Sony Destroying the Import Market for PSP Games

[wraggster]

The death of LIk Sang is one thing but Sony have also got the likes of Play Asia (http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-2pz-49-en.html)running scared and they also wont ship any PSP Consoles or games to Europe, does anyone find it annoying that the console is region free and yet they are still blocking the imports of PSP games from Japan etc.

Thank god for Success HK (http://www.superufo.com/?aff_id=24)for providing all the world with US and Japanese games.

[BL4Z3D247]

wow $ony is on a rampage, well we will have the last laugh when PS1P comes out and devhook .47 and once 3.0 comes out we will have our way with that too...just remember THIS $ony u will die way before homebrew!!!

[Tonx_9]

just remember THIS $ony u will die way before homebrew!!!

SHIT YEAH!

[mlcurly16]

Another great reason why Sony is my least favorite big-bussiness corperation. :)

[leonstars]

i'm sure there will be others

[Napalm-Death]

I used to love Sony, but this is WAY too much.

[Basil Zero]

there's a cost for everything, the cost for making it region free is the destruction of the import market.

either ways, we're still in square one

good thing i bought Breath of Fire III last month lol

[the one and only]

sony used to be cool, the money is getting to their heads, they are going the way of the gamecube... wii ftw

[KerryKing]

We still have ebay for our import needs or maybe ebay is next.

[Basil Zero]

sony used to be cool, the money is getting to their heads, they are going the way of the gamecube... wii ftw

oh this problem's been happening since PS1, nothing new

[hatebreeder]

ahah this kinda seems like a success hk ad...or at least it would if there were no other viable alternatives...this is a sad day

[groovemaster303]

All this madness that sony have created is going to make things even worse for them.
how many of you if you can't import a game which will never come out over here will go and download the game instead. just to stick one to sony?

by acting like a pack of muppets sony have just given piracy a huge boost.

[mesosade]

All this madness that sony have created is going to make things even worse for them.
how many of you if you can't import a game which will never come out over here will go and download the game instead. just to stick one to sony?

by acting like a pack of muppets sony have just given piracy a huge boost.

absolutely right. nuf said

[bm4n]

how can $ony say they are for importing and tout that they have no region coding but then attack the import market?!? Freakin' hypocrites...

[MikeDX]

Yeah right like I care. show me a psp game worth buying...

[PSPages]

Fair enough, I can understand them wanting to stop the importing of consoles into a territory before its release there. I mean they were just trying to protect their investment and obviously got a bit p*ssed that people were getting their hands on them way before launch.

However, if for once they stopped screwing over gamers in the UK and Europe (and even sometimes in the US) and release the consoles Globally on the same day like they claimed at first with the PS3, people would not need to import the consoles!

As for games, I don't really see much harm in that and do think they might be going too far. I mean some games do not get releases outside of japan which have followings in other territories. However there may not be enough of a market to warrant a release outside of Japan due to costs of localisation etc, so it remains that others (UK, US, EU) will not see the game released.

The only option? Importing the Japanese version!
I see no harm in that as its not a form of piracy and its another copy of the game sold.

If they are talking about games that get released in US and get imported to the UK before its release, well you know my opinion on that. Give it a f*cking global release date and gamers will not need to!

[MikeDX]

Region coding (on any piece of hardware - dvd, psp, etc) is all about price fixing, and don't for a SECOND think that there is ANY OTHER REASON FOR IT WHATSOEVER

[GobboFett]

Region coding (on any piece of hardware - dvd, psp, etc) is all about price fixing, and don't for a SECOND think that there is ANY OTHER REASON FOR IT WHATSOEVER

Very true. The Gamecube had game region protection, but it was software based so buying a region unlocker disc was all that's necessary whereas the PS2's regioning is hardware based meaning a mod-chip is the only option. Like you said MikeDX, it's all about price fixing and ant-importingness. Sure they can feed you some shit about "protecting" us from different TV Hertz settings or power voltages but the truth is that the kind of gamers that bother to import ALREADY know this. It's just undermining us gamers as the ignorant mainstream general public :mad:

[Baboon]

Region coding (on any piece of hardware - dvd, psp, etc) is all about price fixing, and don't for a SECOND think that there is ANY OTHER REASON FOR IT WHATSOEVER

That is a very true. :mad:

I’d say 80% of my DVD collection is on Region 1 (USA) discs. I import my films because: Better packaging, loads cheaper, quite a few are exclusive to Region 1 (all of the Criterion films) with loadsa extras, and they normally tend to get released way before the European R2 films. ...basically the same reason I used to import my games from Lik Sang.

