SolidSnakex
Member
It just seems like a situation where they want to maximize the sales region. Even though story is a focus for this game, it's still a fighting game so for many the story won't be important. Which could lead to a lot of importing.
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Persona 4: Arena Region-Locked on PS3 - Confirmed [PR statement in OP]
- Thread starter Squire
- Start date
It just seems like a situation where they want to maximize the sales region. Even though story is a focus for this game, it's still a fighting game so for many the story won't be important. Which could lead to a lot of importing.
That would be the last straw for me. I'm assuming that exceptional circumstances are leading to P4A's region lock (i.e. Zen United or the dual audio soundtrack) and that P4 Golden won't have such limitations.
Any wait that's longer than a month or two for P4 Golden is going to kill my hype for the game, so I'm hoping I can get it in October and enjoy it at the same time as America.
I know you're not defending the lock here, but...
In my view, if a company has to impose any arbitrary lock or region restriction on anything in order to sell, there's something fundamentally flawed with their business model. If your game can't succeed in one territory because your customers are importing it from elsewhere, then it's pretty obvious that it's either too expensive or you're waiting too long to release it.
Region locking pretty much makes these companies look like they're running a cartel, when you think about it in that way. Companies are happy to use globalisation to hawk their wares around the world, but don't want to extend the same benefits of global trade to their customers.
Agreed, but those aren't necessarily factors under your control. That's my essential point. If everything is in place for you to compete fairly and you still can't compete, I have no objections. The problem is that I've encountered dozens of circumstances out of a company's direct control that could stand in the way of you hitting the optimal release window.
This makes me wonder: I'm coming from the standpoint that Atlus's customer in Europe is Zen, not the people who'll finally play the game. Those people should be regarded as Zen's customers, not Atlus's.
Perhaps that's a flawed line of reasoning, but in doing so that does naturally make me sympathise with Zen as a customer.
(Clearly, the solution we all really want is for Atlus to get around to opening an office over here like they should have done years ago!)
I don't care about that. If they can't make it work in a timely or cost-effective fashion, then consumers should have the right to take their business elsewhere. Region locking just enforces regional price fixing. In my view, it should be illegal because it's anti-competitive and in some instances, especially the price of Japanese games, is blatant profiteering.
Again, I don't care about Zen. Atlus are hiring them to bring the game over here, but if Zen are incapable, for whatever reasons (whether they're out of their control or not), then I should have the right to go elsewhere. If they can't compete with imports, then they're doing something wrong on their end. As a customer, all I care about is getting the game in a timely fashion.
As it stands, I'm probably not going to bother with P4 Arena now. I was prepared to wait for the PAL release to encourage quicker Atlus releases (I did the same with Persona 2 on PSP, because that was barely a month late), but if they're going to tell me what I can and can't do on a system that has, for six years, not had such a limitation, then I'm out. I'm not a pirate, and I'm not a modder (of PS3, anyway -- I'll willingly mod region locked systems to play legitimate imports). All I want is to be able to buy legitimate software and use it, but it seems even that's not good enough for these companies. Appalling.
Also, for what it's worth, Zen aren't a customer of Atlus. They've made a deal to localise and distribute Atlus USA's game, and this isn't a seller-customer relationship between the two companies. It's very unlikely that Zen paid a lump sum and just left it at that. Zen are just acting as a middle man to sell Atlus' software, and Atlus will see a cut from each game sold. And if Zen are not capable of releasing the game at or around the same time as the US version, then that should be their problem, and not mine.
Exactly. As a customer they're catering to us, not the other way around. If somebody else offers superior service, you use them, and the other company loses business. But here, we're having that option removed. Which is dumb.
You don't have to - but Atlus have an obligation to.
What if the other entity offers superior service *due to circumstances forcing the first entity has to offer an inferior product*? What then? Would Atlus prefer Zen suing them for breach of contract?
I appreciate that you're trying to make a case (and I understand the European publisher's position as well) but I also think any excuse for this is a horrible excuse. You're either able to compete or you're not.
Every single other publisher in Europe has to deal with lost sales due to imports. Every single one. All of them have found a way to make sure people import as little as possible and they've all done it without setting up an arbitrary rule so that you don't even have to try to compete. Atlus' releases in Europe have been known to be way too late for forever. It's not like this is a problem that just recently came up and that they've not found a solution to it.
Their solution now, seemingly, is to just make it impossible for European folks to import a copy? That's basically the only solution where no one but them benefits. Every other publisher has come up with some ideas (start translation earlier, for example) to get Europeans to buy their games in Europe.
None of them had to force Europeans to do that, they all did it by themselves. Now a publisher who basically has to be on good terms with its fanbase because they rely on the sales to the 'vocal minority of the interwebz' comes up with an idea that basically screws over these people.
I'll not buy any PAL versions of Atlus games simply because they come out too late and are priced too high. If I can't import then I just won't bother and my buddies basically have the same feelings. They could have worked on improving the process of getting the game over in a reasonable time frame (like basically any other publisher) but they didn't.
