Hurrah hurrah, the witch is dead!

What witch? The region encoding witch. You know, the one that prevents you from getting games from a different region and playing them on your very own PlayStation 2 (PS2).

Well, so says the head of Sony’s South Pacific operation.

“If you look at the fact that it will support high-definition TV, which will be a global standard, there’s a good likelihood that it will be global region, as for example we’ve done with the PSP (PlayStation Portable),” Mr Ephraim said.

…

In 2001 SCEA filed a law suit against Eddy Stevens who supplied “mod chips” that circumvent the console’s protection measures and allowing the consoles to play discs for other market regions and pirated game discs.

Sony argued that the chips were primarily to support piracy and asked the court to declare them illegal. However, the ACCC intervened in the case arguing that region coding system was an artificial trade barrier that unfairly blocked consumers’ access to games from other markets which are often cheaper.

So that means if they only release the F1 PS3 game in Europe (a very real possibility, considering how popular F1 is in North America), then I might be able to get it after all. And play it! What a concept!

PS3 Updates - Region Coding for PS3 Unlikely