PS3 Officially Confirmed to be Region-Free

[JimRune]

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.

Source:http://ps3.ign.com/articles/697/697656p1.html

[EXreaction]

Nice...very nice.

[Makaveli_786]

Wow I'm loving it so far, how about region free movies too now Sony.

[27]

What is the point of region-locking anyway?

[vikeor]

What is the point of region-locking anyway?

good question... all DVD players now are multi-region anyway....

hopefully Blu-Ray wont have regions

[Makaveli_786]

What is the point of region-locking anyway?

Probably to stop people importing movies for cheaper, import a movie from America for example and not only will you get it cheaper you'll get it before its released on DVD here, sometimes by a few weeks!

[JimRune]

No, it was confirmed at GDC that the movies will be region-locked, sadly.

Although, I do have the region codes for blu-ray:

Region 1: North America, South America, Japan and East Asia (excluding China)
Region 2: Europe and Africa
Region 3: India, China, Russia, and all other countries.

[Makaveli_786]

Well they'll probably crack region coding pretty soon like with the last generation consoles so it's not a big inconvenience.

[EXreaction]

Region locking is very stupid...wtf do you do if you want to watch a movie in your native language when you are living in a different region? Hmm...seems like you need to buy anouther DVD player.

Region locking doesn't help against importing movies...who wants to watch a movie if they can't understand wtf people are saying?

[JimRune]

Actually EX, everyone in the Blu-Ray association agreed on no region-coding for their movies, but a lot of other studios complained about that so they had no choice but to give in.

[Makaveli_786]

Both the HD DVD and Blu-ray camp were against a lot of the protection and region locking crap but they didn't have much choice in the matter in the end.

[ShuckyD]

heres a cool article, http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145972.html

it talks about how linux wil be the base for all PS3 games

A slide show during the presentation said the HDD would be loaded with the Linux operating system instead of Microsoft's Windows OS. The show also said it could be used as a "home server," could be directly connected to the Internet, and would be fully "upgradable."

[Makaveli_786]

A home server.. nice I wonder if theyr going to still offer PS3 networking, 5 PS3's linked up together would be a nice Linux powerplant!

[EXreaction]

Just saying it uses Linux can mean anything...they just can make it sound better that way...people will think "OMG its linux...its going to be soo cool" without even thinking.

[JimRune]

Actually, most gamers wouldn't really care what it was preinstalled with. Linux opens up a lot of possibilities to those who are familiar with it.

[Makaveli_786]

It definetly won't effect most consumers, i bet a lot of PS3 buyers dont even know what Linux is but for us geeks its great.

[EXreaction]

Like I said, saying it comes with linux doesnt mean anything...they are not saying you can install stuff on it, or run web brosers or access a terminal...all computer hardware has an OS on it...whether its some form of linux made by sony, or some OS made by M$, it doesn't really matter...if they don't let you do anything with it, you won't be able to do anything with it.

[Makaveli_786]

Having a Linux base should make it easier to get Linux running on it at a later date I'd assume.

[JimRune]

I'm fairly certain you'll be able to run web browsers and access terminals. As far as I know, there's no reason they shouldn't let you do what you want with it.

[EXreaction]

I'm fairly certain you'll be able to run web browsers and access terminals. As far as I know, there's no reason they shouldn't let you do what you want with it.

Yes, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to do what you want with it...but why then did sony keep patching the PSP's so people couldn't run emulators on them?