PS1 game region code protected.?

May be...

I bought a PS1 game off Ebay and the game came from the US.

But I live in Australia and yes, the game didn't work in the PS3 or PS1 machine and I doubt in our PS2 because of the region.



My Question is, is that is it possible to fix easily?

or do I just have to return the game?



Also, why are things like DVD's and games region protected anyway... It's rather stupid.

Yes, you suspect correctly. PS1 games are region coded. This has technical and legal reasons.



The technical reasons are, that your TV in Australia is using the PAL video format.

The US and Japan are using the NTSC video standard. If you try to play a NTSC video on a PAL machine, you would get a black and white image, which also looks fuzzy and compressed.



So to make sure that only PAL games work on a console, a region protection makes sure, that you can get only 100% working games for your region.



The legal reason behind region coding is with content providers like movie or music companies. Or big sport clubs like NFL, the FIFA and the likes.



Sometimes, contents of a game or movie are licensed to a very special use. A great example is for example the TV Show "Dr. House" (or House M.D.).

The title melody in the intro is "Teardrop" by "Massive Attack" in the USA.

However, the record company only owns the license for the song in the US. In Germany and Australia, another company owns the rights to the song. Since the makers of the show only paid license fees to use the song to the US record companies, they aren't allowed to use the song in Germany or Australia. Therefore a completely new title song was written for these countries.



Or take a game from a movie. A movie can take some time to be translated and dubbed for Europe for example. This can take several months, and while the movie is already sold in video stores in the US, the movie hasn't even started in European cinemas.



So to prevent Europeans to buy an American DVD and watch the film at home, they enforce region protection, so US movies can't be played in Europe.



These are the reasons for region protection. They really are stupid.

And unfortunately, the only format, that wouldn't have region protection (the HD-DVD) was killed off by BluRay, a format with Region Protection again. You could have gotten a HD DVD from the US and watch it at your home, no matter where that is.

But BluRay Discs only play in their respective region. And the same is true with PS1 and PS2 game discs.



@Hey kid Im a computer! See your 2 points vanish after we thumb down your answer :)