Summary[]
As the name implies, region lock is when things are "locked out" of a country. It may be just one country or maybe multiple. Many games are known for staying in Japan.
List of Region Free Consoles/Handhelds[]
- GameBoy
- Sega Game Gear
- GameBoy Color
- GameBoy Advance
- Nintendo DS/DSi/DSi XL (With the exception of DSi only games)
- PSP (With the exception of UMD Movies)
- PlayStation 3 (Except for Persona 4 Arena and Way of the Samurai 3)
- PS Vita
- PlayStation 4 (Except digital games)
- Microsoft Xbox
- Xbox One
- Xbox Series X and S
- Nintendo Switch
- PlayStation 5
- Atari 2600 (NTSC games can display wrong colors, slow speed and sound on PAL systems and vice versa.)
- NES-101
- SG-1000
- Atari 5200
- Atari Jaguar and Jaguar CD
- Atari Lynx
- Sega Saturn (Japan only)
- Phillips CDi
- Panasonic/Sanyo 3DO
- Neo Geo Pocket and Color
- Microsoft Windows/PC (However digital content and online games from online stores such as Steam and Epic Games can be region locked)
- VHS (However playing PAL tapes might run into issues or not play on NTSC VCRs; so it is recommended to play it on a universal VCR)
- Audio Casettes
- Phones/Mobile Devices
- Virtual Boy
- Apple PC (since Apple II)
- Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD, and Neo Geo CDX
- Magnavox Odyssey and II
- Intellivision
- ColecoVision
- NEC Turbografx/PC Engine CDs (excluding system cards)
- Amiga/Amiga CD32
- Atari VCS
- Net Yaroze (PS1 dev kit)
- Vectrex
- Atari ST
- Commodore 64
- Pioneer Laseractive
- All western Masters System consoles (US/Europe/Brazilian/Australian are universal, but a tiny handful of games either don't play or are glitchy on a US system)
- 4K UHD Blu-Ray
- Sega Naomi
- M.A.M.E. / Arcade Machines
- Fairchild Channel F
- Plug N Play
- Sega Pico
- Hyperscan
List of Region Locked Consoles/Handhelds[]
- PlayStation
- PlayStation 2
- GameCube
- Xbox 360
- Wii
- Nintendo 2DS/3DS/3DS XL/New 3DS/New 3DS XL
- Wii U
- NES/Famicom
- Atari 7800 (except backwards compatibility with 2600)
- SNES/Super Famicom
- Nintendo 64 (can become region free with quick mod to the cartridge slot)
- Sega Master System Mark III (Japan only)
- Sega Genesis/MegaDrive
- Sega CD
- Sega 32X
- Sega Dreamcast
- Sega Nomad
- Indrema Portal