I think this debate will go on and on until something is done to make things equal right around the globe. We aren’t fookin second class consumers over here, but this just seems to fall on deaf ears. :(

$ony has given me a real bitter taste with all of this crap...They can now shove the PS3 right up their fat cat asses! lol

[geise69]

The only psp games sony would possibly be able to block for importing would be games that are being released for that region. Other than that I don't see a viable reason for sony to block import psp games. Would sony block importing of Euro psp games to the US? Hmmm I wonder, especially with BOF3 for psp not being released here in the US. It's just sad the gaming industry has turned out the way it has. It used to be easy in the 16bit days to import anything you wanted. There were tons of places that imported games. Now it's either EBAY (overpriced and risky) or Play-Asia who I personally like better than Lik-Sang, but sad to see them go. That's pretty much it for importing. NCSX is another place in the States that is very good. I wonder if Sony is going to get on them any time soon? I guess this is just Sony Euro making a fuss.

[lumisi]

Imports will become like drugs.

[MikeDX]

Imports will become like drugs.

Well to be honest the games on the PSP are so shite I can't see anybody worrying about it.

I'm more fussed about importing Wii and NDS stuff thanks an effin bunch sony!

[LAW666]

lol back to the 1920's prohibition era!
but with games not booze :p

[Juneyp]

Sony Is Soo stupid :mad: :mad: ... i mean the DS is already tripling psp sales and its not like Lik-Sang, Play-Asia, Or Ebay sellers are bootlegging the psp or Stealing it.. no they are legaly paying for them i think Sony should just let it slide cuz its money anywayz but then again they never listen imagine how many psp's would be sold if they allowed homebrew :D :D :D

[Panini]

I have imported quite a few games on various consoles over the past 15 or so years and this cazy news saddens me.

Sony will have made alot of enemies from this stupid move.

[Ci5tm Konfliqt]

that is very annoying. sony are becoming cynical and suspecting everyone of bootlegging or pirating copyrighted material. i play games and dont steal them !!

[shadowhawk22]

Wouldn't it seem like pirating games would increase if things like import games were banned (which they basically are). I am not promoting pirating, but it would seem from the aspect of Sony, illiminating import games could only increase pirating in europe... Just my opinion. Sony is so dumb...

[808]

They want to limit importing because amazingly enough, Sony isn't just one big company. They have a bunch of different branches for different parts of the world.
Sony Europe is trying to protect their business, Sony Asia is trying to protect theirs. Its how businesses work.

[geise69]

They want to limit importing because amazingly enough, Sony isn't just one big company. They have a bunch of different branches for different parts of the world.
Sony Europe is trying to protect their business, Sony Asia is trying to protect theirs. Its how businesses work.

Sony is not protecting anything if the game is not ever going to be released in that region. The systems of psp and ps3 I can understand but disaggree with. There's quite a big handful of psp games never seeing the light of day in Europe or US. How in the hell is that going to hurt sony? Sony is still to young in the game business to really know how things work or should I say used to work. Sony seems to want to set a standard, but in the end they are just shooting themselves in the foot.

[jwilds73]

Sony is only alienating it's die hard fans. Most parent's aren't going to allow their children to purchase a PS3, PSP or games from a foreign country anyway's. Only die hard fans that are informed consumers use these services. Infact most consumers don't even know about these companies or anything about emulation or the like. It's not like Lik-Sang was running a huge advertising campaign in Europe. Only informed gamers know of them and other the businesses. Sony is telling their customers you will purchase your PSP, PS3 and Games where we want, for what we want and when we want. This has absolutely nothing to do with protecting it's customers and everything to do with dictating to their customers who, what, when, where and why. Sony's attitude disgusts me and as I said before my PSP is my last Sony purchase.

[.:}<3\/!}\{:.]

oh...no.....but we have EBAY....woott!!!!