Via Brad Wilson, I found an interesting case of corporate segmentation taken to extremes: Sony put down a Hong Kong game vendor for selling outside their region:

Hong Kong, October 24th of 2006 - Lik-Sang.com, the popular gaming retailer from Hong Kong, has today announced that it is forced to close down due to multiple legal actions brought against it by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Sony claimed that Lik-Sang infringed its trade marks, copyright and registered design rights by selling Sony PSP consoles from Asia to European customers, and have recently obtained a judgment in the High Court of London (England) rendering Lik-Sang's sales of PSP consoles unlawful.

That sounds weird to me. It's getting to be more and more of a global market, especially for things like electronics. Sure, there are voltage differences (110 here in North America, 220 most everywhere else) - but the power bricks on game consoles and laptops are typically set to deal with both. This sounds like what Sony's on about:

Furthermore, Sony have failed to disclose to the London High Court that not only the world wide gaming community in more than 100 countries relied on Lik-Sang for their gaming needs, but also Sony Europe's very own top directors repeatedly got their Sony PSP hard or software imports in nicely packed Lik-Sang parcels with free Lik-Sang Mugs or Lik-Sang Badge Holders, starting just two days after Japan's official release, as early as 14th of December 2004 (more than nine months earlier than the legal action). The list of PSP related Sony Europe orders reads like the who's who of the videogames industry

There's still region based roll out for many things (especially with TV and movies). Looks like Sony is trying to play whack-a-mole with reality of global shipping. They won this case, but I don't think the war is winnable.

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