Why does region locking exist

I personally think region locking is from hell and is the stupidest idea I've ever heard when it comes to electronics. Some systems are easy to disable, such as the tabs on the SNES, using a Game Genie for the Genesis or unscrewing your 5 screw NES game, some don't even have region locking such as the Master System, but the ones that do really piss me off. For example, back in 2012, I bought my son a PAL copy of Devil World for his birthday and we had to mod his NES by disabling the 10NES chip just to play it. Another example is the TurboGrafx 16, it sucks hard that some of the best games were Japan exclusives, but it really pisses me off that you have to either get an adapter or mod your console to play them on your US system. Can any of you explain why Region locking exists. This doesn't even stick to just video games, DVD's and Blu Ray's are region locked too. And please don't say that it's because of 50hz vs 60hz because you can play PAL Master System games fine on an NTSC system and the TurboGrafx PC Engine region locking has nothing to do with that because Japan uses NTSC as well.

Because of money and region-control. Nothing else.

I don't know how they get a profit from preventing US users to play Japanese or PAL games because of 2 reasons:
1. No one in their right mind is going to get a US, Japanese, and PAL machine of the same system because they can just mod the system to play all 3 regions if they try hard enough, so no money is made there.
2. Whether I buy a game in the US/Canada, the UK/Europe, or Japan/Asia, the company still gets money from the purchase.

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Originally Posted by chunklady

Because of money and region-control. Nothing else.

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No: region-control is BECAUSE of money. So it's just money (or if you want to be more precise: market segmentation)

Marketing wants to control exactly what you see and when. Also, sometimes a company will sell a game/movie slightly cheaper in one region, so they don't want you importing and saving money.

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Originally Posted by Tower of Power

Marketing wants to control exactly what you see and when. Also, sometimes a company will sell a game/movie slightly cheaper in one region, so they don't want you importing and saving money.

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Wouldn't importing typically cost more money because of import fees.

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Originally Posted by chilled

No: region-control is BECAUSE of money. So it's just money (or if you want to be more precise: market segmentation)

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Im reading banana/banana here :-)

And lets not forget that back in the early 90s the idea of importing games from Japan/Europe wasn't as easy as it is these days.

you're around 15 years old (estimate, sure there were over 25 gamers but the teens were the majority of the adopters)
there is no internet
damn i really want this game!
but its only out in japan.
well better spend a ton of my hard earned paper route money importing it cause some gaming magazine said it was good!
oh noes it wont run!
have to learn from a kid in school about region protection (or if you're lucky via a gaming magazine)
damn, better send my console to one of them modding people that advertise in the gaming magazine.

It wasn't that easy to get your shit modded as it is now, even if you had a dad who could solder you'd still need to find the instructions.

so the whole "try hard enough" doesn't fly, you're talking about a lot of 15 year olds here. not a buncha bored 30 somethings.

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Originally Posted by NeoVamp

a buncha bored 30 somethings.

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That is so me :-)

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Originally Posted by NeoVamp

It wasn't that easy to get your shit modded as it is now, even if you had a dad who could solder you'd still need to find the instructions, so the whole "try hard enough" doesn't fly, you're talking about a lot of 15 year olds here. not a buncha bored 30 somethings.

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Bullshit. Let's say it's 1994 and your 15. You live in Arizona and have a Super Nintendo, but you found out about a new game that's for the SNES, but only in Japan. Are you going to buy a Super Famicom just for that one game. That's what I was trying to say.

Same reason they region lock (or try to) DVD's, Blu-rays. Things like Netflix, restrict content depending where you are (For example Australia has WAY WAYYYYY less content on Netflix vs America).

It is all down to licensing restrictions/agreements and yes, money.

I would imagine the potential to localize a game at a later date, and thus make more money from it in a different region would be another matter. The number of people willing to import in the first place(let alone for older consoles) is significantly tiny, especially compared to the number of people willing to buy what they can from their own region.

How many people were actively importing Mega Drive or Mega CD or Famicom or SFC games from Japan back during their commercial lives? Less than 5% of customers? Maybe bump that up to 10% in Europe? How did you even go about it, through magazines? Even when the Saturn was active here, I can't imagine a majority of customers had a PAR and bought Japanese games.

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Originally Posted by zetastrike

How did you even go about it, through magazines?

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Sometimes you'd find one in a game store, but the main area to check was Flea Markets because at the flea market I went to, there was a seller that had quite a few imports and even told me how to mod my SNES to play them, that's how I got to play a Godzilla game that was worth playing more than once.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...oxShotSNES.jpg

Put yourself in the shoes of the local branches or localization companies and it's not hard to see why they would want region locking.

For example, if Sega of America (or, if you want to go 3rd party, Working Designs) is getting a large cut of every Japanese game that they localize, then they have good incentive to prevent mail-order companies and local game stores from simply importing a large quantity of Japanese releases and selling them before they've had a chance to do the localization. A lot of Japanese titles were only selling in the tens-of-thousands in NA (see Gunstar Heroes) so a 5-10% drop in sales due to importing could represent a significant profit loss.

That's only one aspect to region-locking, of course. You also have price differences across markets. Game titles were significantly cheaper in NA than in Japan (and I'm sure even cheaper in some other markets), so there was a risk that importers would sell games CHEAPER than they were available in the local market.