Persona 4 Arena will be the first ever region-locked PS3 game

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.ph...post289142

Why now, and why Atlus? To see region locking in a game on a system by the one manufacturer who'd gotten away from it this last generation... really disappointing. :(

[Dark Jaguar]

That is annoying, but in a more technical "what's the point?" sort of way. Fact is, I don't know Japanese, so I wouldn't import the game anyway. The bigger question is if it'll see some European only fully translated release where such a thing actually would frustrate us.

[A Black Falcon]

This one's a fighting game, so language probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. It is getting a US release, but still, the principle is the thing.

[Dark Jaguar]

Like I said, annoying but only technically so, in the same way all region restrictions tend to be.

Personally I still don't see the point in restricting sales. It seems like a poor business decision. I'm not just being clever, I literally don't understand the reasoning behind it.

[Great Rumbler]

It's because games are often released by different companies in different regions. Say, Game X is released by Atlus in Japan. In America, it's released by XSeed, who paid Atlus a licencing fee to release Game X. However, Game X is released 6 months earlier in Japan than in the United States. As Game X is a niche game, many of its fans would rather purchase it 6 months earlier than wait for it to be released in English. Therefore, XSeed looses out on a chunk of sales, thus making them annoyed that Game X is not region locked, and making them less likely to want to license another of Atlus' games. However, in Atlus' world, they would make more money if XSeed licensed and released the game in English than from just the sales to importers, making them more likely to try to placate XSeed by enforcing region restrictions. The fan-pleasing solution, of course, is for Atlus to release Game X worldwide simultaneously, but that's not always a viable option.

Doesn't make it any less annoying for consumers, but that's basically why they do it.

[A Black Falcon]

That can't be the only reason, with things like how almost every single one of those Japan-only X360 shmups are all region-locked too... what have I heard about that, it requires extra testing before MS allows you to release region-free 360 games or something? I forget.

[Dark Jaguar]

GR, that actually makes a sort of ruthless pragmatic sense. Thank you for explaining that.

Still, I can't help but think that the "lost sales" to imports are overblown a bit. After all, books aren't region locked and I've yet to see US publishers turn down UK books because they fear lost sales to early importers. It's the sort of thing I also wonder about when game makers justify the cost of games compared to, say, movies. We all know movies cost more to make than games after all.

Recent wider studies of the effects of piracy also seem to suggest losses are more overblown than normally thought, but that's another issue entirely. There I'm not upset at companies stopping piracy, just that their attempts to do so end up hurting legitimate consumers far more than pirates.

[Great Rumbler]

Atlus' reason for the region restrictions is to keep Japanese gamers from importing the cheaper Europe/NA versions. Whelp.

[Dark Jaguar]

Did you just call me a whelp? I'm not offended, just surprised to see such an antiquated insult out in the wild.

[Great Rumbler]

I was colloquial Southern American English, you nincompoop.