From ‘The Australian IT’ comes this puzzling piece on the slated release date for the xbox 360’s HD DVD drive. It’ll cost $250 which is slightly cheaper than the US price. It will also be region free for HD-DVD titles. Now here’s the kicker:
From the article: "Standard DVDs played on the drive, however, would still be restricted to Australia and New Zealand’s Region 4 coding."
To this I ask: WTF!?!?
Can somebody please explain the logic behind this?? Locking out old generation technology? It makes no sense. What is the point in region encoding region 4 DVDs, not too mention the fact that the High Court ruled some time ago that region lockouts breached fair trade and market competition practices (in relation to parallel imports) – so what gives?
It high time that content providers ‘got with the program’. Since it’s perfectly legal to defeat region encoding in devices in Australia, you can be sure I’ll be disabling it if I choose to buy a 360 HD-DVD player. Microsoft Australia, why isn’t it region free for DVDs by default, like HD-DVDs?
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