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Region-free PS3
An anonymous reader writes "IGN writes that "In a QA session following the platform keynote address at GDC 2006 this morning, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison confirmed what was heavily demanded for import gamers all over the world and yet previously thought unthinkable for a major corporation: the PS3 will be region-free for gaming." There's no chance that the MPAA members would allow the same for movies but at least it's a step in the right direction."
One of the biggest reasons mod chips tend to be "iffy" is that, while playing illegally-copied games is illegal, playing out-of-region games isn't. This move may buy them more than it costs, since that's one less reason to give for the legitimacy of mod chips. Now if they could just do something about that pesky "backup" excuse.
Region locks should never have existed in first place, they are only there so different publishers can publish the same game in different regions and to enable price fixing.
No matter why this was done, whether to make sure mod chips don't have any legal functions or to really do something useful, it had to be done. Region locks are attempts to suppress international trade and competition. They have been ruled illegal in some countries and are not protected by any DMCA-like laws. There should have been some fines over region locks but well, knowing the corrupt governments we have it'd end up being 5.95$ total.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
This announcement seems all flash and no substance -- Europe will STILL have to have a separate set of games because they use PAL instead of NTSC anyway. What this *might* mean is that more Japanese-market games will be playable by NA gamers. Now don't get me wrong, that's a good thing, but it's hard not to think that the real reason for this is Sony wanting to save money where it can by not creating unnecessary "editions" of the same games.
My sig is too lon
Root-kit free, no.
Even moreso, who cares about stability if Linux allows the moon people to make your computer explode?
(PS3 games will not be locked to anyone, stop repeating that rumour, it has been denied already)
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Actually, what he really said is that the machine itself will not have any region restrictions, but it would be up to publishers whether they want to restrict their games to certain TV formats etc. Which they probably will for many major releases.
Still if a publisher, especially from Japan, knows they aren't going to publish a game in the US/Euro they can leave it region free and let importers have more fun. Still a good thing. Lets hope they get the system off the ground, so far my impression is one of a very expensive hype machine that has to play catch up to Xbox Live. Still, I'm all for having two (three??) great next-gen systems in my living room.
After the rootkit fiasco, it's starting to sound like Sony is trying to be more consumer friendly. With this, and the no downsampling Blu-Ray analogue output, I might actually consider buying things made by Sony.
Perhaps Sony, touched with the debacles it's been involved in recently (the Rootkit being the most well known), has decided its time to rely on a modicum of common sense. After all, the market has done without regional coding since the dawn of time (well, until a few years ago) and prospered.
The simplest solution being the best (as is often the case) says remove the complexity that doesn't really gain anything, and see what you have. The copy protection on a console.. I can live with that.. I've never been that interested in backups, as I take great care with the disks.. I have, however, been most peeved when buying region coded items that refuse to play just because I'm in the 'wrong country'.
Hopefully it's the start of a new trend of business actually listening, rather than dictating. I doubt it, but hey. It's a hope.
The blurb says 'no chance' the MPAA will get rid of region coding for movies, but if the gaming industry sees a solid business case (as in, they end up with more money), then maybe the MPAA will see the light as well. After all, greed is eternal.
While this was one of the main things keeping modchips legal (as modchips SHOULD be legal), it is a good thing that restrictions like this are starting to be dropped. There's no good reason why games shouldn't work in every region.
So the PS3 will be able to play PS1 and PS2 games... could this mean it'll be region free for those games as well? I finally get to play the Sakura Taisen games released for the PS2 but couldn't because they were dual-layered and wouldn't work with swap discs?
If older games are region-free, the good word of mouth import gamers will be giving Sony will be strong enough to carry over into other markets I think.
I might be very happy.
I gather that a lot of modern TVs will work with either PAL or NTSC inputs, so they won't have any trouble with this; and since the PS3 is being designed with HDTV in mind, PAL vs NTSC is really kind of irrelevant. HDTV is the same everywhere.
