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Home News Nintendo Keeps The Wii U Region-Locked

GAMING NEWS

Nintendo Keeps The Wii U Region-Locked

Posted on Monday, September 24 @ 09:07:03 Eastern by


While the Nintendo DS isn't region locked, all other Nintendo platforms have had content from other regions locked out since the GameCube, including both the Wii and more recently, the Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo is now confirming that the Wii U will follow suit, and will indeed be region locked, restricting content from outside of the region the console originates from.

This will no doubt come as a disappointment to Heath Hindman, Kevin Schaller, and all other gamers that would consider importing a game from another region. I myself have done so in the past, though admittedly, it has become less appealing to me over the years now that I don't have as much time to play RPGs, let alone translate them while I play.

Tell GR: Does this news of region-locking on the Wii U disappoint you? Will it affect your purchase? Or do you just not care at all?
Tags:   Wii U, Nintendo


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Comments
  • wildmario
    wildmario
    Joined: Jan 2007
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 9:45 am
    Well I'm sure most people would just get a Japanese Wii-U and import games then, or homebrew it like they did with the Wii
    0 1
  • danielrbischoff
    danielrbischoff
    Joined: Nov 2009
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 10:44 am
    You have to wonder how quickly people will hack the Wii U. With the Wii effectively open since launch, do you think Nintendo will begin regular patches like the PS3?
    0 1
  • wildmario
    wildmario
    Joined: Jan 2007
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 10:46 am
    Oh I am sure Nintendo will at least attempt to keep things on lock down, but you know hackers dedicated their lives to what they do best.
    0 1
  • ShadeTail
    ShadeTail
    Joined: Nov 2006
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 10:49 am
    Actually, the Wii wasn't cracked until a year or two after launch. It didn't happen right away. And the 3DS still hasn't been cracked, after a solid year-and-a-half. I'm not so confident that the WiiU will get hacked any time soon.

    If it does get hacked, I would bet the priorities will be 1) region-free, 2) playing blu-ray/DVD movies, 3) rendering Wii games in 1080p.
    0 1
  • danielrbischoff
    danielrbischoff
    Joined: Nov 2009
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 11:02 am
    I would pay more for the console if it had an upscaler. :-/
    0 1
  • TurinAlexander
    TurinAlexander
    Joined: Sep 2006
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
    I think you seriously overestimate the willingness of most people to go out of their way to play Japanese games. Some people will probably do just what you mentioned, most people won't care enough to bother.
    0 0
  • wildmario
    wildmario
    Joined: Jan 2007
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
    I am not saying there will be millions of people doing what they can to play imports but I am sure the numbers aren't that small either.
    0 0
  • Guernica
    Guernica
    Joined: Mar 2009
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 9:57 am
    No surprise here. Honestly I assumed this before this was even announced.
    0 1
  • danielrbischoff
    danielrbischoff
    Joined: Nov 2009
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 10:45 am
    I was hopeful, but Nintendo likes to region lock all of their stuff.
    0 1
  • napsterxxl
    napsterxxl
    Joined: Mar 2006
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 10:14 am
    Kinda sucks. I'm very much for getting rid of region restriction for all consoles. Trust me, its a pain when when you live on one continent, move to the other for career reasons and find out you cant buy games locally cause some some of them have some stupid restriction that doesnt even make sense to me.
    0 3
  • danielrbischoff
    danielrbischoff
    Joined: Nov 2009
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 10:46 am
    I think it's just such an outdate practice. Everything is moving towards more of an open environment, but companies have reasons. I guess they can't allow sales in one region to cannibalize another's.
    0 1
  • ShadeTail
    ShadeTail
    Joined: Nov 2006
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 10:50 am
    That's the main reason, as I understand it. For one thing, Japanese gamers would definitely import US games if they could, since they're so much cheaper here due to the currency exchange rate.
    0 2
  • danielrbischoff
    danielrbischoff
    Joined: Nov 2009
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 11:03 am
    Excellent point. A recent example of this was Atlus's region locking of Persona 4: Arena for this very reasion.
    0 1
  • Anthony_Severino
    Anthony_Severino
    Joined: Oct 2010
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
    Interesting. I never really thought about that. Although, wouldn't Japanese gamers have to wait quite a while for the US version to release? Not sure if that's always worth the savings. Plus, I am sure shipping isn't cheap.
    0 0
  • Anthony_Severino
    Anthony_Severino
    Joined: Oct 2010
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
    Interesting. I never really thought about that. Although, wouldn't Japanese gamers have to wait quite a while for the US version to release? Not sure if that's always worth the savings. Plus, I am sure shipping isn't cheap.
    0 0
  • ShadeTail
    ShadeTail
    Joined: Nov 2006
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
    Shipping probably isn't cheap, but the Yen is *really* strong next to the Dollar right now. Even if they did have to wait a long while for some games to be localized, it could very well be worth it. Like Heath pointed out about a week ago...

    www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/somehow-i-agr​ee-with-everything-this-man-says-15015

    ...Yen prices have nearly doubled while Dollar prices have remained more or less the same.
    0 1
  • Heath_Hindman
    Heath_Hindman
    Joined: May 2011
    Posted: Sep 25th, 2012 at 4:58 am
    Off the top of my head, I don't know any Japanese people who have imported from the US. Language barrier scares them A LOT more than it scares Americans, who grow up with multiple languages all around them. Even though they take English classes for 6 (recently upped to 8) years of compulsory education, most people can't fathom trying to watch a movie without subtitles, read a book, or play a game in the language.

    That, and most of them are not even *aware* of the region freedom here. I asked a game shop if I could consign a used NA version of a PS3 game or if they would take it on a trade in and they said no, the reason given being that "it won't work in Japanese systems! No one will buy it!"

    There's a family of students that we have with a couple of PSPs for their two sons. They love ice hockey, so I gave them my copy of NHL 07 for PSP and they were like "Oh but...it can't play in Japanese one." They had to see it to believe it. It's just not very widely publicized here.
    0 1
  • xDUMPWEEDx
    xDUMPWEEDx
    Joined: Jan 2012
    Posted: Sep 24th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
    This isn't a surprising move at all. This is common practice. It doesn't matter and won't effect sales.
    0 0
  • Heath_Hindman
    Heath_Hindman
    Joined: May 2011
    Posted: Sep 25th, 2012 at 4:49 am
    It's like they're daring me to not buy it.

    And this is a challenge they will not win.
    0 0
  • Zpyder
    Zpyder
    Joined: Sep 2010
    Posted: Sep 25th, 2012 at 6:57 am
    Region locking was going on long before the gamecube, I remember having to buy an adaptor to play final fantasy 6 on my SNES because it was never released in the UK. Hell, the american cartridges didn't even fit into a UK SNES!
    0 0

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