Bayonetta to be region-locked

has there ever been a region locked ps3 game?

Yep, Strangle Hold was region locked due to the CE coming with Hard Boiled on the same disc.

‘Region-free will impact sales outside of Japan’

If I was interested in picking up Bayonetta, this dickheadedness would impact sales outside of Japan as well.

Just done another story. See top of site. Sounds true.

“Yep, Strangle Hold was region locked due to the CE coming with Hard Boiled on the same disc.”

Nope. I own that exact version and it plays fine – although to be fair, Midway only removed the region lock at the last minute.

Play-Asia says all versions of Stranglehold on PS3 were region free too. I wasn’t aware they were able to region lock PS3 games – it’s not a publisher decision like it is on the 360.

Interesting … this is from the official Sony Europe FAQ …

“PLAYSTATION 3 software is not restricted by region. The majority of games purchased in another country will work on any PLAYSTATION 3 system. However, the decision to make games region specific is made by the publisher of each title and as a result, some games may not work on a PLAYSTATION 3 system purchased in a different country.”

Apart from being a contradictory statement – if it was just up to the publisher then why is just about all PS3 software region free and a lot of 360 stuff is region locked. :/

@DrDamn: It means that there’s no fixed hardware restriction in-place, like there was with PS1 and PS2. Also, that there’s no inherent region restriction applied by the tools supplied to PS3 developers. But there *is* a way for developers to create region locked titles if they so wish. There are often valid reasons for publishers to do this – for instance, if they license other stuff such as audio/video content for a specific region, and their licenses require them to prevent playback outside of the authorised region.

So the FAQ is correct. It’s completely down to the publisher.

For the 360, I expect Microsoft have different systems/guidelines in-place to handle region locking.

Region locked games MEAN importing. Having a japanese PS3 there is no way to buy the domestic version.