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Nintendo 3DS Region Code confirmed by Nintendo JP Support

T

ToastyBanana

Member
Sounds like a job for Datel and their sticky outie addons!
G9rOy.jpg
 
N

Nocebo

Member
JustAnotherOtaku said:
Ugh :(

So, fellow Euro-GAF who regularly import - which region of 3DS are you going to buy?
Click to expand...
First I was like "blargh this sucks" then I realized 99% of the DS games I own are made by Japanese developers and 50% is in Japanese anyway... So I'm going with the Japanese region.
I can't really think of any games from western developers I would care about either.
 
C

Clipper

Member
As I've said before, all this does is cement my decision to import the 3DS from the US and all my games.

Unlike previous generations, I have a feeling Nintendo might get their security right this time, so I don't think we'll have region free homebrew any time soon (at least for 3DS games). I guess we'll see, though.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Clipper said:
As I've said before, all this does is cement my decision to import the 3DS from the US and all my games.
Click to expand...

What will you do when niche but awesome Japanese games get localized by Nintendo of Europe, but not released by Nintendo of America? :(
 
S

Shiggy

Member
duckroll said:
What will you do when niche but awesome Japanese games get localized by Nintendo of Europe, but not released by Nintendo of America? :(
Click to expand...

There's no problem: CING does no longer exist (unless it's called Bellwood Inc. now).
 
A

antonz

Member
Clipper said:
As I've said before, all this does is cement my decision to import the 3DS from the US and all my games.

Unlike previous generations, I have a feeling Nintendo might get their security right this time, so I don't think we'll have region free homebrew any time soon (at least for 3DS games). I guess we'll see, though.
Click to expand...

Yeah I dont know if they will get it mostly right but I think for sure Nintendo is approaching this handheld with a better system built in for a constant battle against homebrew,piracy etc.

They will not repeat past mistakes I dont think
 
Chittagong

Chittagong

Gold Member
It's just mind boggling how stupid Nintendo can be. They're facing increasing competition from iPhone, Android, hell maybe even Microsoft and Nintendo in the future. All the main competitors operate stores with essentially global selections and global pricing.

So what does Nintendo do? Does its first region locked portable platform ever, their most expensive portable ever, their shortest battery life portable ever.

Needs just the friend codes and non-transferrable game licenses to complete the pentagon of competitive failure.
 
F

Father_Brain

Banned
duckroll said:
What will you do when niche but awesome Japanese games get localized by Nintendo of Europe, but not released by Nintendo of America? :(
Click to expand...

Everyone gets screwed! Though Japanese speakers who import Japanese systems will get screwed the least... there aren't going to be that many Western games not released there that are actually worth buying.
 
Chittagong

Chittagong

Gold Member
Zoramon089 said:
This is garbage, and worst of all, you won't get a single journalist asking Iwata for justification. It'd be a simple question. Why enforce region locking if you aren't going to release all games in all territories? What is someone supposed to do if they want to play a game that Nintendo has no plans of releasing in their region? I mean, I just want an answer for this
Click to expand...

Reggie_shrugs.jpg
 
Barakov

Barakov

Member
The writing was on the wall with the DSi but this is really unfortunate to hear.

I'll definitely be waiting for someone to disable the region lock on this thing before picking one up.
 
C

Clipper

Member
duckroll said:
What will you do when niche but awesome Japanese games get localized by Nintendo of Europe, but not released by Nintendo of America? :(
Click to expand...
Well, I'm already committed to buying a Japanese system as well if a new region-exclusive Ouendan is released, so maybe I'll play it on that one, with a translation guide or something :S.
 
D

Deku

Banned
Third parties want this actually.

It's not so much an issue on 360 because of the non existant market in Japan, but third parties dislike having their NA sales sapped by importers.
 
S

Shiggy

Member
Deku said:
Third parties want this actually.

