The PlayStation 5 is only two days away but, despite all of Sony’s presentations about the new console (recently, it even got Black Panther actor Michael B. Jordan to promote it), there was still a number of things fans and prospective buyers didn’t know.
Sony recently posted a very lengthy FAQ compiling everything important people need to know before buying a PlayStation 5. Most of it is information that’s already been discussed (the features of the DualSense controller, backwards compatibility, accessories etc.), but a few new details have been gleaned from it. One detail is discussed incredibly briefly, but it’s a very important one nonetheless for certain players and that’s whether the PS5 is region locked or not. The answer, fortunately, is no.
For those unfamiliar with region locking, this essentially means that the PS5 can play games from any region. So, for example, if a game is only released in Japan and there are no plans to localize it, a PS5 owner can import the game from Japan and still be able to play it on their American-bought PS5. Region locking has long been a controversial aspect of the gaming industry, with some arguing that companies preventing people from buying their games from other countries is counterintuitive, as they would still be making money regardless.
Many of Nintendo’s consoles used region locking, including the Wii U and the entire 3DS family of handheld consoles, though it appears the publisher is moving away from it now with the Nintendo Switch. Sony has stopped region locking its consoles since the PlayStation 3, with Microsoft following suit with the Xbox One and now the Xbox Series X/S.
While it seems region locking is no longer an issue for consoles, it does still persist in other ways. For example, the remaster of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles not only lacked local multiplayer, but its online multiplayer was region locked. So, if someone based in America had friends in the UK they wanted to play with, they couldn’t. This is also despite the fact that Crystal Chronicles‘ multiplayer was the primary focus and it’s why it received such harsh criticisms from fans.
The FAQ also addresses how PS5 games and save data can’t be transferred to an external USB drive, which could cause storage problems for a lot of players, though Sony does plan on changing this in a future update.
In addition, it’s been confirmed that those who own both a PS5 and PlayStation 4 can use remote play to stream PS5 games to the PS4, making this the only (legitimate/intended) way to play PS5 games using the PS4 controller.
The PlayStation 5 releases on November 12th.
Source: Sony
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