A non-region free copy?

[Jecht Striker]

A Canadian friend and contact of mine was recently enamoured with Virtual On, and when I told them Force is region-free, which I was able to verify through my own copy, they decided to get it for themselves

Upon getting the game however, they were greeted with this



They asked me for help with this, and frankly I have no idea. I've never heard of Force having region coding issues before. They've verified it's NOT the Platinum edition, I just have no idea what is causing this.

Can anybody offer me some insight here?

[Fallsmyer]

The Japanese version of the game is supposed to be region locked to JP 360's. The Asia region and I think the Platinum and Memorial editions of the game are region free.

[MentholMoose]

The Japanese version (from the Memorial Box) works fine on my US Xbox 360.

[Porcupine]

My working copy is from the Memorial Box as well. If I read what KBMF said correctly, he seems to be saying the original Japanese regular-edition of the game is the only version that is not region-free. That's pretty scary. I'm trying to look into it now.

[MentholMoose]

I've never heard anything about VO4 being region-locked, and even the developers said it is region-free. From their blog post here: フロム開発トゥユーザーさん Vol.7

フォースは日本とアジア（中身は日本と同じ）のみの販売なのですが、実績についてはひっそりと英語に翻訳してあったりもします。実績は世界共通の楽しみですからね！残念ながら正式に欧米での発売はありませんが、実績マニアは国を超えてソフトを買うスキルを持ってるので(笑)、きっとなんとか入手してくれるはず！バーチャロンフォースはリージョンフリーなんで世界中でプレイしていただけますよー。よろしくお願いします！＞世界中の実績マニアの方々

I'm not fluent in Japanese but I can tell that "リージョンフリー" means "region free". The translation was also confirmed by various sites such as Virtual-On Force Is Region Free (And In English!).

[twistedsymphony]

I remember looking into this when I bought my copy and I recall reading that there's a specific version that is not region free but the rest are. I can't remember for the life of me where I read it.

FWIW I have the Memorial Box version, which is fine.

[DarkraiZero]

That is certainly unusual... I have first-print Japanese copy (The one that is all white with the logo) and it works fine on my console (US Xbox). The only copy of the game that I heard is region locked is the digital version from the JPN and HK Xbox Live marketplace.

[GXPT2000]

i am looking into buying a copy of force too, but now that Ive seen this I am scared that it might not work on my xbox..
the cheapest ones online are also the original releases of the game...

[DarkraiZero]

Could you ask your friend to send you a picture of the game so you could share it with us? (Case Front, Back, and Side, Disc, and Manual) I have original release JPN version and works perfectly fine. He could potentially have a bootleg copy. (At least I think. A friend told me that sometimes people add / remove region lock)