I Am a Whore

Okay, confession time. You may recall that I, at one time, listed region locking as a reason I don't own a 3DS. It is. I mean… was. It was. You probably already knew that, since I recently reviewed a 3DS game on this website, occasionally mentioned 3DS games in the site's weekly What Are You Playing, and before that, I even told you all about how hard I partied in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Yeah, so ah, the jig is up. I bought a 3DS. I sold out.

But! Don't stab me yet!

My original article about region locking still stands valid, because I wrote it, but also because shut up I'll explain.

Had the 3DS been region free, I would have been willing to pay a whole lot more money than the $120 I dished out for one. The system launched at double that price and had a lot of trouble selling, but you know what? If it had the combination of some games that looked good, plus region freedom? I'd have been way faster to jump on board. I wouldn't have waited in line on launch day, but once the good games started rolling, $250 would not have been a deal breaker.

And it precisely those good games that broke my will. I went against my principles, damn me. Let's take a quick look at what did me in. These aren't all the 3DS games I own, and this list is far from how many I've played, but these games are the ones that sold me the system.

But with that said, if the 3DS were region free, I'd be dedicating way more shelf space to its software. Some games, I see on a shelf in Japan and pick up on a whim, others, I'd prefer to play in my native language. Some games get physical versions in one region but not another, and I prefer physical media, so I either skip the game or need to get it in a form I despise. (To date, I've never purchased a download-only 3DS game.) When traveling Europe recently, it was quite the interesting situation in a game shop, knowing that I could purchase a Vita game and be fine, but a 3DS game would be of no use to me.

You know what I still don't have? A Wii-U. The software is there, but the region freedom isn't, so it's going to take more of it to push me over the edge. And given how desperate Nintendo is to sell some Wii-U's, this should be very concerning.

I might just be one voice, but I'm like a cockroach: found near garbage.

Another similarity I share with cockroaches is that there are a lot of people who look like me that hide around other people's houses.

And another similarity is that you only see me, but there are definitely a lot of people who act and feel the same way; I know that I speak for a lot of people on this topic.

Nintendo, you're holding yourself back by keeping the archaic region lock. Be it hardware, software, or both, Nintendo could be selling more if they'd have just let the console play games from any region. I'm aware of the concerns of a few publishers, but those don't seem to be a major issue in Xbox One and PS4 sales? Have you seen those lately, Nintendo? Have you? Have you?

Have You Seen How Badly They're Outselling You, My Friends?

(End note: and no, no use pointing out that if I were willing to pay double the price, I could just buy one system from NA and one from JP. Fuck that, I'm not carrying two systems around.)