Persona 4 Arena (PS3) will be region locked

[Muk666]

Some dude at Atlus said that both the 360 and PS3 versions will be region locked. This will be the first (has there been others?) region locked PS3 game.

Noegaf thread with some disussion about it

Region free games has been one of the best things about the PS3 and I'm not happy about this, already pre ordered the game and now we dont even get an announcement about it only a post on a forum about it. EU release of this game is only a couple of weeks after but lots Atlus games take a long time before they reach europe so people imported because they didnt want to wait.

If more companies start doing this then it will be impossible to play some games that never gets localized unless you import a console =/

[TMRNetShark]

They don't want to "cannibalize" their sales. But so what? Is it that much of a pain to wait one month for a game? If it was like 6+ months, then it would be understandable.

[Muk666]

They don't want to "cannibalize" their sales. But so what? Is it that much of a pain to wait one month for a game? If it was like 6+ months, then it would be understandable.

Persona 3 US: August 14th 2007
Persona 3 EU: February 29th 2008

Persona 3 FES US: April 22nd 2008
Persona 3 FES EU: October 17th 2008

Persona 3 Portable US: July 2010
Persona 3 Portable EU: April 28th 2011

Persona 4 US: December 9th 2008
Persona 4 EU: March 13th 2009

Persona 4 Golden US: October 23rd 2012
Persona 4 Golden EU: ?

Persona 4 Arena US: August 7th 2012
Persona 4 Arena EU: ? "2012" ?

Catherine US: July 26th 2011
Catherine EU: February 10th 2012

Devil Survivor Overclocked US: 23rd August 2011
Devil Survivor Overclocked EU: ? "2012" ?

Devil Survivor 2 US: February 28th 2012
Devil Survivor 2 EU: ? "2012" ?

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon =
JPN = August 24, 2006
NA = August 14, 2007
EUR = February 13, 2009

Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon =
JPN = January 3, 2008
NA = November 18, 2008
EUR = October 8, 2010

Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns =
JPN = July 8, 2010
NA = September 20, 2011
EU = June 29, 2011

Most Atlus games take a very long time and thats why people import the game. Europe has to wait at least 3 weeks and yeah its not the end of the world but if they continue region locking their games then it wont be fun

[TMRNetShark]

I mean, I'm sorry about that... Can't you just make a NA PSN account until the game officially releases? I guess that defeats the purpose because you have to buy the game again...

Uhhh... yeah, region locking sucks.

[kukuruyo]

Lol thats good news, i totally hate region free, because of that no matters where i buy a game when i play it is with spanish dub, wich is extremelly horrible

[Garret02]

Lol thats good news, i totally hate region free, because of that no matters where i buy a game when i play it is with spanish dub, wich is extremelly horrible

Lol, that's because you have spanish as a system language, change it to something else and if the game supports this language, you will have dub in it.

About the region lock. It's stupid and I hate it. Not because of getting the game sooner but the other way around, getting it very late. If PSP games vere region blocked I wouldn't have had Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (because it was available in my country for very short time and then disappeared) and I would've been very pissed. Sure, I could've imported it from UK but it was way cheaper in USA...

[FlyinPenguin]

Lol thats good news, i totally hate region free, because of that no matters where i buy a game when i play it is with spanish dub, wich is extremelly horrible

Lol, that's because you have spanish as a system language, change it to something else and if the game supports this language, you will have dub in it.

About the region lock. It's stupid and I hate it. Not because of getting the game sooner but the other way around, getting it very late. If PSP games vere region blocked I wouldn't have had Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (because it was available in my country for very short time and then disappeared) and I would've been very pissed. Sure, I could've imported it from UK but it was way cheaper in USA...

Another reason why I support emulation/piracy in certain circumstances....

[TMRNetShark]

There one and only nonsensical reason is "Importing, as great as it is for gamers who otherwise can’t get access to a title, can also cannibalize the performance of a title in one territory to the benefit of another."

 

[megido-rev.M]

What, does the company discriminate earnings based one where they sell instead of where the buyer orders? Region locking is the only thing I hated about DVDs.

[Temuthril]

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[megido-rev.M]

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US uses $1 pieces of paper?

[TMRNetShark]

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US uses $1 pieces of paper?

