The current-generation PlayStation 4 is also region-free for games. For digital downloads, you’d have to create an account on PSN for each region, but for physical discs, you’d only have to import those with greater localization. For example, the new PlayStation 4-exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn’s North American release only has English and French speech and subtitles, while the EU version sold in Germany additionally has German and Italian speech, and Danish, German, Finnish, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, and Swedish subtitles. The trick is finding the localizations you want—for example, there’s a version of the same game sold in Poland, but doesn’t specify whether it has Polish speech or just Polish subtitles. I’ve read that the UK version has Polish and Russian speech and subtitles, but can’t confirm that officially.



Joseph Borkowski

Systems Administrator

Language Resource Center

Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

phone: +1 617 384 9234





On Apr 14, 2017, at 9:00 AM, Arthur Orme <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:



Audrey: This is a tricky area- Most video games consoles have regional encoding. The main regions are: Japan and Asia- NTSC-J, North and South America- NTSC-U, Europe, New Zealans and Australia-Pal, and China- NTSC-C.

Some Regional lockouts have also been achieved with software authentication, slot/pin changes, Cartridge/case differences, and IP blocking.  According to wikipedia, All playstation 3 games are region free- but some individual publishers have chosen to region lock certain games.  Microsoft Xbox and Xbox360 are region locked BUT the Xbox one is not region blocked- but again individual games may be encoded. Your best bet would probably be Xbox one or playstation-3. That being said- my son regularly plays japanese games before they are made available here using computer proxy sites- that takes up a lot of computer space and he regularly deletes to make more room. Many of the international games do have different characters, content and locations so it would no doubt be a good learning experience



On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 11:15 AM, Sartiaux, Audrey <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Hello,



I'm looking into purchasing a big screen LCD TV and an Xbox or playstation for students to play video games in foreign langages. I'm looking for examples of set ups and especially name and language availability of games. Also, let me know how you play international games on a US box or if you had to buy a game box from other countries.



Thank you for your help!



Audrey



--

Audrey Sartiaux, Ph.D.

Director of the Language Center

Union College, Schenectady, NY

Ph: 518-388-6216