Blu-ray Regions: Why did they swap from numbers to letters?

[ps3bd_owner]

With DVDs, we had R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, etc while BDs are RA, RB, RC. Letters with letters don't seem to blend too well so users on the web decided on a system:

Blu-rays = Country Initial + BD (e.g. FRBD)
DVDs = Region and Number + Country Initial (e.g. R1CA)

So, why change something that wasn't broken?

[PenguinInfinity]

Probably because Blu-ray has fewer regions (3 vs DVD's 8) and it would be confusing to use the same designations for different things.

DVD region 1 is United States (incl. Puerto Rico), Canada and Bermuda.
Blu-ray region A (which would probably be 1 if they used numbers) is Americas, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Macau SAR, Singapore, Taiwan, Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia.

If Blu-ray used numbers then region 1 for Blu-ray would mean a completely different thing than region 1 for DVD.