It's not so much an issue on 360 because of the non existant market in Japan, but third parties dislike having their NA sales sapped by importers.
Click to expand...

Especially when there are different publishers!
 
V

Vinci

Danish
Deku said:
Third parties want this actually.

It's not so much an issue on 360 because of the non existant market in Japan, but third parties dislike having their NA sales sapped by importers.
Click to expand...

That's easy. Ask 'em which they prefer: Region codes which bungle importers, or encouraging potential piracy of their titles by pissing off people who would otherwise likely have kept hacking the system for homebrew purposes alone?
 
T

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
Father_Brain said:
Everyone gets screwed! Though Japanese speakers who import Japanese systems will get screwed the least... there aren't going to be that many Western games not released there that are actually worth buying.
Click to expand...

Did they release Scribblenauts in Japan?
 
D

Deku

Banned
To be clear, I'm not defending this move. I think it's a pretty dumb idea, since I am one of those people who import.

But if you want to whine about 3rd parties giving Nintendo the cold sholder or Nintendo being arrogant and ignoring 3rd parties, you can't also be whining about this at the same time and hold a coherent position.

It's pretty obvious region locking/piracy controls were on the top of the list of 3rd parties when Nintendo went to them to ask for their design choices.
 
N

Nuclear Muffin

Banned
Tempy said:
Did they release Scribblenauts in Japan?
Click to expand...

It actually just came out about a month ago (the original Scribblenauts, not Super Scribblenauts)

Considering that there will probably be fuck all worth buying from western developers on the 3DS (outside of Wayforward and 5th Cell at retail and just like all Nintendo handhelds), I don't think that they're really gonna miss out on much :lol
 
I

Instro

Member
I wouldn't have too big an issue with this if Nintendo committed to localizing all of their games, which they wont.
 
J

Jocchan

Ὁ μεμβερος -ου
Deku said:
Third parties want this actually.

It's not so much an issue on 360 because of the non existant market in Japan, but third parties dislike having their NA sales sapped by importers.
Click to expand...
Except an easy solution would be allowing third parties to lock their games themselves, if they wish.
 
V

Vinci

Danish
Deku said:
To be clear, I'm not defending this move. I think it's a pretty dumb idea, since I am one of those people who import.

But if you want to whine about 3rd parties giving Nintendo the cold sholder or Nintendo being arrogant and ignoring 3rd parties, you can't also be whining about this at the same time and hold a coherent position.

It's pretty obvious region locking/piracy controls were on the top of the list of 3rd parties when Nintendo went to them to ask for their design choices.
Click to expand...

Allowing 3rd parties to region lock their games should be enough, nevermind the fact that region locking has very, very little to do with 3rd parties' general lack of activity on Nintendo systems.
 
X

x3sphere

Member
Deku said:
Third parties want this actually.

It's not so much an issue on 360 because of the non existant market in Japan, but third parties dislike having their NA sales sapped by importers.
Click to expand...

It encourages piracy, so not really sure how it's a pro for third parties. The financial hit caused by importers can't be that massive, either. Most imported titles are ones that wouldn't come out stateside otherwise.
 
R

Rpgmonkey

Member
Damn...

Well I refuse to buy two 3DSs just for this BS, so either something pops up that lets me get through the region-lock or I'm just going to cut my losses.
 
E

Emitan

Member
Alts said:
What is the state of region free gaming on the DSi?
Click to expand...
Normal DS games = region free
DSi "enhanced" games = region free on DS, region locked on DSi
DSi only and DSiWare games = region locked
 
A

Alts

Member
Billychu said:
Normal DS games = region free
DSi "enhanced" games = region free on DS, region locked on DSi
DSi only and DSiWare games = region locked
Click to expand...

Sorry, what I meant was, "What are the existing methods for circumventing DSi region locking?"
 
F

FoxSpirit

Junior Member
Oh crap.
Yeah, what now... get an US one because most of my games are imported? PAL because it's nice to pick up cheap stuff locally?
Okay, I have too few Japanese interests to consider that.

