Video Games Regions/Countries...

I'm lost in a web of games, and I need some guidance to find the light. I'm not too familiar with imports, but I'm trying to categorize every console/pc/handheld video game known to mankind. A rough estimate is about 100,000+ games released around the world.

The site is setup to where games are sorted by its system's respective country. Systems are listed with their country attached to the end of the name. If someone has a better idea than breaking games down into countries, let me know.

Some answers I need: Could each release in Europe/Asia with a different box/manual language for each country contain the same cart/cd release?

How do game distributions generally work to different countries in Europe and Asia? What happens now? What happened back in the 1970s?

For example, could the only difference between a game from US and Canada be the serial number?

Did countries have different serials? Even if the same game was released to all of Europe or Asia.

Am I missing any regions/countries, or should any be combined for having the same language?

I'm not even sure if all of these countries received games specific to them, haven't verified each one. Are there any sites with info explaining all this?
If I find a game from europe, how do I know where it was released?

So far....
-----------
If the same exact game/box/manual is released to all of Europe...meaning same serial number. Each country known to have received it will have the game listed.

I could use languages to define multiple countries that don't receive localized releases, or just do away with exact countries and create regions for all.

Regions
---------
North America
Japan/Asia
Europe

Countries
---------
Dotted out means I haven't verified it has received localized variations.
----------------
.AUS-Australia
.BEL-Belgium
.BRA-Brazil
CAN-Canada
CHI-China
.DEN-Denmark
.FIN-Finland
FRA-France
GER-Germany
GRE-Greece
.HOL-Holland
.IRE-Ireland
ITA-Italy
JAP-Japan
.LUX-Luxembourg
.MEX-Mexico
.NET-Netherlands
.NEZ-New Zealand
.NOR-Norway
PHI-Philippines
.POL-Poland
.POR-Portugal
.RUS-Russia
.SCA-Scandinavia
.SOK-South Korea
.SPA-Spain
SWE-Sweden
.SWI-Switzerland
UNK-United Kingdom
USA-United States

 

Oh crikey, you're going to have a hard time of it. At this point there's well more than 100,000 games out there, especially if you add on freeware and unofficial games.

However, in general, as far as consoles go at least, there tend to be three release forms. Japanese, North America, and Europe. I don't know how European releases work though.

...at least, I think so.


Edit: Anyway, no, there's rarely a difference in Canadian and US versions (and such). You will not, for example, find a difference in a copy of Starcraft you buy in Toronto when compared to a copy of Starcraft you buy in New York.

 

Doesn't Canada receive french variations?

 

Quebec maybe, but to be perfectly blunt the only thing I've seen different in a Canadian store ever is that game boxes also have a french manual bundled with them outside the box (thus covering the need to have bilingual packaging). You might want to ask Meaikoh, since she's a quebec native.

 

I can answer on that

Basically, European releases are waaay behind. When a game is being realised in the states, let's say, StarCraft Ghost. It usually takes 1 - 2 months for the main game to be converted to European versions, as in PAL version, and the framerates on the TV etc etc. That's one of the reasons why the game is developing slow, and another is basically compaines seeking for sucess. If the game goes well both in Japan and the US, Europe is next. And some companies are just greedy, and won't let us play the game .

However, some games are caught in the Censorship. Good example is Germany, and they are the country that are picky when it comes to games.

Ninja Gaiden had its über cutting-off-head action, and the germans didn't want to get it in to Europe unless that was filtered away. No idea if that affected all of the European versions of Ninja Gaiden.

- Teddz