Hi, since I’m new to the blog I wanted to first introduce myself. I am the line producer on Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and I work with Naughty Dog on a day-to-day basis and have been working with the team since Crash Team Racing.
We are pleased to see that there is so much interest out there in the Uncharted demo, and wanted to provide a quick update.
As many of you in Europe and Japan may have already learned, today’s demo is currently only available on the North American PlayStation Store, and will only work on PS3 units in that territory. As you may already know, North America is the first region to launch Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Monday, November 19th), and we wanted to be sure that we gave our North American PS3 players the opportunity to try out the demo prior to launch. Other territories are currently putting the finishing touches on the localization aspects of the Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune demo, and will release it in their respective PlayStation Stores in due course.
Unfortunately when attempting to download the demo, our friends in PAL regions or Japan may have encountered a bug in which you are asked to insert a disc. Please ignore this prompt and accept our apologies.
Thanks again for your interest in the game, we hope that those of you who do get a chance to play it get a taste for what we hope will become an action-adventure classic on the PS3.
Would it kill you to add a warning, comment, WHATEVER so i didnt have to download 1.2gb in my trashcan ? thanks.
before the download i mean ;)
sorry, but this is such a lie. demos work on every region PS3, regardless. the only problems are with def jam & now uncharted.
there is no good reason to block out european users from playing this game. there is no good reason why we should have to wait extra time to play a game, which in every sense of the word, is FINISHED.
That is simply not true I have downloaded many demo games from the US store, as they seem to get them first and the only one I have ever had a problem with was Def-Jam Icon. Stop blowing smoke up are ass, as you yanks say. Give us our demo now.
Sorry Sam, you had better come up with another excuse. 99.9% of US PSN store games work on my PAL ps3. Why do you have different regions for the store and M$ have a global arcade, and they run it better with better current content even if they charge for it. I am really pissed.
Thanks for the update.
So, when exactly can we expect a European compatible release, and will the US retail version work on JP and Euro/PAL PS3s?
I just wanna say thanks for a great demo. I’ll be looking forward to the full game in 2 weeks.
Poor UK SCEE really hates them.
in the future, region lock is a standard way ?
Utter BS. I have played many US demos on my PAL PS3. Also, the FULL [DELETED] US GAME will play on a PAL PS3, so why not the demo? Why are you suddenly so interested in controling release dates and content? Seeing as Sony barely has any games coming out on its bloody console, you’d have thought there would have been people spare to help make sure big games like this could get a single worldwide release date – not just for the demo, but for the game also.
Sigh, talk about anticlimax.. doesnt get much worse than this. How about letting people know this beforehand and avoid yet another let down for europe and japan. Really bad PR imo. I dont even understand the localization for a demo… its just a demo and for a high profile game like uncharted people will want to play it in english anyway. Pretty much all of europe and most japanese will be able to understand PRESS START right? Its not rocket science :)
i have a question. How old is this build for the demo. Has there been any changes to the core gameplay. please answer thank you
I feel like this should have been said before it was announced that there would be a demo.
This is frustrating.
Or at least in the description for the file.
Ok, I’m disappointed, but not too downhearted. Will the final game be region free like all other PS3 games? So, I can import it and play it on my Hong Kong PS3. I say this as I’m living outside the States at the moment and region free gaming was the main attraction for the PS3 system for me personally.
A demo would have been great, but the media hype for this and the impressions I’m hearing have me sold on this game. Thus, demo or no demo, it shall be mine in 2 weeks.
Hi,
I have a little qustion,…
Will you fix the this “starting-the-demo” problem??? Because I really want to play! And I just have the european console… bought from a friend in germany,… Please answer me, Sam! Thank YOu! :)
Greeting,
Gb
#10 has a point. You guys should be pushing content instead of shooting yourself in the foot, over and over again. The way to go is global distribution.
DAXTER LOOKS AMAZING ON THE PS3!!!
LOOK AT HIS AVATAR GUYS!!!ITS DAXTER!!!! DAXTER!!! OMG!!!! ITS DAXTER!!!!
Jak and DAXTER ON PS3 CONFIRMED!!! The graphics are amazing!!!
Thanks for not making us wait for the demo, Sam.
