Is the GBA region free?

[garyfoo182]

Or is that only Game Gear im thinking of?

GARY

[Lady Jaye]

The GBA AND the Nintendo DS are region-free.

[link1110]

Has there EVER been a region-locked portable. Game Gear, All the Game Boys, DS, and PSP are all region free. I don't know about Lynx though (Or if that even existed in Japan)

[Gapporin]

Has there EVER been a region-locked portable. Game Gear, All the Game Boys, DS, and PSP are all region free. I don't know about Lynx though (Or if that even existed in Japan)

I was about to say, virtually every portable ever made is region free. The only one I can think of that isn't off the top of my head is the Nomad, but that's only because region protection was programmed into the some of the games themselves.

[davidbrit2]

Yeah, Nomad and Turbo Express are the only two I can think of, and that's mostly just an artifact of the original console having some region control on it.

And the PSP isn't 100% region free - apparently it will apply to UMD movies or something. So far the games are fine, though.

For the record, the Virtual Boy and Pokemon Mini are also universal, in addition to the rest of the Nintendo portable line.

[Aussie2B]

And the PSP isn't 100% region free - apparently it will apply to UMD movies or something. So far the games are fine, though.

That's really good to hear. I remember hearing a while back that it would have regional lockout, but I'm glad it doesn't apply to the games (the only thing I would especially care about, anyway).

[InsaneDavid]

Yeah, Nomad and Turbo Express are the only two I can think of, and that's mostly just an artifact of the original console having some region control on it.

And the PSP isn't 100% region free - apparently it will apply to UMD movies or something. So far the games are fine, though.

I'm sure that Sony will have some trick up their sleeve to lock up the PSP later down the line. Since the software isn't chip based they can always make changes in later released games preventing them from playing outside of their native regions.

This brings to mind the game Dino Crisis on the original PlayStation. Back in high school I made extra money modding PlayStations and importing PS games. Well if you had a mod chip installed in your console and tried to play a LEGAL and legitimate US copy of Dino Crisis you would get an error screen in Japanese saying how your console was tampered with. I found it funny since it reminded me of the "game not supported" screens from many Japanese PCEngine CD titles.

Heck, they may leave it unlocked, but just a warning to those of you who have purchased an import PSP and plan on doing mostly domestic gaming. - Then again there could always be a hack to get around it... still waiting for the first crop of emulators to be ported to the PSP.

The reason that UMD movies are not region free is due to the normal region guidelines for film, same as the DVD regions. Basically it's set up so that video releases in one country (usually the United States) don't kill theatrical releases in other countries since it takes a while for most films to be localized, promoted, purchased, etc. outside of the production country.

Anyway, yeah the GBA plays imports fine. :)