Region-free PS3, free online multiplayer confirmed

I will be very pleasantly suprised if ps3 will be able to play ps1 and ps2 games from any region - I am only buying a next generation console if tails is any of the games (sonic the hedgehog for ps3/360 - I am yet to see any evidence of tails being involved).

I just hope Sony doesn't turn to Sony Online Entertainment on their network infrastructure. They never get it right in the first year of their product life cycles.

this has hidden meaning written all over it. Game developers, Sony espically, are really good at making claims that only vaguely represent the finished product. If Sony actually does succeed in this regard, props to them. with thier recent track record with how SOE's handled thier titles(how the hell do you screw up an MMO based on Star Wars?)and thier proprietary(meaning evil) developing software, these guys need a break.

Will it break XBL's track record? hard to tell, the service alone doesn't make a product good: it needs to be effective, easy, and cheap. and more to the point, the games themselves actually have to be worth playing (of which Sony has never been able to convince me). and all we can tell is that this service (supposedly) will exist. let's not make judgement calls until we can actually play the thing, which it's starting to look like will be in 2007.

"which it's starting to look like will be in 2007."

Based on what information?

"15. Skullfire:

Ok, but the PSP is region free, and ALL the games on it are region free. Therefor, I think that Sony might have one definition of the term, and Microsoft another.

Kind of like the 1080p thing earlier today. One says it's possible, the other says it's impossible."

No, they just have different means of implementing the regional lockout. Xbox/360 has a region code for each region, and a region code that counts as all regions. The system will only play games with the code from its region, or games with the code for all regions. Thus, the games can be regionless, but the system isn't.

With the PSP, the games are coded to region, but the system doesn't care what region code it sees for games as long as one is present, so the system is regionless but the games aren't.

The PS3 will probably implement the same type of regionless play as the PSP does, which would also allow play of imported PS1 and PS2 games, since it only has to detect one of the four game region codes (NTSC J, NTSC U/C, NTSC C, or PAL) but doesn't have to discriminate based on which one it detects.

^^ Dang, that's a pretty helpful explanation, bungiefan. I believe you deserve a star for that comment, which may actually be the first one you've posted here. =) Congrats!

"who announced the idea of downloadable games first?
was it Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony?"

SEGA did, over 10 years ago. It was called the SEGA Channel. Every month the adapter downloaded dozens of games via cable and were able to play all of them as many times as you wanted. Next month, next set of games. Even had exclusive games, cheats & info, contests, 15 minute preview Test-Drives of upcoming games. Cost? $12.95/month. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel

Sweet Merciful Crap! Yes! finally a console company wised up and got rid of that goddess awful region coding scheme! Finally i can import games from US AND Japan

Icelawn:I can tell from your response you obviously don't import games =P The whole point of a removal of a region code was to allow people to buy games outside of their specific regions ie. I live in Australia and we get shafted on 90% of decent RPG's so i'm forced to import games from US and I also import Bemani games from Japan. In the old code system unless you had a modified console if you ever purchased games outside of your region you would be met with a wonderful error from the console saying it can't recognise the game. Free Region coding just removes this small blockade so that the game will completely load and you can play the game. Playing Japanese games will still give you the original japanese fonts encoded in the Disk/Game itself. If your after english translations however you will have to make do with waiting for a US or European Release.

Anyhoo..if anything i can see this whole way of making PS3 region free as a good thing for game releases! As the other original excuse for region coding was to discourage people buying overseas copies of games yet to be released locally! With this in place PS3 games will have to be slightly more co-ordinated on release dates so that other countries that get later release dates (ie. Australia XD) gets releases almost the same time as the rest of the world, instead of waiting 4-5 months AFTER its come out! =P...oh and as people said..PS1 and PS2 region free compatibility would just be icing on the cake ^^

50. so you have to have tails in the game then? I hope everything works out very well for the ps3's when they come out...

the multiplayer support for the ps3 will be so much fun. Whether the graphics on a console are 100% or not does not even matter if the game play is second to none. Multiplayer is the only way to play.