I think that newer versions of games is more a Japanese thing. I would enjoy being able to play games like FFX:International or KH:Final Mix. But I think that Square people don't think that newer versions of games would sell well outside of Japan, so they don't send them to us. The only reason Europeans got FFX:International is because they had to wait an uberlong time for the game to come out, so they gave them the international version as condolence.

And it's not like Americans aren't guilty of this either. FFVII didn't have Ruby or Emerald weapon until it came to the US. FFVIII didn't have the junction switch ability until it came to the US (a little thing, but that save quite a bit of time). Kingdom Hearts didn't have Ice Titan or Sephiroth until it came to the US. So I'm sure the Japanese kids were over there complaining that we got stuff that they didn't get, and I guess enough of them complained so they got newer version. FFVII:International was just the same as the US version, but from FFX:International on they've added new stuff, because I guess FFVII:International sold well.

However, with the advent of the hard drive for the PS2, I wonder if there could be a way for Square to release some sort of Expansion Pack, like they have for PC games, where we could just download something onto the hard drive that could override some of the things that the disc would do and allow us to play the international versions with minimal effort on Square's part. That would be nifty, and they'd benefit from the probably surge of sales on their hard drive. As far as I know, FFXI is the only game making use of it so far.