What a nonsense argument.
I've never seen Ghostlight sue Atlus for breach of contract, despite them releasing Atlus games significantly later (and, as such, are inferior and overpriced in comparison). And anyway, Ghostlight have, instead, realised the merits of getting the games out as soon as possible. I'm sure they saw a better return on Persona 2: Innocent Sin, which was barely a month late, compared to Persona 3 Portable, which was 9-10 months late. And that point aside, importing doesn't seem to have affected them much anyhow, as they seem to have made good money on their Atlus releases, despite the delay.
If Zen Unlimited wants me to buy the European version, they should provide a compelling reason for European gamers to do so, not take away reasons for them to import instead. Whilst we don't know what the reasons for the region lock are, if it is Zen, then they're the bad guys here. Your business model sucks if you have to impose limitations to stop competition, rather than actually, you know, competing. It falls back to the carrot and stick thing. And when you're dealing with a niche market, such as Atlus games, it's better to take the carrot approach than the stick one.
Plus Atlus should know better than to do something like this. They've generally been pretty tolerant of importers, as have their European partners, and that's probably because it's such a minority that it barely dents the mass market, even on a niche like Atlus (I know most of my friends would rather wait than import). Because of how small the niche of importing games is, this move comes across as unnecessarily spiteful.
I can't say whether this is 100% valid or not, but according to foomfoom415 (who, if his GAF profile is anything to go by, is a translator, and would probably see or hear about the behind the scenes side of certification if he's worked on games), said the following:
If the reason for the region lock on P4A is to stop importers, however, then it seems that that has become a good enough reason.
If that is a Sony policy, and it still rings true, then the only explanation (that I can think of) for region locking that doesn't involve blocking importers is censorship reasons. And that begs the question: is there anything in P4A that could warrant it being censored in one region and not in another?
Many many games on PS3 in all of these 6 years got in the same situation(same game with two or more different publishers,dual tracks..ect) so it's not an exceptional situation and not an excuse at all for region locking because again none have done on the system before it in the past 6 years.
Honestly is sound like Atlus and Zen just went to shitty mode and want to cut the imports on P4A which is really bad news for P4G and all future Atlus games too.
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
This is exactly it. Atlus' audience is for a big part the type that would import games in general because they like the sort of niche titles that often don't make it out here. Cutting off that option hurts their brand image in that regard.
Yes. They will not gain anything positive out of it. You could expect such a move from EA or Activision but Atlus?
Captain Ganz
Banned
Still buying the game, not gonna get mad unless this happens again.
I'm not sure how you could disbelieve it at this point, but I'm not mad about the region locking, I'm mad about this particular game being region locked. It means that as a UK player I won't get to play it until God-knows-when thanks to Zen's ridiculous localisation times.
Triple Da G.O.D!
Member
I didn't know that PS3 games could be region locked anyway.
I don't see what the big deal is though. The game is coming out everywhere.
Crisis Averted.
I don't see what the big deal is though. The game is coming out everywhere.
Crisis Averted.
The 'big deal' is that UK players probably won't get it until a few months after everyone else. The publisher for the UK is Zen, and they are notorious for releasing games far later than other regions.
semiconscious
Member
already mentioned?:
had from region-locked demon's souls, atlus most likely never would've published its biggest western hit this gen...
had from region-locked demon's souls, atlus most likely never would've published its biggest western hit this gen...
Which is why I'm trying to explore the reasons it appears to be happening. I ought to reiterate: I'm not claiming that this is a good thing, far from it. While I'm not particularly interested in Arena, I *am* interested in The Golden, and so this could easily adversely affect me down the line.
Ultimately, I'm just trying to understand what circumstances could bring this about. It's unusual, everyone's adamant there's little to no *gain* out of doing so - so why do it? It doesn't make sense, and I'm reluctant to simply put it down to EVIL PUBLISHERS! GRAAAGH! because I'm not sure there's an overall positive result for them as a result of this.
I don't think we know the whole story, and I suspect it's something that's not simple.
I was under the impression that Bluray video regions were a completely different concept to game regions.
R_thanatos
Member
Hope isnt gonna get you far.If true people should make an uproar about it.
According to the guy ,this lock doesnt follow the blu ray movie lock.
Japan and Hk in one region and Both americas in another
Region-locking decisions are made for the benefit of retailers and the regional publishers/distributors. More the latter than the former in this case, though, considering the narrow sales appeal of the game.
Azure Phoenix
Member
Precisely. Like it or not, Atlus relies heavily on their image as a little underdog company that does everything it can to please it's fans. They need to tread lightly as this could damage that image, to what extent depends if this is the start of a trend or just a one off - I'm willing to tolerate P4A being locked on the condition that it never happens again and it doesn't start a trend with other publishers, but anything more and I will not be importing any more titles from Atlus.
Huh. Weird.
The only example I can think of is Uncharted (or was it R&C ToD?) demo was region locked, but that was a mistake fixed within a couple of days. I remember back then people started freaking out/laughing "PS3 REGION LOCKED NOW OMGWTF/ROFLOL"
Bought Uncharted 2 from the US. Works fine on my EU PS3.
