On Sun, 3 Aug 1997, SHIMIZU KENJI wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Aug 1997, Lancelot Mui wrote:
> > On Sat, 2 Aug 1997, Craig Noyes wrote:
> > >   The reason I asked is because a few years ago, major game companies
> > >rigged their games and systems so that we can't play games released in
> > >Japan on American systems (and vise versa).  I just wanted to know if
> > >this was still the case.  I always thought this change was kind of
> > >immature for a multi-national company.
> > 
> > [snip]
> > I'd say if you do not care about the warranty, you can have
> > your Saturn's hardware modified. This way you will be able to play all the
> > good stuffs.
> 
>  Well, in the worst case, buy both U.S. and Japanese version ^_^; (I saw 
> a international version of Play Station somewhere when I visited a 
> friend's house... can't remeber who it was, though... -_-)
> 
> 					Kenji Shimizu

The Net Yaroze version of Play Station has no regional lock.  I don't
think you can get it in the U.S. yet, though.  Plus it costs big bucks.
(The Net Yoroze is a [not very serious] developer's version of the Play
Station and cost about 5 times the regular PlayStation.  I don't know how
much the real serious developer's version costs.)

Anyway, it makes economic sense for these companies to have regional
locks.  e.g. the same game may sell for, say, half the Japanese price in
the U.S. due to different markets, and if somebody back-import the US
version to Japan (usually called the gray-market) the game companies can
lose money.  Somebody made a point about it hurting initial foreign sales
which is also true.

[totally going off a tangent] This is true even for US companies which
sells textbooks at a much cheaper price in Asia/India.  The paper may be
cheaper and it may not be hardback, but who keeps every textbook you used
for more than a semester anyway? (Rhetoriacal question.  I do know some
people who does.)

Anyway, yes, I still do think they are very narrow-minded in this.  And
now they are putting the same thing on DVD!  I really, really hope that it
will not kill LD so I can still get my favourite anime on that.  (Though
the EVA DVD is pretty attractive right now...)

Stephen