Xbox To Use Region-Locked Peripherals

Cutriss writes "This newspost over at National Console Supply Exchange seems to leave all the potential Xbox controller-importers in the dust. Apparently the US Xbox will only allow peripherals with a specific USB ID to connect to the console, thus locking out the use of Japanese controllers, which will have different USB IDs." Update this doesn't mean all peripherals will be region encoded. Apparently Joypads will work on both sides of the pond.

Comments

So?

[FortKnox]

Playstation made it so you couldn't play japanese playstation games.

I don't see the big deal, here. If Japan wants to sell controlers, they'll make them with the appropriate "US" USB settings.

Or people will make an adapter, like the modchip.

Re:So?

[ddstreet]

If Japan wants to sell controlers, they'll make them with the appropriate "US" USB settings.

USB vendor/product ID has nothing at all to do with "US" USB settings, in fact the only country-specific part of the USB spec is the String (descriptors) which have a lang id.

If the X-Box is discriminating based on USB IDs, it is locking out certain Vendors or certain Vendor's products. Most likely they are locking out certain vendors, as the product ID is really up to the Vendor; the Vendor ID is assigned by the USB-IF.

Update from the web site

[David Frankenstein]

* Addendum at 02:28PM EST *
A lot of e-mails have poured in from other sources and developers these past few hours. A call from an Microsoft employee also came in. The Japanese X-Box joypad should work with USA consoles. We'll confirm this tonight once our suppliers test the joypad with some USA games we shipped them earlier this week. If all is well, then our shipments of Japanese X-Box joypads won't go to waste after all.

Also of note:

[Ieshan]

Microsoft will be installing QuarterSlots(TM) into their controllers, to make sure that the players have actually bought the controllers and USB keys legally.

"It isn't fair!" claimed Joey, who says that "Mom wont even give me fifty cents for a game on the X-Box", even after he bought it with his "christmas money".

Microsoft will be handing out the controllers free, but will be requiring that they be brought back into the stores to empty out the quarters that have been filled inside. A microsoft spokesperson commented: "Hell, 50 bucks of change a day gets heavy, you know. You wouldn't want to hold that in your hand, would you? See, we're just making it easier on the consumer!"

Perhaps I labor under a misapprehension...

[M-2]

but is there a SANE reason for not allowing the use of these imported controllers?

Other than "A Machine We Control Totally", that is.

Is there some kind of incredible controller for the Xbox that is only available in Japan (as the original response controllers for the PSX were)? So that Microsoft doesn't want people to have them because of some other kind of interesting occurance? And how long until someone either finds a way to change the USB ID in the controller firmware, or an enterprising company decides to make their own US-based USB ID controllers that match a local controller that isn't USian? Fairly soon, I would guess.

Re:Perhaps I labor under a misapprehension...

[FauxPasIII]

> but is there a SANE reason for not allowing the use of these imported controllers?

Only for suitable definitions of sane. The idea of all region locks is that you can charge what each individual market will bear for a product, without worrying that import from a lower-priced region will force you to drop your prices in a more rich region. Classic example, India is poor so DVDs are sold with a much lower markup there, but DVD/CCA/MPAA can't have people importing cheap Indian DVDs and reselling them in the US where the markup is much, much higher. So, they make them incompatible.

In case this sounds ridiculous, it might help to know that it's also illegal in many parts of the world. Australia and the EU are both invsestigating DVD region codes. Google for 'price discrimination', 'market segmentation', or 'price fixing' for all the info you care to absorb.

XBOX != PC

[Amarok.Org]

The XBOX is a game *console*. It's perfectly reasonable to maintain a closed standard. What MS is trying to do is make sure they get their licensing fees from "official" peripheral manufacturers, instead of having their profits dried up by cheap Taiwanese knockoffs.

When another company does things to try and protect their market share, it's reasonable. When Microsoft does it, it's inherently evil. Remember, Microsoft does *NOT* have a monopoly on the console market, and has to claw it's way into contention.

I'm not a Microsoft fan by any means (MacOS, MacOS X, and Linux all run my household servers/desktops), but I do own an XBox.

Re:XBOX != PC

[Wateshay]

I have absolutely no problem with them doing this. The problem I have is if they want legal protection to allow them to protect this revenue stream. It should be perfectly legal to create a USB pass-through that modifies the region coding on a device in order to allow non-region devices to work. This is the same issue as with DVD. I don't care if DVD manufacturers want to put region coding on the DVD, but if I figure out a way to defeat that region coding, that should be perfectly legal.

Re:XBOX != PC

[Angst Badger]

The XBOX is a game *console*. It's perfectly reasonable to maintain a closed standard.

