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Nintendo Investor Meeting Q&A Uploaded - Amiibo, QoL, Dev Speed & Region Loc

J

JoeM86

Member
Didn't see a thread for this. Apologies if late

Nintendo just uploaded the Japanese version of the Q&A. It involves questions about amiibo, QoL, region locking and I think development speed.

My Japanese isn't the best so I'm not going to assume I can translate it. Sent a message to StreetsAhead, but if anyone else wants a crack at it. Have at it.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/events/141030qa/index.html

Edit: Damn, my thread title got shortened. Apologies.
 
M

Mr Swine

Banned
Veritigo_X said:
How do other game companies get around this? Seems like a bad excuse.
Click to expand...

Yeah are forgetting that Nintendo's market is the kids market and after what happened with the DS that Pedo's could chat with children I don't think nintendo wants to take that chance
 
S

Somnid

Member
My understand for the region lock answer: Iwata gives a bunch of reasons like licensing and stuff as reasons for region locking (you've heard it all before). Though he does say that unlocking has merit to consumers. It would be a challenge to unlock it and they can't do it right now but it is something they will examine in the future.
 
Tathanen

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
Mr Swine said:
Yeah bt mayor are forgetting that Nintendo is a complete Nicole that reaches a it to the kids market and after what happened with the DS that Pedro's could chat with children I don't think nintendo wants to take that chance
Click to expand...

Quoting this wonderful autocorrect nightmare before you have a chance to fix it.
 
K

kuroneko0509

Member
Somnid said:
My understand for the region lock answer: Iwata gives a bunch of reasons like licensing and stuff as reasons for region locking (you've heard it all before). Though he does say that unlocking has merit to consumers. It would be a challenge to unlock it and they can't do it right now but it is something they will examine in the future.
Click to expand...

>Corporate Ballwasher
>Ignore everything I say

hrmmm
 
X

XenodudeX

Junior Member
Mr Swine said:
Yeah bt mayor are forgetting that Nintendo is a complete Nicole that reaches a it to the kids market and after what happened with the DS that Pedro's could chat with children I don't think nintendo wants to take that chance
Click to expand...

4d9f5501ec186b510e0b95128ad9ab421a4978698088861976f1f7505ea16868.jpg
 
L

Ludist210

Member
Mr Swine said:
Yeah are forgetting that Nintendo's market is the kids market and after what happened with the DS that Pedo's could chat with children I don't think nintendo wants to take that chance
Click to expand...
This is the best reply ever and I think it was completely unintentional.
 
C

Chaos17

Member
Somnid said:
My understand for the region lock answer: Iwata gives a bunch of reasons like licensing and stuff as reasons for region locking (you've heard it all before). Though he does say that unlocking has merit to consumers. It would be a challenge to unlock it and they can't do it right now but it is something they will examine in the future.
Click to expand...

At least he unerstand why we want it and he is not trash talking us like "see constumer are ignorant, they don't undertstand how difficult it is because X reason".
He knows we want it.
 
Z

zroid

Banned
Well if even the investors think region locking is a bad policy, they might be forced to get rid of it with the next consoles

doesn't look good when you're the only one among your competitors taking a stance on something that people dislike
 
U

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
MrSaturn99 said:
I still don't understand the relation between region locking and parental controls.
Click to expand...

It's a bullshit excuse but content ratings differ between regions. What gets a Teen rating in America may not get the same rating elsewhere.

Obviously any hardware designer with a brain would simply turn the region lock off when you disable parental controls. The real reason they don't do it is price fixing. They don't want you buying cheap US games when they can get a nice £35 for a PAL 3DS game.
 
B

Bittercup

Member
JoeM86 said:
To be fair, we've already heard their reasoning about it before. They said a while back that it's due to parental locks and different laws for that in various countries.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that would only make sense when the region locking was on a per-country-basis or at least only countries with the same age rating system as one region.
 
A

Anko

Member
They... they've acknowledged the issue! Is this progress?!
I haven't been following what they have been saying over the years but..

Three important things imo:
1. They have acknowledged that in a way, region locking is more for the convenience of the sellers/publishers rather than for the customers
2. By unlocking, there may be some merit to the customers, and even to them. It may even resolve some of the challenges that they are facing (not sure about this last part)
3. They are aware that it is an issue that they need to look into (but they can't say whether they plan to unlock or not unlock at the moment)

Please embarrass the shit out of me if my Japanese isn't up to par.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Tempy said:
Real reason for region locking is to maintain control of regional pricing.
Click to expand...

Iwata actually says as much in the response. This is probably his most "honest" response to the matter to date, where he acknowledges that region lock has no real benefit to the consumers and that it is a policy which exists for the convenience of sellers (publishers/distributors/retailers). He also acknowledges that there would be a benefit to both consumers and for Nintendo to remove the region lock, but they can't do it right now. It is something they will consider seriously moving forward.
 
E

emb

Member
Neiteio said:
The entire country of Japan should be more considerate of the fact that I, Neiteio, speak English.
Click to expand...
They'll never believe you with that name. That's probably why they still haven't changed their language for you.

Didn't you say it was the Japanese name for Xatu?
 
N

Neiteio

Member
emb said:
They'll never believe you with that name. That's probably why they still haven't changed their language for you.

Didn't you say it was the Japanese name for Xatu?
Click to expand...
Ha, it's a poorly romanized version of it, yes.
 
T

tebunker

Banned
duckroll said:
Iwata actually says as much in the response. This is probably his most "honest" response to the matter to date, where he acknowledges that region lock has no real benefit to the consumers and that it is a policy which exists for the convenience of sellers (publishers/distributors/retailers). He also acknowledges that there would be a benefit to both consumers and for Nintendo to remove the region lock, but they can't do it right now. It is something they will consider seriously moving forward.
Click to expand...

I was going to say that a big part of this is due to their corporate structure and the agreements they have in place with regional distributors and regional marketing and retail.

Hopefully they realize going forward they see that those kinds of things just aren't beneficial to them or their customers and they go in the other direction. No point protecting your distributors over helping your customers no matter how small of an impact it would really have. Since if you make decisions that favor your customers then everyone will benefit
 
C

Cosmonaut X

Member
John Harker said:
yup. and Nintendo is so heavily invested in foreign currency and the exchange market, pricing is very important to them
Click to expand...

Indeed.

I think this is very, very positive news. It's clear that unlocking isn't going to happen for the current round of systems, but this kind of acknowledgement suggests that if it continues to be made clear by customers that this is something they want, it's on the cards for future systems.
 
S

Snakeyes

Member
Is the big problem with region free Nintendo consoles the fact that the Japanese would import the cheaper western versions of first-party games if it was available? If so, I don't get why they can't simply make Japanese games playable on NA/PAL systems while Japanese hardware remains region locked. From my understanding, the import market mostly consists of Westerners that are willing to pay a premium to import Japanese games, but not the other way around.
 
C

Cyd0nia

Banned
I'd never seen their http://play.nintendo.com site before - it looks quite nice on a phone. I like the way Monty Mole is used as the 'Top' link at the bottom of pages, he leaps up to the top when you press him - very Nintendo!

He appears to say (in repsonse to a question about Nintendo mobile apps) - that they are still working on an app that incorporates Miis in a social network type way. I'm assuming it integrates with Miiverse in some way. He says that rather than half ass it, they're working on it and continuing to give it more polish. I think that's what he's saying anyway.

His answer on region locking gives me hope that they might leave the option to developers and publishers at some future point. Isn't that pretty much what Sony have done? The only region locked PS3 game was P4 Arena?
 
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