Question about digital stores

[The_Blue_Rider]

Living in New Zealand, I've grown up not getting some games that came out in America and other parts of the world (Or at the very least, having an incredibly hard time finding them) so earlier this year when I finally started seriously growing a library of digital games on my PS3 did I realize just how restricted the NZ PSN store is compared to what I hear of the PSN store in other regions. XBLA has this problem too.
On my old 360 I heard about the Indie games section, and thought it'd be pretty interesting to check out, lo and behold, it wasnt available in NZ. With the PSN store, I thought I could build up a library of PS2 games that I was never able to find, however the store is sorely lacking, and its incredibly infuriating when I hear about games on the other versions of the store coming out that arent coming out here (Persona 4 for example)

So just out of curiosity, why is it that digital stores have all these differences based on locale? I was always under the assumption that digital distribution would make it easier to get games in the hands of customers, not the other way around

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well if you run a store via legal channels you also need to play ball with local markets, so your stuff needs to be rated, taxed, censored, localized, approved,... whole lot of red tape before shit gets done.
Which is sadly why illegal methods of obtaining most games are still the superior distribution model.

 

[shrekfan246]

The stores (generally) don't set the prices or which games are available.

Mr.K. brought up local markets, but they go hand-in-hand with the publishers, and publishers make strange decisions sometimes (like, say, refusing localization for games people clearly want, or only releasing an English-localized game in a single territory instead of all English-speaking territories, or never lowering the prices of their games so that their game from 2006 is still being sold for $40). I don't know exactly how the Xbox and Playstation stores are handled, so I don't know whether the publishers need to go through the local networks and Microsoft/Sony or just Microsoft/Sony, but sometimes they just don't deem it to be worth it, because of reasons. Atlus are notorious for publishing their games in English PAL territories up to a year or two after the rest of the world has already gotten it, seemingly with no excuse. Which is odd, because you'd think it wouldn't be too expensive to release a game that's already been localized for a specific language in other sections of the world that speak said language, especially digitally.

I think a lot of companies are still treating digital stores the same as physical stores.