The only example I can think of is Uncharted (or was it R&C ToD?) demo was region locked, but that was a mistake fixed within a couple of days. I remember back then people started freaking out/laughing "PS3 REGION LOCKED NOW OMGWTF/ROFLOL"
Bought Uncharted 2 from the US. Works fine on my EU PS3.
Sure, on paper, but why start now? That's still a curious inconsistency.
Perhaps Zen's contract was negotiated with that as part of the deal, but that's still a case of why was *this* one negotiated that way and not prior ones?
It may not have been part of the old licensing agreement, or Zen's financials on localisation and distribution were starting to get to the point where they thought it was unsustaniable without region-locking to protect them.
At this point we can only speculate.
michaelius
Banned
Death to region locking.
When I joined this generation I chose the PS3 over the 360 almost entirely because I knew I'd be playing games in multiple languages and didn't want to have the slightest fear of being locked out of playing something.
One of the very few things Sony has done right from the customer-service perspective, and now a publisher breaks it. Shame on them.
When I joined this generation I chose the PS3 over the 360 almost entirely because I knew I'd be playing games in multiple languages and didn't want to have the slightest fear of being locked out of playing something.
One of the very few things Sony has done right from the customer-service perspective, and now a publisher breaks it. Shame on them.
I dunno about Arcana Hearts, but Blazblue's CEs in Europe are pretty lackluster. The only acceptable one was Extend, and even then it was worse than the US equivalent.
R_thanatos
Member
Arcana hearts LE had quantity to it not quality.
It was the only Ledition i was disapointed in recent years
Mediocre cd audio quality
untranslated stuff (still in japanese)
Weird packaging overall
Acquiescence
Member
This is the first time I've heard of a game being region-locked on the PS3 - so many questions. I didn't think it was even possible to lock a game on the system; I had automatically assumed by now that all PS3 games were region-free and that was that. One of the definite advantages the PS3 had over all competition, yet now we've got a region-locked game and probably more to come - this is kind of shitty.
The main reason we hate region locking is the delays between regions. The delay for Americans isn't that bad.
I'm not going to defend the practice, and I understand if people want to boycott, but I don't think Atlus has gone Capcpom on us here. Euros have every reason to be upset though.
I do think we're deserving of an explanation as to why, so we can find the real party to blame (I think it's Atlus Japan fear of reverse importing personally)
I'm not going to defend the practice, and I understand if people want to boycott, but I don't think Atlus has gone Capcpom on us here. Euros have every reason to be upset though.
I do think we're deserving of an explanation as to why, so we can find the real party to blame (I think it's Atlus Japan fear of reverse importing personally)
I'm upset on general principle, not because it negatively affects me.
R_thanatos
Member
Well, I'm pissed because it affects me (in Europe with a Japanese console). If the EU version will be region locked, too, this means I have to import the Japanese version, which means it'll get 20-30 more expensive, which means I won't buy it.
I don't really care what kind of lame excuse Atlus comes up with.
Not really a trend if it's just one game at this point.
At the very least it means you can't be sure anymore. That alone means preordering gets kinda risky.
Oh well, as long as they don't make an official statement, I still hope that forum guy can't tell a 360 from a PS3.
Andrefpvs
Member
So much this. Why in the hell can't this happen already?
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
Not sure how feasible this is, but they should just buy up and rebrand Ghostlight and make sure the company then has the resources/contacts to make sure stuff gets released in a timely fashion. Ghostlight for the most part has extended that Atlus philosophy of going the extra mile for fans with nice LE's. As someone else has said, this move directly contradicts that and could hurt them a lot more in the long term than whatever short term benefit they see now.
That seems like a bit of a stretch.
Yeah this... I mean I'm already pissed off that there is a chance we won't be getting Etrian Odyssey IV. Hell, there is even an chance we won't be getting Shin Megami Tensei IV.
It fucking sucks being in Europe and wanting to play Atlus games. Sure, there is Ghostlight of course (and I really respect them doing what they do), but even they can only localise so many games. Like siad before, Atlus should just buy Ghostlight and make it their European office.
Yep. We never got Strange Journey so it's entirely possible.
While this doesn't impact me all that much, I think we as consumers should send a message to Atlus, just to make sure this doesn't happen again. It won't happen, most people buying this game won't know about the region-lock, but it would be nice.
It's not like we don't have choices- is Persona really going to outclass all of these fighters in terms of quality? KOF, VF, GG, Skullgirls, DOA, Tekken?
Those are all really good fighters- I'm sure Persona will be as well, but I don't need to support anti-consumer practices these days in order to have a good fighting game.
It's not like we don't have choices- is Persona really going to outclass all of these fighters in terms of quality? KOF, VF, GG, Skullgirls, DOA, Tekken?
Those are all really good fighters- I'm sure Persona will be as well, but I don't need to support anti-consumer practices these days in order to have a good fighting game.