I personally wonder if this is something to do with Australia. They've ruled down there that region coding on DVDs is actually illegal; I hear that all Aussie DVD players are now multiregion. Region-coding the PS3 will get Sony into legal trouble in Australia. Region-coding all non-Australian PS3s will be kind of pointless - people prepared to import foreign games will presumably also be happy to import an Aussie PS3. So they may as well drop the whole thing.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Believe me, they are still the same old rootkit slinging, DRM-pushing, grandma-jailing, DCMA-humping, RIAA-loving Sony they've always been.
Even this move is probably just a ploy to make mod chips even less legitimate, as the first poster said. Call me cynical but companies don't make moves unless they believe that it will increase their revenue somehow. They are planning to make more money off of you in some way, don't ever doubt that.
Whilst it may have region-free games, will all the games actually be available in all markets at the same time? And will online retailers be allowed to ship games over to areas where a certain game hasn't been released yet?
Or is it because Sony is satisfied with the court decisions in the UK, etc. where they successfully sued importers of the PSP for trademark violations?
After all, why worry about the technical hassles of DRM when you can sue the pants off of somebody trying to sell Japanese games in the US, US games in the EU, etc?
Japan also has 810P as well. There are other "weird" HD formats circling around that would also need to be taken care of. North American HD is not the same HD everywhere for that very reason. Different resolutions, refresh rates, etc. makes this hell for a manufacturer. The biggest problem is that TV display equipment is not like computer monitors where they can switch around resolutions and refresh rates as necessary unless the device is designed for it. Although I don't think Sony will have much problem with this because these days most of the output circuitry/firmware will be given a certain set of allowable resolutions for each region. The only item to worry about then is whether the game will support the resolution and if it won't, then the Playstation should be able to up/down-sample the data for output.
Wouldn't this be more part of the BlueRay news instead of PS3 specific news?
Japan and USA to share BlueRay region codes.
Import games and movies here I come!
TFA suggests the possibility of a "no play" screen if an import game demands an output signal that is incompatible with your region coding so that things dont go bang. which to me suggests two possibilities.
1. the author is dumb
2. all my tvs have been magic tvs
currently (well, not this very second) i'm playing a US NTSC import of a PSone game on my PAL telly in the UK, sure the picture is a bit stretched but even this cheapo 19" tv has a 16:9 anamorphic button, squashing said picture back down to something more pleasant on the eyes. same goes for NTSC DVDs too.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
RICK: Oh, stop being so blinking bourgousie! All property is theft, Vyvyan.
VYVYAN: All right, then. Where's your girlie purse?
VYVYAN: [takes Rick's coin purse, removes some money] Ha ha! Found it!
RICK: You put that back! That's my personal property!
I'm very sober, and very very bored!
This is NOT something we should let go. It maybe a dead horse now, but it's a horse that should never have been born in the first place.
It's this sort of "forget about it, I don't care" mentality that is allowing corporations to steadily erode our rights. It gives the corporations the artistic license to experiment with new and whacky control schemes and see which ones stick and which ones cause a backlash.
I'm willing to bet that they'll try this exact same stunt again, or at least something similar to it, later on. They'll wait for the political environment to change a little more, maybe do a better job at testing and bug-fixing, and suddenly it'll be on all the disks again and people will think it's "normal". Just as CDs are twice as expensive as audio tapes and people consider that "normal". Or that region restrictions are "normal".
If people were actually paying attention and fighting back as they did with the rootkit debacle, there wouldn't be the problems there are now with things like DMCA, region-coding, etc.
Yeah, but maybe they could think about doing that by pleasing their customers, eh?
While I see your point, I hope you are wrong :-)
Oh, like Microsoft-bashers let go of the BSOD or the monkeyboy-thing? Sure.
-- Aniseed the Panda
Here's a few clues for you, since you don't seem to have any:
Firstly, HDMI is not "a proprietary version of DVI created by Sony". See http://www.hdmi.org/
Secondly, all "HD Ready" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_ready) HDTVs sold here in Europe have HDMI.
Thirdly DVI to HDMI adapters are not expensive. You can get one for about $7 on Ebay, including postage.
Fourthly, HDMI is not a form of DRM. HDCP is DRM, but HDCP can be implemented on DVI as well as HDMI.