Just ignore the Eurotrash and their un”fortunate” quibbles.
downloading now…
Shattap, my God all the crying in these Uncharted threads.
It wasn’t even released on your bloody store, so why do you care?
Demo was great guys, just from the demo, it’s my GotY, very impressed.
You’re not allowed, nor is it legal to make a US account if you don’t live in the US so if I were you I’d keep your mouths closed otherwise you may find more demos like this.
Will the games actual release still be region free?
“this should have been said before it was announced that there would be a demo”
That’s right. Because it’s really SCE”A”‘s responsibility to cater to the SCE”E” people.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, people – it’s “idiot”-flavoured…
I can understand *MAYBE* why they might want to wait and have a localised version of the demo on the actual EU store – so that your common, run of the mill casuals muppets don’t get confused, but for those of us that have made the effort to make a US PSN account just so we can get the demos, we know the score, so what, really, is the harm? I mean, ffs, I’ve played plenty of demos in Japanese before now – that was my choice – it’s not like i said “Oh God, it’s in Japanese – well sh*t, I’m not buying it now!” It’s as though Sony and ND are deliberatly trying to piss off their core market and that is never a good idea – especially when they are trailing behind the competition so badly.
It’s also not SCEA responsibility to make sure dumb [DELETED] buy their console, but judging from ignorant rednecks like you Solace, it should be.
If you can read ASCII, you know what it says.
I hope that this wasn’t on purpose? I think its a bad bad move by Sony or publishers etc, to start region locking damn demos.
Well, Sam, I hope you guys are pleased. What should have been a plesant evening for you guys, basking in praise for your game, has instead turned into yet another unmitigated PR disaster. Grats.
You’re saying that SCEA should be making sure “ignorant rednecks” buy their console?
Your comment makes no sense.
Proofreading is your friend.
Either way, because YOU don’t have patience or the ability to see it from any one’s point of view other than your own, that makes me “ignorant”?
Right….
So people in other regions can’t play the demo because they don’t get the game until later? That’s a jacked up excuse and you know it. I say shame on you for your poor excuse Sam Thompson, for shame indeed.
Hi Sam,
I think you guys better work hard for a bug-fix for that problem! Because, imho, it’s better to work for and with the ps3-owners – not against them…
And because I can’t hear this “sinkin’-ship-ps3-comments” anymore.
Greetings
Gb
Congratulations Sony, you’ve shot yourself in the foot again for the 273rd time this year. You idiots.
Sam Thompson:
One of the great things about the PS3 is the region free gaming that it allows. It allows you to buy Japanese or American games if you can understand the languages. Games that sometimes aren’t released in other regions.
This demo of Uncharted is downloaded by people who have an interest in it and that understand that it will only have the English language available.
It’s a caveat we all accept to be able to play it before the proper localization has been done.
In some cases it is the only way for us to play certain games at all.
Can you or someone else try to make a decision that benefit all your users for once?
Sorry but region locking is pointless. On demos even more so.
when the PAL uncharted demo coming ?
@solace
I have to say u are a redneck kool-aid is “idiot” flavour and not widely available in europe its just for yanks( like youself), they seem to like it. where does it say its illegal to open a US store account outside the US?. Is the FBI coming to arrest me?. I dont think so !, or maybe with your crazy president they just might. Im gonna shut up now.
I would say the most euro ps3 owners can either speak english or regonise enough to play a damm game, guess what I play grand tourismo (demo) from the JP site in japanesse and my driving is unaffected. I still cant get my head around a region locked demo ffs.
There is no point in region locking… don’t do it. Sony you are pissing me off with this one. It’s one thing to come up short on challenging tasks like XMB features, getting exclusives, or creating killer apps… But it’s a completely different matter to go out of your way to screw your customers by doing something stupid and uneccessary.
Unless Sony can provide a valid reason for it, I don’t want to see anymore PSN region locks.
very good demo! the graphics are amazing and the gameplay is actually much better then i anticipated. ive played it through mutiple time already.
*bit of a short demo though:(
thanks for the quick response to this. its nice to hear news then to see something official about it.
