So MKX is now less than 3 months away, and it's generally agreed that now is the best time to invest into next generation hardware if you don't have a next gen system already.
I have since looked into feedback for the systems in question, being the PS4, Xbox One and PCs, and planned on choosing on a "least cons" basis, that DID look like the PS4, until it was recently brought to my attention that the PS4 version of Injustice is STILL region locked.
Unfortunately, NRS implores a very defeatist attitude of "if nobody calls us out on our programming in a certain area of our games, we'll keep doing it for future games.". So it's extremely likely that by now, NRS have already made their decision concerning the online infrastructure for each version of MKX, and I'll bet my testicles that the PS3/PS4 versions are also region locked. Along with the procedures probably being so thoroughly hard-coded that NRS won't be able to do anything about it post-release, and we'll end up getting the usual cliché of "oh sorry guys, we'll make sure it wont happen in our next game."
Some of you may think "well if it's only happening on Sony systems then Sony needs to step their online game up dawg"... but honestly, since 2009, NRS have literally been the only advocates of doing this within the fighting game genre. Try any other fighting game on PS3 and you'll be able to play anyone, wherever your curiosities bound you. On top of personally having played people from the West Coast in Tekken Tag 2 and having a smoother experience than I would playing MK9 with people 4 hours away in my own country on the same system.
Others may think "well damn straight I aint playin no laggy sets with some jabronies from some 3rd world countries"... unfortunately that's not quite how region locking works. It's divided into NTSC and PAL territories. And this is where it becomes apparent how truly redundant region locking really is.
Europe is a PAL region.
North America is a NTSC region.
Sounds simple enough right?
...... the short answer is no.
Most countries in western Africa are PAL regions.
Most countries in the Middle East are PAL regions.
......Oceania is.... a fucking..... PAL..... region.
The fact that I am forbidden from playing New Yorkers in NRS games but I'm supposed to welcome New Zealanders with open arms? It does not compute. It is not economic. It does not make any God-damned sense.
For anyone who joined TYM for Injustice exclusively, there are also several shady offline game mechanics from MK9 that you may still be dealing with now if we had not amassed a big enough community to decipher the lesser known properties of MK9 (I won't go into detail here for the sake of staying on topic). It's only because based Gods like Somberness (God salute him wherever he is) webreg, among others, that did enough research on straight up outrageous programming ethics that the cheeks of NRS's programming team were coloured beetroot-purple with embarrassment that they decided to change their ways with Injustice.
If any NRS personnel are reading this, I'll give the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that maybe there is something in Sony Computer Entertainment's legislation that prevents you from carrying your vision as you do on other platforms, or that you're trying to do everything to smokescreen that you might potentially have done..... nothing..... to remedy the quality of the netcode you implore, but I would've thought you would have the decency to provide a boundless experience for people who are investing several hundreds (even thousands in some economies) of dollars to support your new product.
And don't bother saying that it's still being released for the PS3 and Xbox 360, the build for those systems has still not seen the light of the day publicly and everyone with a brain knows those versions will be a massive sack of shit.
TL;DR - IDK if anyone else feels this way, but I don't know how to grin and bear an investment approximately equivalent to $650 USD being single-handedly flushed down the toilet by some absurdly useless feature. /rant over
