John-ShepardThe PlayStation Vita has been getting a lot of press lately; it dominated a large portion of Sony's press conference at the Tokyo Game Show.
But there's one final piece of big news for the week: according to Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida's Twitter feed , software for the Vita will not be region-locked.
We don't have any further details, so we're not sure if the portable will be open via physical media or digital content (or both). If you're wondering, the PS3 and PSP are region-free when it comes to physical media; i.e., a game produced in one country can be played in another with no problem. That being said, the digital content is indeed region-locked. You're limited to the content available to the region in which you reside, which is dictated by your PSN account.
We'll have to figure out if the Vita will be open the whole way 'round but either way, it's good to know that at least physical media will be region-free. The more we hear about Sony's new handheld, the more interested we become…
That's even more reason to purchase the vita day 1 and I can't wait.
Day 1 (pre-ordered) or if im working it'll be a day 2 = P
Same here D1P
That's so nice. I know for the PS3 it's really convenient. I live in South Korea and often times I find PS3 games here for cheaper than they would retail back home. I just recently bought Deus Ex and Dragon Age 2 and it was under $80 for both games. Everything is in English too, unless the game comes from Japan, in which case it will be in Japanese. It's nice to know the Vita will be the same.
I should hope it was under 80
I should say both games together under $80. Deus Ex was about $45 and Dragon Age 2 was about $30.
HA! Great news!
Excellent news! One of my favourite game series hardly ever releases in the US, so if ever an installment comes out for the Vita, I could easily import the Japanese version. Yay!!
Things really should be region free in all cases including digital. I suppose there are issues with distribution rights, but if it can be done you're going to get more sales overall because some countries have significant populations of people who speak other languages.
Exactly. This entire region issue is just an annoying, artificial barrier.
The reasons to get a Vita on day one just keep piling up! I have to say this TGS might be the best I've seen in terms of mind-blowing announcements.
That's pretty awesome. I should import some games sometime for my PS3.
By the way, whenever I glance at that image that you used for this story, I always think it's the album cover to Dark Side of the Moon.
Are their going to be piracy concerns for this device?
doubtful
If you're going to exploit a good lot of the Vita's functionality, then you need to be on the PSN. And there's no way for you to connect to the PSN if you have modded your PS3, PSP, and (eventually) the Vita.
I would not say it is impossible. I remember a time when some claimed the same about PSN, that it were impossible to hack.
Although with online functionality it's definitely harder (another reason why the business want cloud based gaming). But as long as a game can be played offline there simply must be a way.
Nothing is impossible.
Last edited by Beamboom on 9/17/2011 4:58:04 AM
of course it will!
it will stay a virgin till some idiot at $ony leaks a service dongle and that gets reproduced thus blowing the security out the door!
hell, there still leaking SDKs left right and centre!
im surprised no one has leaked the new keys yet, even though lots claim to have them.
What do you mean "doubtful"?!…OF COURSE IT'll get hacked. In a generation where hackers do nothing but try and hack mass-traffic sites & gadgets for a little fun they will be nothing but successful.
I wish it weren't true, but of course this thing is going to get hacked. Yes it will lose tons of functionality as it is a social device that helps you stay connected with PSN…but hackers and "GAMERS" (nothing but pirates) who want the hack wouldn't care as they just want the high quality games. And even if much of the social functions were not to work…there will always be some people out there developing homebrew apps to just get the function back.
It'll get HACKED without doubt. SONY just has to be quick and alert about it and stop them once a hack has been found, take the hackers to court, take the instructions/code/whatever down from the web before it becomes mass spread, and later ban the guy/group from going near a playstation device, and later just be aware that there might be another attack on PSN that's even worse than the last time.
…hackers are annoying…black hats that is.
Just because someone mods a unit here and there doesn't make it a serious piracy concern. Even the PSP 3000 is very difficult to alter for pirated games and once you have it won't even play new games. Vita will have enough security in place to make hacking it as minimal a problem as possible. It won't be like as big an issue as piracy is with PC games or 360 games.
digital media is region free for the system you own IE you can access whichever PSN store you want.
its DLC that is region locked.
so if you have a copy of the UK rock band 2 you have to buy the DLC from the UK PSN store.
million dollar question is will japanese games be playable in english?
id be nice if you can switch from japanese dialogue to english, or at least english sub titles.
BONUS
Excellent. I was bummed when I made the mistake of buy UMD movie in Norway. I wasn't able to switch the region code on my North American PSP.
Was it region code on the UMD movies? Wow then I've been incredibly lucky, I never knew and bought a lot of movies at airports and shops from wherever I went.
Last edited by Beamboom on 9/18/2011 8:52:01 AM