Ossot said:tattar8 said:+1 on that. That's a very good comparison.Leathl said:Why do we still speak in different languages?
That's not a good comparison at all. The technology is there. As evident with just switching 'Force NTSC/PAL' under your loader. The hardware, at least on the Wii, doesn't give a shit either way. The same hardware can output in PAL OR NTSC with only a software switch.
The analogy is like saying a bunch of linguists are in the same room and each will only speak his native language even though they all have 9 in common.
So is this thread about why we have PAL and NTSC or why do we have region locking? Because I'm starting to think it's the latter.
But to answer the former, we have PAL and NTSC simply because televisions exist that can only display one standard. PAL on my television displays as a severely cropped black and white flickering image. You're right, the Wii hardware doesn't care; it can output the video data in both formats. Keep in mind that VC games and regular games are not themselves specifically encoded for PAL or NTSC; they just contain raw image data. The Wii hardware takes the data, converts it to PAL or NTSC, and sends it down the cable to your TV so it can be displayed. These games also contain region locking and, I'm guessing, specify a default video standard, hence the reason you have to remove region protections and then force NTSC or PAL.
So I guess the question is, why have region locking? Especially when some games are shipping with multiple languages on them, etc.