11 ms·

I don't buy that. DVDs were region-locked with multiple PAL regions, later consoles which didn't have that problem were and are region locked. It's about price

• laumars 9y ago
  Hence the "originally" part prefixing my post. I absolutely agree it later become a monetary thing (bare in mind DVDs came a long time after the time period I was discussing) but many early consoles didn't have region locking and some that did, did so because games timed for NTSC consoles would have ran slower on PAL systems due to the difference in refresh rates between PAL and NTSC (50Hz and 60Hz respectively). You can see this in effect whenever you play games on a modded Mega Drive (for example). That all said, some NTSC games were still released for European markets without changing their timings. Sonic is one example of this - it runs slower, the music plays slower etc. For that reason I usually play Sonic on NTSC console rather than the PAL one (yeah, I have a whole room full of old computers and games consoles. It's sad but I love it).
• slantyyz 9y ago
  > It's about price differentiation between different regions. I thought the DVD region locking had to do with the old school movie distribution rights systems that were in place. i.e. Fox would sell the rights to their movies to multiple companies in different regions for redistribution outside of North America. Allowing a person in one region to buy a DVD from anywhere would mean that those regional rights holders would otherwise lose money on their investments.