Boblet Learned things and Japan diary, by Oli Studholme

Playing Halo 2 in Japan

By Oli
At 11:26 PM · Thursday, 2 December · 2004
To Gaming · Japan

When Halo 1 came out I didn’t own an X-Box. I played the game with a friend Ollie on his Japanese X-Box. Then my friend Matt got Halo for his North American X-Box. Unfortunately the games were incompatible with different region X-Boxen - the English-language North American version wouldn’t run on a Japanese X-Box and vice versa. Even worse, the games were apparently different binaries, meaning no system link games or LAN parties. We were restricted to four players on one TV.

While Halo 2 was in development I investigated Halo 2 and internationalisation, and heard that it would not be intentionally regioned. After testing I can confirm:

• the Japanese Halo 2 game will play on a North American X-Box (yes!)
• the X-Box Live service allows you to play internationally, bandwidth willing (again, yes!) So far I’ve knowingly played with people from Australia to the UK on a 10Mbit up/1MBit down cable connection from the countryside of Japan, with acceptable
• the X-Box Live service restricts you to an alphanumeric gamertag
• the Halo 2 menu language is determined by your X-Box language setting
• the language of in-gmae vocals during multiplayer and X-Box Live games (“flag captured” etc) are determined by your X-Box language setting
• the Japanese Halo 2 game only contains Japanese vocals for the Campaign mode (nooo!)
• you are able to turn on subtitles for the Campaign mode, but unfortunately these only apply to the cut-scenes

I still don’t know the following:

• Can two different region X-Boxes play system link games? I’ve been told that the game binary is identical, so I think so
• Can you register a Japanese-bought X-Box Live subscription using a non-Japanese credit card? I suspect so
• More interestingly, can you register a non-Japanese region X-Box Live subscription in Japan? Before the release I heard you couldn’t (they were talking about sandboxing the three X-Box Live regions), but now I’m starting to suspect you can as I’ve played with people from each region
• Can you use ‘foreign’ or ‘import’ X-Box Live subscription extension cards? I don’t know about this one, although it’d be nice
• Is the Japanese Halo 2 Collector’s Edition DVD also unzoned? I guess so (I was too .. busy to test ;-) However this isn’t necessarily certain - a recent Japanese X-Box promotional disk was region-locked (how’s that for crazy - what were the marketers thinking!?)

If you can confirm any of these please leave a comment!

While I’m disappointed to be missing out on some of the plot, I guess the sheer size of the sound files for each language was too big for one disk. I would have loved these to have been included on a bonus disk in the Collector’s Edition, to be downloaded onto the X-Box hard drive. Even if there was only space for two languages, including English by default on all international versions would make sense.

On the plus side it’s great to see games moving away from Hollywood’s brain-dead regioning system. I hope Bungie can take this to it’s logical conclusion with true internationalisation for their next game. Also, the Japanese language interface for entering my address etc when signing up for X-Box Live was surprisingly good.

Halo 2 over X-Box Live is an amazing experience - it’s worth buying an X-Box solely for this. Don’t try it unless you’re prepared for the consequences! Those in Japan not fazed by having the Campaign mode in Japanese can also get a great starter pack; Halo 2 Collector’s Edition, 1 year X-box Live and the voice communicator for about 8,400yen. This is excellent value compared to the USA ($60 for the starter kit including not Halo 2 but Crimson Skies).

PS Any Japanese posse, hit me up online (send a friend invite to “boblet”)!