Mod chips declared legal in Austraila

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2005-10-06 02:53pm

MSNBC wrote:Australian court rules 'mod chips' legal
Four year battle over right to use cheaper versions of Sony games

SYDNEY, Australia - Australia's High Court ruled unanimously Thursday that modifying Sony PlayStation consoles so that they can play cheaper overseas versions of the company's games does not violate Australian copyright laws.

The decision ends a four-year legal battle between entertainment and Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. and Sydney-based business owner Eddy Stevens, who supplied and installed "mod chips" in PlayStation devices.

Sony divides the global gaming market into regions and programs its PlayStation consoles so that games sold in the United States or Asia cannot be played on consoles sold in Australia. The so-called mod chips bypass Sony's regional coding and allow users to run cheaper games made for markets outside Australia on their PlayStation machines.

The High Court ruled that while making a pirated copy of a game is illegal, playing a game using a mod chip is not.

A lawyer for Stevens, Nathan Mattock, said the ruling would allow Australian consumers to buy lower price versions of games overseas and play them on their Australian-bought PlayStation consoles, provided they have a mod chip installed.

"It's a victory for consumers, but also business people as well," he told The Associated Press. "It will likely increase competition in the market and possibly reduce prices in the market for gaming."

Mattock said Thursday's ruling could force Sony to rethink its regional coding system and make game prices more uniform around the world.

A spokeswoman for Sony Australia, who declined to be named, said the company did not have any comment at this stage.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-10-06 03:07pm

Why are Australian gamers willing to pay higher prices than gamers elsewhere?

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-10-06 04:56pm

Because we don't have a choice. A new PC/PS2/XBox game will retail for $90-100... Which is just wrong, considering that even when exchange rates are taken into account, ($50 US = $66 AU) we are still paying more than we should. Not to mention that we get games LAAAAATE. Generally we are a month behind - though this often stretches out to more than a YEAR. Hell Tekken 5 was released here in August - AUGUST THIS FUCKING YEAR, to give you an idea of how behind we are - and yes, on release they still wanted ~$100 for it.

And the mod-chipping thing isn't really new either - it was an old ACCC ruling that evidently was challenged in the courts by Sony.

Still, paying that much for games is just shit.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-10-06 05:34pm

Right, but there must be some difference in the consumers. After all, they could do the same shit with the U.S. via region encoding if they wanted to, but the game industry would go bankrupt the next day for lack of sales if they did.

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-10-06 05:47pm

The difference is, THAT WE DON'T HAVE A CHOICE. The 90 dollar figure is the RRP of games down here! Combine the extortionate prices with the fact that games are released WAY later (lets not mention how much later we get things like consoles) means that piracy is seen by many as a fair method of getting the games.

Perhaps if the ACCC was to question just why we are getting charged SOOOO much more than everyone else then we might have a price drop, until then however its the game distributors and retailers holding the price up high.

As for the region coding thing: well, that's why we love the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission - its a watchdog body that makes sure that shit like that doesn't happen.

Its the same group that ruled region-coding of DVDs illegal in Australia (thus you can legally modchip DVD players and companies are required to market non-region locked players).

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-10-06 06:21pm

Yes, you have a choice. Don't buy until they stop extorting you. That's what he's trying to say; if they did that here, the industry would go bankrupt because nobody would pay up.

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-10-06 06:27pm

The problem is that people are used to it - the prices have always been that high here... And people tend not to question it.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-10-06 07:10pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Yes, you have a choice. Don't buy until they stop extorting you. That's what he's trying to say; if they did that here, the industry would go bankrupt because nobody would pay up.

Considering mod-chipping isn't illegal in Oz, buying the games from overseas vendors and refusing to buy locally effectively sends the same message and gets them the product legally to boot.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-10-06 07:34pm

Hello? Bogans? These people pay AU$50 for a point of speed, they're not really up on this whole market economics thing.

AU$90-100 has been RRP for games since GENESIS games. Just imagine it! I've heard that Xbox2 games are going to retail for 10-20% more than Xbox games, so I doubt we'll see Xbox2 games for less than AU$115 here.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-10-07 01:01am

All I'm saying is that there must have been some reason why they set prices higher in Australia. Even if they were just experimenting with prices and picked Australia at random, if Australians and Americans had the same innate willingness to pay, and it's worked since the Genesis days, they would have used those same tactics in America by now.

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-10-07 01:36am

The only thing I can think of is shipping costs, but the copy of Rome:TW I have (and a bunch of other games) say: "Printed/packaged in Australia".

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2005-10-07 02:55am

That'll actually be really good for consumers, you'll be able to get mod chips fitted by professionals rather then Joe Soldering-Iron who runs an operation similar to back alley abortion clinics, except uses more solder.

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2005-10-07 11:08am

I expect that their economic arguement for the higher prices would be that smaller number of gamers over here means that their freight costs (both to get the goods into the country in the first place, and to then transport them around this rather large land mass to where they're demanded, in load sizes that would have trouble filling a small standard shipping container), and potentially their production costs if producing locally (lower economies of scale on production), would both be significantly higher than elsewhere.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2005-10-07 06:04pm

Private consumers shouldn't be able to import a single title more cheaply then retailers can import bulk.

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2005-10-07 06:06pm

If the company needs to make a multi leg journey to import the title, and it's not able to import it in massive bulk (ie. Not even filling a shipping container, leading to wastage), it's certainly possible, if a bit unlikely. It certainly does put a dint in that argueent by the game companies though.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2005-10-08 03:12am

I still don't think that would happen. If imports aren't big enough for them to haul in massive bulk then it usually falls back to distributors that often deal with multiple products. For example, the company that imports iPods into New Zealand also do Asus notebooks, Palms, and US Robotics routers. There's plenty of ways to fill a shipping container.

There is however the case with parallel importers, although they usually have links with foreign suppliers.