Japanese game players who queued for hours to get one of Sony’s new
Playstation 2 machines are complaining that the 8-megabyte memory cards do not
work reliably. But they are not complaining about one design oversight: users
can override the “regional coding” on its DVD drive. Consoles sold in Japan
should not play North American DVD movies, but the PS2 comes with software that
resets the drive to run US discs. Unauthorised “grey market” PS2 imports are
already on sale in the US. Sony is now modifying the software.
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