"You don't get to make a backup of books, art, or other physical media that is non-electronic"
This looks like a good starter. Of COURSE I can make a backup of these. You see, I own them, this entitles me to back them up should I so desire. Of course, how I go about it is left up to me. I could certainly scan in the book to store on my computer, and depending on the medium of the art I could take a hires digital image or scan.
"We no longer live in the age of VCRs eating tapes though, and on the rediculously rare (relative to tape eating) chance that your device does damage your disc, the player manufacturer should be responsible for procuring you a replacement. "
You're right, we live in a the age where companies actively look for ways to make our old recordings obsolete with the newer players so we have to rebuy it all over again. Add to that the pathetically short lifespan of CD and DVDs and there is a damn good chance your media will become worthless just as quickly as it did with VHS.
"If, however, you roll over your favorite video game CD with your office chair (not I know anybody who has ever done that...), why should you have more right to a replacement than the guy who had his paperback fall out of his jacket pocket into the toilet on a bus (not that... well, you know)?"
The answer to this one lies in the depths of property law, and while IANAL, the difference seems to be that while you actually OWN the book, the trend these days with software and music etc. is to sell/rent you a license to use it. This makes the physical media irrelevant. So if I don't actually own something, but only have a license from the company to use it, then if I break it they had damn well better get me a new physical copy for nothing more than the cost of the physical media and shipping. They can't have their cake and eat it to, despite their best efforts.
"DRM should never prevent you from doing something with your media that would have otherwise been legal under copyright law, but I'm not convinced that there is a good reason for the law to allow backups."
If you can't think of any good reason for the law the allow backups, perhaps you are not qualified to debate this since in order to debate something correctly you need to have a thorough understanding of BOTH sides of the matter, which you CLEARLY do not.
Please don't take this response in a negative tone...I just wanted to point out that there are serious holes in your logic and attempted to patch them up.
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Yes, but perhaps they've learned that that pleasing customers is more important to their bottom line than preventing piracy.
I don't care if they're only after money. Sony is a company. It's what they do. What I do care about is how much I benefit from this.
is that companies distrbuting games and other content want to have it both ways. On one hand, they say that they have "licensed" you the content, and thus you do not have the right to make copies. Your license allows you to have one instance of the content. On the other hand, they say that they have "sold" you the physical media, and if anything happens to the CD/DVD, it's something you owned that is now distroyed. Your purchase allows you to have one instance of the physical object.
IMO, it should work one way or the other:
If they're licensing the content, then if the physical media is destroyed and you can't exercise your license, there should be some way to either get some money back (since you've lost the use of the "perpetual" license you were sold) or to replace the media so you can exercise your right to the license.
If they are selling a physical object, then you should be able to duplicate its contents freely, in case the object is destroyed.
The way things are right now, the content distributers have all the rights, and the content purchasers are in a sort of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" bind. Duplicate your content, and you're a piratical anarchist. Don't, and it's quite likely that you'll be out of luck when the physical object is damaged.
This is currently a problem for me. I bought Civ 4 to play on my Windows game machine. I played it for about three months before the CD got scratched. While the scratches were my fault (I failed to take into account how much dust was accumulating in the PC) now the $30 game that I purchased is unusable. Since I purchased a perpetual license, is it OK for me to download an iso of the game CD and burn it so I can play? Not according to the game publisher.
I'm not talking about what is currently legal. I'm making a point that the way things stand right now, a lot of people are frustrated with the seeming one-sideness of content distribution as it's implemented right now.
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You obviously don't have children. After buffing the scratches out of the Finding Nemo DVD for the fifth time, I was ready to go back to VHS. Then I discovered DVD Shrink. The original stays in the case and when the kids scratch the copy too badly to be played, I throw it away and make a new copy. Consumers need the rights to protect their property.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
PAL/NTSC will still be significant [because] It will be many years before the majority of the customers have high-definition tv's.
Standard-definition TV sets in Brazil use PAL color coding on the same "M" (60 Hz) scan frequencies used by NTSC. In fact, one of Nintendo of Europe's Metroid Prime titles requires support for PAL at 60 Hz.
but I'm not convinced that there is a good reason for the law to allow backups.
I am. Why? Because
a) it's technically possible to do
b) *I* can do it myself
c) It's not specifically outlawed