PS Vita region exclusivity

[The Almighty Aardvark]

For those who don't know (probably most, I doubt there's much of a massive rush for these games) there seems to be a really strange tendency for games to be completely compatible with the PS Vita, but impossible to buy on the Playstation Store. I'm not sure of all of the examples of this, but Spyro and Crash are PSOne classics downloadable on the PSP and PS3 worldwide, but for some reason only on the Vita in the UK.

Another example that I've seen is the Phantasy Star Portable games have been removed from the Playstation Store entirely. Except... strangely the demo for the first game. So you can download the demo, but they seem to have this aversion to you actually buying the game and giving them money.

So... why?

In addition to being a little bummed about this, what's bugging me more is how it just seems to make no sense. The UK version of the Spyro and Crash games is perfectly compatible with Vitas worldwide, so it's not like any effort or money is needed to make it compatible. They're already selling it in North America on two other consoles, what possible deterrent is their for to selling it on a third outside of Europe? People might have the gall to pay them money to play them?

Same deal with Phantasy Star Portable. They're preventing people from being able to play a game for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

My question is, WHY!? Seriously! Any theories? If there was a reason for it I could at least say "Well, it would cost them more money for X reason, so while I don't like it I can understand why they're doing it" but as it is, it just seems like this was done on a whim

 

[Roxas1359]

The PSN stores are region locked because some games have licensing issues in other regions, while some games are banned in some regions, etc. That's the main reason why, and while I hate it it at least makes more sense than region locking physical software *cough*Nintendo*cough.

Personally I hate all region locks though.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

The PSN stores are region locked because some games have licensing issues in other regions, while some games are banned in some regions, etc. That's the main reason why, and while I hate it it at least makes more sense than region locking physical software *cough*Nintendo*cough.

Personally I hate all region locks though.

The games have already been released in North America though, and are still downloadable there (In the case of Spyro and Crash). Just not on the PS Vita. Not that Spyro or Crash Bandicoot would ever be at risk of being banned due to content. I get the region locking, and while I don't like it I can understand the reasoning for it. It just seems really backwards to spend all that money porting over a game and then cutting your market in half or just making the game un-buyable (in the case of Phantasy Star Portable)