Think we should have $1 coins? Yeah... me too. They should still put Washington's face on it though. /Offtopic

[Muk666]

There is a 2 week difference on the JP/US release so I doubt there will be that many people in japan importing the game so do they really think its worth making customers around the world angry for a few extra sales in Japan ?

I honestly dont think they are looking at the bigger picture here.

[TMRNetShark]

There is a 2 week difference on the JP/US release so I doubt there will be that many people in japan importing the game so do they really think its worth making customers around the world angry for a few extra sales in Japan ?

I honestly dont think they are looking at the bigger picture here.

But they know the game will really sell in Japan... but at a 35% higher price (around $90) versus in the states where it has both full English and full Japanese text and voices but also at $60. I will just say this... region locking is money grubbing. If you fear of loosing sales... sell it for the same price to make importing the more expensive route (cause the cheapest shipping from the states to Japan for something that weights under a pound is like $15?).

[sdedalus83]

But they know the game will really sell in Japan... but at a 35% higher price (around $90) versus in the states where it has both full English and full Japanese text and voices but also at $60. I will just say this... region locking is money grubbing. If you fear of loosing sales... sell it for the same price to make importing the more expensive route (cause the cheapest shipping from the states to Japan for something that weights under a pound is like $15?).

If they tried to price it at the Japanese level anywhere else, no one would buy it in the other markets.

They're probably more worried about large group buys on Amazon by Japanese gamers than they are anything else.

[TMRNetShark]

But they know the game will really sell in Japan... but at a 35% higher price (around $90) versus in the states where it has both full English and full Japanese text and voices but also at $60. I will just say this... region locking is money grubbing. If you fear of loosing sales... sell it for the same price to make importing the more expensive route (cause the cheapest shipping from the states to Japan for something that weights under a pound is like $15?).

If they tried to price it at the Japanese level anywhere else, no one would buy it in the other markets.

They're probably more worried about large group buys on Amazon by Japanese gamers than they are anything else.

http://www.amazon.com/Persona-4-Arena-Playstation-3/dp/B007B7BHJ8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1341854010&sr=8-2&keywords=persona+4

Quite impossible I might say...

"Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses."

[sdedalus83]

But they know the game will really sell in Japan... but at a 35% higher price (around $90) versus in the states where it has both full English and full Japanese text and voices but also at $60. I will just say this... region locking is money grubbing. If you fear of loosing sales... sell it for the same price to make importing the more expensive route (cause the cheapest shipping from the states to Japan for something that weights under a pound is like $15?).

If they tried to price it at the Japanese level anywhere else, no one would buy it in the other markets.

They're probably more worried about large group buys on Amazon by Japanese gamers than they are anything else.

http://www.amazon.com/Persona-4-Arena-Playstation-3/dp/B007B7BHJ8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1341854010&sr=8-2&keywords=persona+4

Quite impossible I might say...

"Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses."

You've obviously never done a large group buy.  One person takes money from several, has the product shipped to him/herself, and then ships to each person involved.  Since they ship to FPO addresses, all they'd need is a naval officer stationed at Yokosuka to act as the middleman and only the bulk shipment would be high cost international.

[TMRNetShark]

But they know the game will really sell in Japan... but at a 35% higher price (around $90) versus in the states where it has both full English and full Japanese text and voices but also at $60. I will just say this... region locking is money grubbing. If you fear of loosing sales... sell it for the same price to make importing the more expensive route (cause the cheapest shipping from the states to Japan for something that weights under a pound is like $15?).

If they tried to price it at the Japanese level anywhere else, no one would buy it in the other markets.

They're probably more worried about large group buys on Amazon by Japanese gamers than they are anything else.

http://www.amazon.com/Persona-4-Arena-Playstation-3/dp/B007B7BHJ8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1341854010&sr=8-2&keywords=persona+4

Quite impossible I might say...

"Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses."

You've obviously never done a large group buy.  One person takes money from several, has the product shipped to him/herself, and then ships to each person involved.  Since they ship to FPO addresses, all they'd need is a naval officer stationed at Yokosuka to act as the middleman and only the bulk shipment would be high cost international.

Hey, if that works... it works. Sadly... they will not be able to do that with this game.