US, Japan joyous in Blu-ray Region 1 embrace

As a late Nondenominationalmas present to all you import lovers out there, it has just been announced that the U.S. will share Blu-ray Region 1 status with South America and, more importantly, East Asia minus China. (For the 58% of young Americans who are unable to locate it on a map, this means that Japan and the US are in the same region). This is good news for anime fans, who should soon have an easier way to feed their Japanimation habit; as for gamers, even if PS3 games end up using region coding, U.S. consoles could still potentially play Japanese titles, although the hot hits coming out of Russia, Africa, and Slovakia will still remain teasingly out of reach.

[Thanks, Kyle]

[Nico @ Dec 27th 2005 1:27PM]

What about europe?

[James Locking @ Dec 27th 2005 1:31PM]

Yeh what about europe, well england. We aren't allies with america for no reason. Come on Blair/Bush get it sorted, put a good word in with the big man.

[Darien @ Dec 27th 2005 1:47PM]

Europe is still in a different Region than the US.



Here's the list:



Region 1: North America, South America, East Asia except for China (India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia etc.)

Region 2: Europe and Africa

Region 3: China, Russia and other countries

[Rocket Punch @ Dec 27th 2005 1:56PM]

Europe?? check this link for more info: http://www.screwsline.co.uk/

[Sean @ Dec 27th 2005 2:02PM]

I hate comment spam.



This settles it for me, Blu-ray is the overall winner in this race, now if Sony would just ease up on the DRM a bit I think HD-DVD will die a well deserved death.

[David @ Dec 27th 2005 2:04PM]

Haha europe got owned...is this the first time that Japan and the states get stuck with the same region? I don't remember the U.S. ever being in the same region as Japan or any country located in Asia for that matter.

[dALE @ Dec 27th 2005 2:27PM]

If they don't region code the games then this could be ground breaking. The anime slant should sway some, the game thing would have the PS3 owning other consoles. There are so many games that just don't make it to the US and it's dumb when you consider that it's just more revenue for the game designers.

[aleandro @ Dec 27th 2005 2:38PM]

Actually games from japan are in the majority too weird for americans that is why they don't make it here. And they should stay there.

[hmurchison @ Dec 27th 2005 2:49PM]

This does nothing for promoting Blu Ray. There should be NO region coding at all. This is like congratulating the BDA for giving me a shite pie.

[Jamie @ Dec 27th 2005 2:56PM]

Forget region coding...



http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/



This site has a list of hacks for nearly every player that make it multi-region regardless of what it comes as.



Since it'd be too expensive to create hardware region-coding and then create three versions of the player, or to create different versions of the software, manufacturers just have it as a hidden 'option' - voila, cheap region 2 player becomes a multi-region player worth twice as much.



It's only for DVD at the moment, but I'd be surprised if BR/HD-DVD didn't follow.



Jamie

[funetik @ Dec 27th 2005 3:29PM]

Didn't you hear? Every blu-ray device will have a built-in gps tracking system. If you stray from the boundaries of your designated region, a sony employee simply presses a button and it'll wipe the cu.



Well, maybe not.

*goes back to eating his DRM soup*

[Maxi @ Dec 27th 2005 4:26PM]

nooooooooooo (came the scream from the european anime fan)



The one thing Europeans could boast that Americans didn't have has now been swiped from us. Utterly disgraceful, I mean I'm just going to have to download all that blu-ray anime ;)

[Vezquex @ Dec 27th 2005 4:47PM]

This is so great; I'll get to play all my favorite games in Japanese 6 months early. Ashita wa iidesyo.

[MadaMadaDane @ Dec 27th 2005 6:11PM]

I second #8. DRM is the equivalent of the manufacturers and content industries spitting in the legitimate consumer's face. It won't stop piracy, as a single compromised copy (and there will be one) is all that is needed to make it moot. And for people to be happy about some tiny aspect of DRM being less horrible than they thought, it's like those industries spitting in your face and in response you gushing your thanks and appreciation that they aimed for your cheek instead of your eyes or mouth.