Hi guys and gals,
We hear you loud and clear. Wanted to chime in here and let you know that we have shared your frustration with the Naughty Dog team and we are going to see what we can do. I will be back tomorrow with an update, but in the meantime I hope you can be patient and bear with us. As you have learned through communicating with Evan and Amy on the blog, Naughty Dog is a studio that listens to gamers, so I hope to have good news for you soon.
Thanks,
Sam
Thanks for the update, Sam – it’s good to have feedback like this. Unfortunately I’m sure you can also see the viewpoint of the disappointed customers in other regions. Your competition have clearly demonstrated that it’s perfectly possible to have worldwide releases of demos and downloadable games, but Sony still manages to treat its European customers – probably its strongest fanbase – as some sort of third world gaming ghetto. Having access to the demos and trailers on the US store has helped mitigate that effect for those who are sufficiently interested – the hardcore userbase who are likely to be the biggest investors in your company’s products, the early adopters who drive general uptake of those products, and the least likely to be concerned by any problems with regional variations in games – as “p1ssed off” points out, we’re the sort of people who’ll happily download demos in Japanese and not get upset when it’s not clear what to do.
I’d hope that this isn’t part of a trend towards deliberate region coding of demos, because that would be taking a step even further back from the competition. I’d also hope that Sony working at an *international* level (sorry, Solace, this isn’t purely an issue for individual regional branches) could make real efforts to match XBox Live’s ability to handle global releases seamlessly. It’s most frustrating because we *know* it’s possible, and that it isn’t happening because of organisational shortfalls within Sony, or the flawed assumption that it isn’t something that people want – aside from the few with the selfish “I’m alright, so stuff everyone else” attitude we’ve seen a lot of around here recently, of course.
I beleive the reason is that ALL demo’s are region locked, That was the first excuse anyway, which was shot down in around 10 secs. Then its because the games being released in north america first (not the consumers fault or even idea). Maybe after pre-ordering the full game from the US when i insert disc it might be locked to and they forgot to mention it.
god bless america!
Thank you for your quick reaction on the issue’s raised on this blog. it’s good to know you are reading this blog. I wish sony would comment on the in game xmb issue’s as quick as you did. I will get this game for sure even if sony raised the price for exclusive game by 10 euro’s
“I hope you can be patient and bear with us”
HA! Good luck with that.
Considering a vocal few of them have no regard for anyone or anyone else’s opinion, and think that just because some people disagree with them, they are ignorant, I wish you the best of luck with this.
If nothing else, let’s see this fixed so the babies can get their milk and STFU.
@ solace
and every other american who said why are europeans complaining on SCEA’s blog. Well now you know “the squeaky wheel get’s the grease”. We have been listened to and got a response. I thought you guys were all for freedom of speech.
That is good to hear, however I’ll hold my joy until I’m playing a working demo. Today should’ve been about how great the demo is, instead of how much of a mess this ‘region locking’ has caused.
Sadly people like Solace are still locked in the “it’s mine! you can’t have it! not for you!” mindset which is common for only children. don’t criticize others’ lack of respect for opinions when you yourself have none.
@edwin
Sam does work for Sony, and in the “A” part of “SCE”. Thing is, he’s in the US whereas the firmware updates come from SCEI in Japan.
Good luck getting them to comment!
crazyeighty8: Nobody claimed that all demos are region locked. Patently they aren’t. What’s clear from looking at the demo on a European PS3 is that it’s looking for region-specific data. When it fails to find it in the demo itself, it looks for it on the Uncharted disc (which obviously we don’t have) and when it fails to find it there, it crashes. It’s a bug, plain and simple. We saw exactly the same thing with Ratchet and Clank, which failed to show cinematics on Japanese PS3s (although it failed in a slightly more friendly way in that case, simply skipping the cinematic). In this case a neat fallback would be to select the available regional data if the data specific to the machine isn’t there, but you can see how that wouldn’t have been tested/implemented for what was expected to be a US-only release.
Hey SAM dude, will the full retail of the game be region free ??
Solace: Given the lack of respect you have for anyone else’s opinion where it differs with yours, and your constant insults directed at anyone who isn’t as perfectly happy with the situation as you are, I suppose you’ve accomplished *one* thing in this thread – you’ve utterly demolished the old lie that Americans can’t ‘do’ irony.