PS3 games to be region-free!! Finally!!

[VictimOfScience]

Some of you may or may not know this already, but it has been "confirmed" by Sony's Phil Harrison at the GDC.

Question: Are all models of the PS3 going to be region specific. What about the games?

PH: The thing that makes the games region free or not is different than what makes the hardware different. With the power voltage and things like that, the hardware will need to be specific to a region. Software, however, will be region free. It's possible for developers to put all the TV formats - PAL, NTSC, HDTV, and so on - on the disc.

Source.

Blu-Ray movies will still have region codes, but this is a huge step for games! So many times I have wanted games that I just couldn't play because they were only released in Europe or Japan, now that will be a thing of the past! Man, this and a hard drive out of the box make the PS3 look much nicer right now. E3 should tell us whether it has the games to back all of this up!!

 

[jimbo118]

does this mean no more waiting months for pal releases of metal gear solid etc whereas the states get it earlier? now theres the possibility of world wide releases?

 

[Gargantou]

jimbo, no there's not..
Why?
1. PAL does not take ALL of the extra dev time.
2. Because usually European games have to be translated into more than just 2 languages(I think US games are usually Spanish+American English, the manuals atleast), in Europe the games usually have to get French, German etc translations, these tend to take alot of times and was iirc one of the reasons Suikoden 3 did not make it to PAL.
This is none the less great news, even tho the release dates, PAL etc will be up to the devs(So we might still see european games being PAL, US NTSC etc), this makes it alot easier as we can import games WITHOUT modding our consoles and breaking the warranty.

 

[Icarusintel]

Man, being able to play the newest Final Fantasy without chipping my PS3? KICKASS!

 

[jimbo118]

jimbo, no there's not..
Why?
1. PAL does not take ALL of the extra dev time.
2. Because usually European games have to be translated into more than just 2 languages(I think US games are usually Spanish+American English, the manuals atleast), in Europe the games usually have to get French, German etc translations, these tend to take alot of times and was iirc one of the reasons Suikoden 3 did not make it to PAL.
This is none the less great news, even tho the release dates, PAL etc will be up to the devs(So we might still see european games being PAL, US NTSC etc), this makes it alot easier as we can import games WITHOUT modding our consoles and breaking the warranty.

yeah i thought about the all the languages, d'oH!!

oh well importing fTW!