10megaman

Region Locking has been done since forever by Nintendo. When the Game Genie accessory was made for the NES, well, Nintendo's answer to the problem when they lost the law suit they filed against the makers of Game Genie, was region locking. Also, another reason for region locking is that certain regions may have programming that's incompatible with another region, or may run in a way that's incompatible with another region.

The Nintendo Famicom uses a different cartridge shape and style than the international NES, for example. Its cartridges are smaller, but wider, than that of the NES, for example. Plus, the number of connectors for the Famicom and for the NES are different. Not to mention that Europe runs on a different system of Alternating Currents when dealing with electronics, such as having different voltage requirements, and so on. In Europe, the primary region format is PAL, which is about 50 hZ, and their video game consoles run at 50 frames per second.

In Japan and the U.S., and in other Asian ares perhaps, well, the region format is NTSC, which is about 60hZ, and the video game consoles run at about 60 frames per second.

As for region locking, I agree, it is a pain. Fortunately with Blu-Ray, well, Japan and the U.S. share region codes. There's only 3 region codes with Blu-Ray, in contrast to several region codes with DVD. (7, I think? I haven't really looked it up in a while, so...), and there are probably some ways to work around region blocking. Even so, generally, there are different ways to compress information, and the different compression means are not only to shrink the size of the data, but also to keep pirates from taking the information. Different companies use different encoding and compression methods, even for the same or similar formats.

Ironically, some pirates tend to take more anti-piracy measures than actual well-known companies like Nintendo or Capcom or Microsoft, in case you haven't noticed. (Which is why it's so hard to dump a ROM of the Pirate game (that is surprisingly original), Rockman and Crystal for the GBA.)

Current character of mine shown in avatar image: Cherry
(Note: The image isn't one of my creation.)

I am 10MM. Space-Time Cross-Universe Traveler and Time Lord by rank, not by race. I am also a Combat Mage that specializes in Mid-Childean, Belkan, Ancient, and Crossover magic. (Some of it is a Nanoha reference.)