Xbox One hardware and software will be region locked

After the recent unveiling of the Xbox One, information on Microsoft's next-gen console is being slowly revealed leading up to E3. According to the newest piece of information from Digital Trends, the console will be region locked. While region locks have been standard for the industry for quite some time now, it still comes as a surprise considering the fact that even though the PlayStation 3 had provisions for region locking for game publishers and developers, only one game in the console's history that has been region locked.

The console has a sleek blocky design

Region locking is a highly controversial topic, since most gamers prefer their content to not be locked to any regions. Region locking essentially stops anyone from importing games from another region. This turns out to be a major pain when a lot of niche titles are made in Japan but are never released to the outside world. More often than not, region locking is done because some countries like to impose taxes on games, and importing games in these countries would lead to hassles.

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Wii games saw the brunt of this when many games were released for the console in Japan that western gamers had interest in, but the company refused to release outside the country because it felt the games wouldn't do as well. The Xbox 360 does have the provision for region locking, for if the publishers choose to, but a lot of the games aren't region locked. The Wii U and its gamepad are both region locked.