Comment Video games and output hardware (Score 1) 588
You have obviously never programmed a video game for a home console system. Many older systems tied timing routines to the vertical refresh interval, so everything from input checking and buffering, to timing, AI loops, even in radical cases number of visible sprites had to be changed when shifting from 60Hz NTSC to 50Hz PAL and vice versa. The most famous example of course is the Atari VCS/2600, which has no video RAM at all, and requires each scanline to be built up as the signal is output.
Even on today's hardware, one of the interrupt sources is the VBI, and the APIs include thread syncronization primitives like WaitForVI(), and there can be differences in hardware based on regions (font roms, bootloader versions, optional hardware interfacing, etc)
So just switching the refresh rate could change the playability of a game, or even stop it from functioning at all.
Add in the occasional outrage about video game content and how things might be changed to 'better suit' a target region (no red blood, removal of religious symbols/memes, profanity/nudity, percieved cruelty to animals or minorities, etc) and you might see why region codes provide a legal fig leaf for makers and distributors ("But we didn't release it for use in your country!").
Of course, the fact that it allows the same product to be contracted to several different companies for distribution in different regions at wildly differing prices, and allows control over time of release, etc is beside the point... *cough*
Even on today's hardware, one of the interrupt sources is the VBI, and the APIs include thread syncronization primitives like WaitForVI(), and there can be differences in hardware based on regions (font roms, bootloader versions, optional hardware interfacing, etc)
So just switching the refresh rate could change the playability of a game, or even stop it from functioning at all.
Add in the occasional outrage about video game content and how things might be changed to 'better suit' a target region (no red blood, removal of religious symbols/memes, profanity/nudity, percieved cruelty to animals or minorities, etc) and you might see why region codes provide a legal fig leaf for makers and distributors ("But we didn't release it for use in your country!").
Of course, the fact that it allows the same product to be contracted to several different companies for distribution in different regions at wildly differing prices, and allows control over time of release, etc is beside the point... *cough*
