I dunno what to say other than, are you guys idiots?

Account Hacking

Anyone who gets any kind of account hacked has to go through some hassle to get their account back, and sometimes their account is associated with private information that they don’t want coming out. And you guys like to poke fun at the whole idea? I hope you guys get your Xbox Live accounts hacked, and see if you’re singing the same song again.

Trolls on the Internet

It seems like the entire Internet has turned into a breeding ground for trolls to roam and make fun of anything they see. I’m not sure what’s caused this change or why it’s happened, but it’s spreading across many public channels and generally alienating new people from coming in, or making sure that new people that do come in also follow the trend of being a general troll, pissing off people left and right.

Personally, I categorize trolls into two types; ones that do it because it’s funny, in good taste, and everyone has a good laugh. The other does it at the expense of someone else. You can probably figure which kind of troll it is that I’m not quite fond of here.

The overall hate on the Internet has got to stop. Sadly, I don’t see this happening overnight.

Back in 2005 and 2006, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo made pledges to make their consoles region-free. Do you want to see how far those pledges went?

Microsoft

Started off touting how all its games would be region free. Then, they backtracked and said any games made by Microsoft would be region free. Turns out this ended up being the case, as some games like Steins;Gate are region-locked to Japan only.

Also, you can’t buy Japanese games from Games on Demand if you’re in America, and vice versa. Doesn’t matter if you have a Japanese 360 or not, it is IP-locked. Same goes for their video store.

Finally, programs like 1 vs. 100 are also region-locked by console; even if you have a Canadian IP, if the console isn’t then you can’t go in.

Sony

Sony does a little better, but still not enough. All their PS3 and PSP games are touted to be region-free, that’s great. PS2 games are still region locked, though I imagine that’s more related to licensing agreements from the past that just bite them back in the ass.

However, their video stores are country-locked. Canadian users can’t access the US Video Store, and neither can UK users. We also can’t access the Japanese video or comic store. Gee, I wonder why? It’s not like they can compete with one another, since only people who can understand the language will benefit; the rest of the masses not so much.

Also, their comic book reader for the PSP is region-locked. The US comic book reader will not work on UK and Japan PSPs, and the Japan reader won’t work on US and UK PSPs, etc. Guess what this means if someone happened to bring their PSP into Japan, wanted to buy a comic and then read it? Given the PSP has a crappy resolution to begin with, they are better off buying a cold, hard copy of the said comic.

Nintendo

They started off saying they would be region free. Are they in any way? I won’t even go there.

Okay, I see some myths rolling around in the comments, so I’ll make it quite clear and crisp here:

1. Even if you mod a console, you cannot play any imports with it. As a result, the only reason you have to mod it is to play illegal duplicates of games.
2. Only installing games to the 360 is locked out; savegames and others are still okay. On this note, if you install a 360 game to the HDD using one 360, you cannot use it on another 360; you have to re-install it there.

I’m disappointed that the majority of users in the Kotaku comments are misrepresenting #1 and #2 in different and stupid ways to try and defend modding a console, and defend how a console is banned. If you’ve modded your console, you have to be ready for the consequences. Failing to plan for them is planning to fail.

I did a bit of investigation and checked out the Xbox Live Marketplace… what I found was that 248 Indie games were available on the Japan marketplace, while some 408 were available on the US/Europe marketplace. And of those numbers, only some games were shared but not all.

Needless to say, I think this is more a problem on the author’s part for not checking content restrictions and restricting it to the region it’s supposed to be limited to. Otherwise, all 408 games would have appeared on both marketplaces, rather than this not so mutually exclusive (or not exclusive at all) state of affairs.

Edit: Just found this:

Games are now evaluated for “one world” or worldwide approval.

…

Each game has to match the standards of all countries we support – that means the strictest standard will be applied for all countries. A game must pass all criteria before being allowed for sale in ANY Xbox LIVE marketplace.

Guess it’s the way the games are made then. If this was the policy, why on earth did the author decide to put a galge like this on Indie Games…?

Yeah, I had seen this coming. First problem was that the games were not valued by Microsoft Points, as originally intended. This means that I would need a Japanese credit card with valid address and everything, should I want to digitally download any Japanese games. Strike 1.

Next, even if I did have the access, if you see the link above, you won’t be able to download US games outside of the US. Strike 2.

Lastly, the Xbox Originals are not region locked. Strike 3.

So clearly, M$ is not sure what the hell their strategy is with Games on Demand…

Halo 3: 6.3 GB -> 5.7 GB (-9.52%)
Lost Planet: 6.9 GB -> 6.8 GB (-1.45%)
Lost Planet Colonies: 6.7 GB -> 6.6 GB (-1.49%)
Resident Evil 5: 6.8 GB -> 6.7 GB (-1.47%)
Street Fighter IV: 5.7 GB -> 4.6 GB (-19.3%)

I’m not sure if developers care enough about the testers accepted into the closed beta, but I did post a thread in the private forums about Games on Demand and region restrictions. Here’s hoping they will all be region-free (or cause games to go region-free).