Sony Playstations - 'mod-chips' Court Decision

[Jei]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technolog...562943280.html

to my surprised, mod-chip wins o.O

[Coinspinner]

Re: Sony Playstations - 'mod-chips' Court Decision

Yay Aussies. O_o

I don't get why they made it impossible to play legitimately purchased games from other regions in the first place. :x

[KamuroIshigami]

Re: Sony Playstations - 'mod-chips' Court Decision

Price discrimination, the corporations are greedy.
It has to do with the market and the exchange rates.

Basically, if we were selling an item in US, and the market will only pay $20 for the item, then that is the selling price. Basic supply and demand. However, if in Japan it is more popular and people are willing to pay $40 (equivilent in yen), then they want to sell it for $40 in Japan and $20 in the US. But that doesn't work because people in Japan can get it cheaper by ordering from a US store that will mail order it.

So, to make it so that you can get maximum profit from each, you make it impossible for the people in Japan to get it cheaper in the US by making things bought in the US not work in Japan, thus the consumer is forced to pay the higher prices in Japan.

[Macht]

Re: Sony Playstations - 'mod-chips' Court Decision

But differences in prices for the same product isn't something new though. Being in marketing and seeing it from more then one company, it's basically any company with retail stores do price zones. In each price zone items sold can change as well as the dollar value.

Part of the reason is places were extra delivery efforts our company have to make the price it made up by increasing the price to the areas it's being delivered to. Don't get it in phone order or internet because you are already paying it with the shipping and handling.

It makes sense though if the amounts are varrying a HUGE deal, but I kind of wonder if that's really the case. The more legitimate focus is just the fact that the guy spent the extra money for the import from a different region so he should of been allowed to use it on his system regardless. This was more of an attack on the regional coding that you find on games as well as DVDs that restrict which will work were.

Part of the reason for this restriction though is the differences in technology with each region, for example NTSC vs PAL formats.

[Susurrus]

Re: Sony Playstations - 'mod-chips' Court Decision

Making consoles region free would fight piracy. People mod their consoles often to play games in other regioins, but then since they already have a modded console, they go the extra step to get bootlegs of the game since it is made so easy from there.

[kuu]

Re: Sony Playstations - 'mod-chips' Court Decision

This ruling was already won in US a long time ago the Aussies just now joined

From what I remembered of the US ruling, mod chips are legal, as you own your PS/xbox/etc. They only void warranty, but you it is essentially your PS and can do as you please. Pirating games are illegal(Selling, not the same as "backup"). There's a difference.

Now if only we can get at MS on their terms of service monopolizing tactics where we don't actually "own" windows anymore but rather "rent" it and thus must aheed to TOS.

Of course now we have the DCMA business going on and the P2P case, so not sure how true that will be in next gen games.