PAL PS3 game on an NTSC PS3 system?

Djeet

Greetings.

I'm considering having The Beatles: Rock Band 2 microphone pack for the PS3 (linky) imported from the UK, but I'm not sure if it'll work.

My limited research indicates that the PS3 doesn't enforce region locking on PS3 games (true?). I purchased my PS3 in an NTSC region (the US) and the game's being imported from a PAL region (the UK), though I'm not sure if this actually matters in an HD setup such as mine.

Google gets me some conflicting information in various playstation-related forums regarding this, so I was hoping some PAer having 1st-hand experience might enlighten me.


Thanks.

yurnamehere

I believe PAL and NTSC are meaningless with regard to high definition setups.

Captain Vash

yurnamehere wrote: »

I believe PAL and NTSC are meaningless with regard to high definition setups.

while this is true. Region encoding is still (possibly) an issue.
I assume the pack you're looking at is not just the microphones but the game disk as well? (work filters the website for me).

From what I'm reading the ps3 region encoding can be added by the developer, but no developer has yet to region-encode a game.

Shiflett

I got the 1st Rock band game shipped to the Uk from the US and it worked no problem, so i can't see there being a problem the other way round.

There was a problem with DLC once they finally rolled that out in the Uk, I could download songs of the euro ps3 store but they wouldn't work with the ntsc game, so be careful with any songs you may get of the ps3 store as they seem to still use the regions for that.

vonPoonBurGer

Shiflett wrote: »

There was a problem with DLC once they finally rolled that out in the Uk, I could download songs of the euro ps3 store but they wouldn't work with the ntsc game, so be careful with any songs you may get of the ps3 store as they seem to still use the regions for that.

It's probably a licensing restriction issue related to whoever owns the rights to the songs. The PS3 itself may be region free, but the record company who licensed that track for Rock Band probably insisted that it be hobbled with regional limitations. Most likely because otherwise they'd be violating some exclusive distribution agreement they signed ten years ago with a European company.

Djeet

Yeah it's the game plus 2 SingStar microphones.

Shiflett, that sucks regarding the DLC situation. I wonder if setting up a PSN account in the foreign locality might help you get around this issue. I recall seeing several guides on various gaming sites on setting up a Japanese PSN account on a US PS3 for the express purpose of obtaining Japan-only demoes or something.

Not having DLC changes things (even if the bundle works), I may just have to pick up the game and some mikes.

Thanks for the responses.

bsjezz

vonPoonBurGer wrote: »

Shiflett wrote: »

There was a problem with DLC once they finally rolled that out in the Uk, I could download songs of the euro ps3 store but they wouldn't work with the ntsc game, so be careful with any songs you may get of the ps3 store as they seem to still use the regions for that.

It's probably a licensing restriction issue related to whoever owns the rights to the songs. The PS3 itself may be region free, but the record company who licensed that track for Rock Band probably insisted that it be hobbled with regional limitations. Most likely because otherwise they'd be violating some exclusive distribution agreement they signed ten years ago with a European company.

it's not restricted to licensed stuff, however - my copy of littlebigplanet is from the us, and content from the pal store does not work with it. it's generally just always been a matter of buying dlc from the region where the disc comes from

Willeth

Yeah, you'll need to buy DLC for something from the same region store as the disc. Luckily, European PSN card have just become available, so you should be able to do that without fiddling about with temporary prepaid credit cards, and so forth.