And I don't want no stinkin hack, I want my saves on my games not on some flash. Call it oldschool, but I enjoy that aspect.
 
D

Deku

Banned
x3sphere said:
It encourages piracy, so not really sure how it's a pro for third parties. The financial hit caused by importers can't be that massive, either. Most imported titles are ones that wouldn't come out stateside otherwise.
Click to expand...

random physical region locks like the one they had on the SNES, N64 encourages importing.

region locks + whatever anti-piracy measure they are implenting (and from what I hear its much better than on the DS) is quite another.
 
O

Osuwari

Member
all it took was 6 years for Nintendo to go back to their arrogant ways.

region locking attracts piracy way more than what it stops. just look at how many people are wishing for some hacker to crack it. if it was region free, far less people would be anticipating a hacked firmware. this is like Sony taking away linux. it only ended up making hackers really want to crack the system and they did it.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
I think the best kind of region locking (if you're gonna have it) is the kind they did on the Gamecube - it's definitely enough to make software developers and retailers feel happy, but if you didn't mind doing a bit of easy soldering and cutting a hole in the case (and destroying your warranty in the process), it was easy to install a physical region switch.

That way people who really want to play import games can do so without trying to find a way to hack the system in ways that would encourage piracy.
 
H

Hours Left

Member
This is incredibly lame.

The only "solution" is hoping that US companies will be more prolific in releasing games from Japan, sadly I am not very confident of this.

The fabled Ouendan 3... :(
 
G

Glix

Member
I'm not the kind of gamer that normally imports stuff. I can usually wait, and I only speak English.

I have only imported two games ever.

Rhythm Tengoku Gold and FZeroX (the n64 one)

I probably +5'd Rhythm Heaven sales when it came out here, from making all my less hardcore friends play it.

Even though I'm not super affected by this, it's stupid, and its an anti consumer decision that I dislike very much.
 
S

Shotgun Kiss

Member
Does anybody know if I'll be able to play my imported DS games on the 3DS? If not, I'm going to be pissed off, as that means I can't even trade in my DSi XL towards it.
 
E

Emitan

Member
Ben2749 said:
Does anybody know if I'll be able to play my imported DS games on the 3DS? If not, I'm going to be pissed off, as that means I can't even trade in my DSi XL towards it.
Click to expand...
You will. Normal DS games don't have the region in the header, they're completely region free.
 
M

MidnightScott

Banned
Ben2749 said:
Does anybody know if I'll be able to play my imported DS games on the 3DS? If not, I'm going to be pissed off, as that means I can't even trade in my DSi XL towards it.
Click to expand...

You will be able to play your imported DS games. There is no way to region lock those because they don't have code built into the cart. But DSi enhanced games like Pokémon Black & White won't work on the system since they don't even work on DSi's.

You'll be able to play anything that doesn't have DSi features.

Someone said that region locking lowers piracy, but I don't understand how since piracy circumvents region locking?

BTW - using google translate on that website...the Koreans are pissed that it is region restricted. Many of them are planning on importing North American 3DS & games because they are cheaper than the localized versions probably.
 
C

charlequin

Banned
Deku said:
But if you want to whine about 3rd parties giving Nintendo the cold sholder or Nintendo being arrogant and ignoring 3rd parties, you can't also be whining about this at the same time and hold a coherent position.
Click to expand...

The PS3 is hardly hurting for third-party support despite a complete lack of region-coding for current-gen games. Region-lock is an extremely minor gesture to third-parties compared to any of the things people generally propose, and far more consumer-unfriendly than any of the alternatives.
 
R

Rabid Wolverine

Member
This fucking sucks.

So if i take my 3DS with me on a holiday in the states I cant buy games.

I thought this was supposed to be a portable. Fucking Nintendo and their old school bullshit!
 
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