PS3 What's the difference between region 03 and 04?

[NiQ]

As the name says. I know region 03 is UK / Ireland and 04 is EMEA, but for all purposes they're both PAL region for PS1/PS2 games, Region 2 for DVD and Region B for Blu-Ray. The PS3 store seems identical too and content purchased on a xx03 console is available for redownload on a xx04 and vice versa.

I'm asking because I have a 2504 in my living room and recently I bought another (2nd hand) PS3 for my bedroom and it's 2503. They're both activated on the same PSN account. Is there anything I should be aware of?

 

[GuilloteTesla]

As the name says. I know region 03 is UK / Ireland and 04 is EMEA, but for all purposes they're both PAL region for PS1/PS2 games, Region 2 for DVD and Region B for Blu-Ray. The PS3 store seems identical too and content purchased on a xx03 console is available for redownload on a xx04 and vice versa.

Well, there are a lot of mixing here. Don't confuse PS3 region, with signal coding, with DVD region, with BluRay region. Those are unrelated.

• PS3 region means locking up games to certain parts of the world (based on the numbering pattern used by Sony: 00 Japan, 01 USA, etc.) in order to avoid game importing and use of software only on certain regions. The PS3 was mostly unlocked for games and other software (except for a few games locked to Japan), but 99.9% of the PS3 games run in every PS3 (as it should be). That's why you can use most of your digital content on every PS3 you own.
  
  
• Signal coding is a signal transmition coding standard used to process and display video on different devices (TVs, cameras, videotapes, video players and recorders). Each country adopted certain norm (PAL, NTSC or SECAM) based on these definitions:
  
  

  - The difference between NTSC and PAL is the transmission of number of frames per second. In NTSC, 30 frames are transmitted per second. Each frame is constituted up of 525 scan lines.
  - In PAL, 25 frames are transmitted per second. Each frame consists of 625 scan lines.
  - The power frequency used in NTSC is 60 Hz. While in PAL, the power frequency is 50 HZ.

  
  
• DVD region was the first true locking system that prevented DVDs to work in every region. The region was "chosen" on the player and couldn't be changed. Then the PC DVD drives came and Windows allowed to change the region 5 times, after which the last region chosen was the one used forever. But all of this changed which piracy and hackers, developing tools to avoid the checks and new players without region lock, rendering the entire locking system useless.
  
  
• BluRay region is the same as DVD, but most player manufacturers opted to allow to play any region discs on their hardware, making the locking system useless.

Bear in mind that DVD and BluRay regions are pointed towards the market of each specific region, so movie studios have control on their contents and distribution. For example, Japanese DVDs and BluRays will have content for Japan: subtitles, audio tracks, bonus contents, etc., and removing anything that doesn't comply with Japanese laws (a.k.a. censorship).

I'm asking because I have a 2504 in my living room and recently I bought another (2nd hand) PS3 for my bedroom and it's 2503. They're both activated on the same PSN account. Is there anything I should be aware of?

Nothing to worry about. Sony lowered the maximum limit of PS3s activated consoles on a single PSN account from 5 to 2 (this happened almost 5 years ago, if I remember correctly), so you are on the limit and no other system could be attached to your account until another is dettached from it.

 

[Agrippa]

The only difference is the UK specific AC plug, probably.

 

[NiQ]

Well, there are a lot of mixing here. Don't confuse PS3 region, with signal coding, with DVD region, with BluRay region. Those are unrelated.

• PS3 region means locking up games to certain parts of the world (based on the numbering pattern used by Sony: 00 Japan, 01 USA, etc.) in order to avoid game importing and use of software only on certain regions. The PS3 was mostly unlocked for games and other software (except for a few games locked to Japan), but 99.9% of the PS3 games run in every PS3 (as it should be). That's why you can use most of your digital content on every PS3 you own.
  
  
• Signal coding is a signal transmition coding standard used to process and display video on different devices (TVs, cameras, videotapes, video players and recorders). Each country adopted certain norm (PAL, NTSC or SECAM) based on these definitions:
  
  
  
  
• DVD region was the first true locking system that prevented DVDs to work in every region. The region was "chosen" on the player and couldn't be changed. Then the PC DVD drives came and Windows allowed to change the region 5 times, after which the last region chosen was the one used forever. But all of this changed which piracy and hackers, developing tools to avoid the checks and new players without region lock, rendering the entire locking system useless.
  
  
• BluRay region is the same as DVD, but most player manufacturers opted to allow to play any region discs on their hardware, making the locking system useless.

Bear in mind that DVD and BluRay regions are pointed towards the market of each specific region, so movie studios have control on their contents and distribution. For example, Japanese DVDs and BluRays will have content for Japan: subtitles, audio tracks, bonus contents, etc., and removing anything that doesn't comply with Japanese laws (a.k.a. censorship).



Nothing to worry about. Sony lowered the maximum limit of PS3s activated consoles on a single PSN account from 5 to 2 (this happened almost 5 years ago, if I remember correctly), so you are on the limit and no other system could be attached to your account until another is dettached from it.

I'm aware of the difference between region and signal coding. I was using those terms because PS1 and PS2 region names were NTSC/J (Japan / SCEI), NTSC/U (USA / SCEA) and PAL (Europe / SCEE) and even though the signal coding in both Japan and the US was NTSC, games were incompatible due to region locking.

Anyway, I was asking specifically about the difference between the xx03 and xx04 regions of the PS3 - Because 03 is UK / Ireland and 04 is the rest of Europe / Middle East / Africa. Taking that into account, both the UK/IE and EMEA are the same PS1 / PS2 region (PAL / SCEE), both are the same DVD region (2) and both are the same Blu Ray region (B). PS3 games, as you said, are region free, with the only notable exception being Persona 4 Arena, and even that one did not have different releases for UK/IE and EMEA. In other words, there's not a single game or movie that will work on a 03 but not on 04 or vice versa.
I thought maybe there's a difference in PSN content, but it seems that the content available on PSN and the PS3 store is tied to the region where the account was created rather than the hardware region, so even that is identical.
Which leads me to the question - what is the difference between regions 03 and 04, because they appear practically identical to me.

 

[GuilloteTesla]

Which leads me to the question - what is the difference between regions 03 and 04, because they appear practically identical to me.

Unless the game or movie studio publishes locked content for region 03 or 04, there is no differente between them.

Even the video signal is digital now and runs at the same resolution @60Hz for every region.