Oh hooey! This is exactly the same as if a fork manufacturer tried to restrict the brands of pork chops you were allowed to stick it into. Selling a product entitles you to be paid for the product; it does not magically grant you additional rights to dictate to third parties how to conduct their business. That's called an "anticompetitive practice", and the current administration notwithstanding, it's illegal.

Of course, the laws are written for and interpreted by people who are paid by the people who want the laws in the first place, so it's rather academic, but still...

Re:XBOX != PC

[theridersofrohan]

The XBOX is a game *console*. It's perfectly reasonable to maintain a closed standard. What MS is trying to do is make sure they get their licensing fees from "official" peripheral manufacturers, instead of having their profits dried up by cheap Taiwanese knockoffs.

Yes the XBOX is a marketed as console (although, as you and I know, it's suspiciously close to a PC). It is, however, the only console to disallow importing peripherals. A joypad bought in Japan is not any less official than one bought in the UK, the USA etc. And what makes you think for that matter that "cheap Taiwanese knockoffs" will not create "cheap joystick knowoffs" with US USB ids?

This is a good example of Microsoft trying to totally control their livingroom PC...

Re:XBOX != PC

[Chris Burke]

When another company does things to try and protect their market share, it's reasonable. When Microsoft does it, it's inherently evil. Remember, Microsoft does *NOT* have a monopoly on the console market, and has to claw it's way into contention.

Oh, that's right. I remember all those posts along the lines of "God bless Nintendo for using proprietary DVD technology to lock out unlicensed 3rd party developers!" I myself have written ballads in praise of Cisco for breaking compatability with other company's routers. And don't forget the kick-ass /. party we had to celebrate the brilliance of Intel making a proprietary slot connector for their CPUs to lock out clones! At least I assume it was kick-ass... I can't remember a thing about it!

Or maybe it's because it didn't happen.

Nice try, but if you want hypocrisy, you'll have to search for it somewhere else. Go check any other article where someone has tried to lock in their market share by locking -out- competitors, and you'll find the only people who thought it was okay -then- are the ones who are saying it's okay for MS to do -now-... Like you.

Not true.

[drfrank]

First hand account. Japanese controller works with US Xbox.

Change USB ID

[Anonymous Coward]

QTools allows you to modify the ID of USB devices. This has been used for a while to get non-3Com USB ethernet devices to work with the 3Com Audreys that 3Com created and dropped last year. http://www.klsi.com/drivers/index.htm - look for qttoolsinstall.exe

So...

[Neuracnu Coyote]

So you're telling me that the new japanese PleasureVibe erotic force-feedback controller I got off Ebay won't work when I get shot on Halo? God damn that Microsoft...

The headline shows the real reason to worry

[syzxys]

Xbox To Use Region-Locked Peripherals

True, maybe the Japanese controllers will work with the MS consoles, but we need to look beyond the immediate future here.

Hmm, let's think here...

1. MS (rumored to be) using region locking, *in the context of*
2. the well-known DVD region fiasco, equals...

Well, at any rate, it sure makes me nervous. Think about when they start selling region-locked Ethernet, or region locked hard drives, etc. add-ons for the Xbox. Region locking in general is a way for large companies to restrain trade contrary to international agreements. It was never a problem before recently because either (a) nobody thought of it (doubtful) or (b) the technological means to do it weren't around until recently.

DVD's have recently proven (in some people's minds, anyway) that "consumers" (if we're all consumers, who the hell is producing, btw?) will put up with this region locking restraint of trade nonsense. And it's a well known fact that the courts are so far behind in their understanding of technology that they won't figure out what's going on until nobody even remembers the way things used to be. I mean, "Microsoft" and "restraint of trade" -- who would have ever thought of those two words in the same sentence? :-) IOW, this doesn't surprise me in the least.

At least I know which gaming console I won't be buying anytime soon, though! :-)

---
Have you crashed Windows XP with a simple printf recently? Try it!

Shouldn't USB be renamed then?

[prisoner-of-enigma]

After all, it's no longer "Universal", is it? Perhaps it could be called RSB, for "Regional Serial Bus", or perhaps NSB for "National Serial Bus".

Seriously, I can only see one or two reasons why someone would want to implement this region locking:

First, I doubt a domestic company would want to take tech support calls for foreign-made equipment. And, yes, you know some clueless fool will call MS up, waste their time, bitching about why his Far East ContollerPad isn't working. Worse, perhaps they aren't tested to similar standards and could pose a threat to the Xbox. Who knows?

Second, and this is the more insidious one, they might do this because of internal competition, the same reason DVD region locking is used. Regional branches of the same company making the same product may have wildly divergent pricing and release schedules. Since Asia usually gets the cool toys first, the North American division wants to protect its turf by preventing imports of the Asian goods until they can get around to marketing the product domestically. While that makes good business sense, it's typically used to hide a serious case of "head up the ass" when the domestic vendor is slow to put out new products.