If you read the story on Slashdot-:



http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/27/1932232&tid=188&tid=17



-you'll see another funny-fact. Blu-ray apparently is waiting for their DRM to be completed to release their technology. The story doesn't give the reason, but I imagine that there are some that want kneecap-busting DRM, and some that only want face-spitting DRM, and I'm sure within a few weeks they'll find that happy medium that everyone will agree insults the customer just enough to make them know who's boss, but not enough to keep them from buying the new discs.

[Dmitry Chestnykh @ Dec 27th 2005 6:32PM]

I can't get the reason to make this region codes. Anti-piracy? Do these guys know that pirates don't include region codes on DVDs they burn? :)



Another thing: why the hell the U.S. has #1 DVD code and China and Russia have #3? It's not politically correct, I tell ya! :)

[helldamned @ Dec 27th 2005 6:40PM]

what about australia..we alot closer to japan than america , we are basically in the asia pacific region after all.

[Buthidae @ Dec 27th 2005 9:02PM]

Dear Blu-Ray Association,



Can we please have a region that's not shit?

Ta.



-Australia

[Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Dec 27th 2005 10:51PM]

Region coding is a system invented by the film studios so that they can reap maximum profits from their DVDs.



http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlaserdisc/a/aaregioncodesa.htm



I have no idea why the U.K. and Australia don't just come out and declare region coding as price fixing and ban it!

[grafix @ Dec 28th 2005 12:50AM]

so does that mean korea too?



can i get korean soaps easier?

[Nifi @ Dec 28th 2005 4:43AM]

Its really sad that people still believe in division than Unity.And this is something to be protested to make sure people can enjoy the music,games and art forms from different countries...Say no to region codes ..let them make something unique so that every other country can use the same standard.

[dhi @ Dec 28th 2005 7:55AM]

Region coding is so incredibly lame.



In Hong Kong when you go to the local HMV you get disks from Japan and the US and ones specifically for the HK market... no one gives a hoot about the region that DVDs come from 'cos everyone has a region free DVD player. The only time I ever come across people with DVD region problems are those, like myself, who have a recent model Apple Mac where the DVD player has not got a firware patch to enable RegionX to work.



I hear that New Zealand is trying to make Region coding illegal - certainly all the DVD players there seem to be region free - I send DVD's there to friends and they never seem to have a problem playing them.



http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlaserdisc/a/aaregioncodesa.htm



Region codes should just be scrapped.

[Skippi @ Dec 28th 2005 11:07AM]

So pround my country has been mentioned on Engadged (Slovakia)! Those DRM region codes remind me of the cold-war times. Soon we will have only two of them. Guess which countries will be presenting the opposites...

[TheStupidOne @ Dec 28th 2005 3:31PM]

What about Australia and New Zealand?



I guess the Japs don't give a dam about those pikeys and continue to steal their clams.



And I still feel a bit leery about Sony giving up on extensive DRMs and rootkits so soon, ecspecially when they have a chance to permanently fix it into a new format.

[Speedy/Skidrow @ Dec 28th 2005 8:52PM]

Blu-Ray has always been the winner. I think we will notice HD-DVD along with the old format divx. (Those who remember that format that lost to the DVD once we got out first DVD Players back in 1996 :))))

[ajservo @ Dec 29th 2005 9:27AM]

The regions seem to be more in alignment with television technology than with regions.



America and Japan are fundementally using the same technology to drive HDTV. They're also the two most forward countries when it comes to HDTV broadcasts. From the people who've spoken on the subject, PAL's HD format is not taking off very quickly at all.



So, I would imagine that this maneuver is more for business reasons than the old copy protection reasons from DVD.



I think the companies involved this time around learned that if they want to be able to get people to PURCHASE their software (movies/TV Shows), they'll have to be able to overcome their old patterns of staggered global releases of software.



#6. what other consumer technology has had region coding besides DVD?

[Ben Rowe @ Dec 31st 2005 12:52AM]

"I have no idea why the U.K. and Australia don't just come out and declare region coding as price fixing and ban it!"



Actually in Australia, if you sell a dvd player that has region encoding the store must offer to unlock the region encoding (for no additional charge). Thats why most dvd players sold in Australia are already region free. Both big & small brands alike already don't have region locking.



However its a bit different with dvd-roms in pc's.



It will be interesting to see how blu-ray/hd-dvd turns out in Australia.