Why were earlier gaming consoles region locked?

Question

How did the hardware know the software was foreign?

In: 19

Answer 1

Very few companies distribute their product themselves worldwide. It’s a lot more efficient to make a deal with an existing distributor. So, in the US you sell games through GameStop and BestBuy perhaps. In other countries, you make a different deal with a different company. What GameStop and BestBuy don’t want is cheaper copies of the game from your Latin American company getting into the US and undercutting their sales.

So, to appease your US distributors, you region lock your stuff.