the data, and use a key to decrypt it, but license the keys, so we make $$ every time someone wants to make a player, or encode their movies to DVD."

      "Good idea - but how should we encrypt it - Hiring someone good at crypto is expensive, and there are export restrictions - this could cost us a lot of $!"

      "So we use a weaker, easier crypto to encrypt it."

      "But it'll get "cracked" by those "hackers" who will pirate the DVDs and players and we'll lose more $!

      "No problem - by the time they do that, we'll have made enough money to take them to court. They won't be able to afford to fight it out long in court, so we'll win. Then we'll have a legal prescedent in our favor, and we'll win all the other cases we decide to fight on similar ground."

      ...and so, a couple years down the road, here we are, DeCSS is a reality, and the DVD-CCA is suing one of the "authors" (see past /. articles for explanation - I'm not getting into that here).

      ::sigh:: It's sad that the US legal system allows stuff like this to happen. The consumer is bilked out of as much $ as possible, and noone has the $ to fight the corps in court (the EFF is making a valiant effort though!). Thus, the corps not only get what they want, but they make it harder for anyone to challenge them in the future. Their power grows, and the power of the consumer to fight against them is diminished.

      The solution isn't government. PACs and "special interest groups" have seen to that. The corps just sponsor some SIG with enough cash to buy the votes they need in congress, or to push through laws with "amendments" that serve their purposes and provide loopholes for them.

      So the government isn't going to help. The corps have made it nearly impossible to fight them in court, so the courts won't help either. What can help? I don't know. Things may be too far gone to be salvaged.

      BUT there are organizations like the EFF that are TRYING to fight crap like this. Hopefully they'll make a difference.

      OK, I've rambled on FAR longer than I should ::grin:: Time to get back to work.

  5. Get 'em while you can! by Delta-9 · · Score: 4

    Someone has 6 brand new PSX2s forsale on eBay.

    I am sure eBay will cancel the auction if this is really illegal.

    -d9

  6. Sony Fud by krolours · · Score: 4

    I think encryption is not the true reason.
    It's more a DVD-like case ; they just don't want europeans and americans to get japanese pxs2.

    Check this articl e (in french) :
    Basically, sony Europe will sue anyone importing psx2 in Europe (businesses & individuals).

  7. PS2 in UK by michael.creasy · · Score: 4

    As the PS2 contains encryption and I live in the UK, if the police asked me to see what was encrypted on my PS2 (assuming I had one) and I couldn't decrypt it, I'd be breaking the law. So doesn't that make possesion of a PS2 in the UK illegal ??

    Which makes me think - if I owned a DVD but no DVD player I'd also be in possession of encrypted data I couldn't decrypt....