Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth has been finally made available for Windows (via Steam) in Japan, 11 years since its original PlayStation Vita release in Japan, and 7 years since its worldwide PC release. Bandai Namco made a surprise announcement on August 1 before releasing the game and its sequel, Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory, four days later as Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition.
This isn’t the first time Bandai Namco subjected one of its games to domestic region locking, as the Steam versions of Dragon Ball FighterZ, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot had been unavailable for years before their region locks were lifted. This practice has been adopted by many major Japanese publishers such as Square Enix (with the original Final Fantasy VII), Capcom (with an online region lock for Resident Evil 5), and Bandai Namco.
While there is no official reason as to why publishers do this, some fans speculate that this may be due to manufacturers wanting to protect their existing channels of distribution. Others think that this is the result of domestic exclusivity deals, with games being exclusive on specific platforms in Japan while being available on several platforms (including PC) overseas. Thankfully, it seems that publishers are slowly moving away from the trend, with several games having their region locks lifted or getting new versions that are playable in Japan.
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth and Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory are available for PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Windows (Steam).
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