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Famitsu: Wii U region-lock confirmed
- Thread starter Cheesemeister
- Start date
Smiles and Cries
Member
*Put your hands down fool!*
It is better to have more who don't buy it, the better my chances at getting this thing at launch!
act cool...
*Yeah! Fuck you Reggie! Yo Mama was a snowblower! I'm not down with this lockdown shit. SEGA 4 LIFE!*
Take my Name! I'm not buying Wii Poo!
thehypocrite
Member
Nintendo saving the industry, one backwards anti-consumer choice after another. Thank you Nintendo.
Nintendo Knows Best tm.
Nintendo Knows Best tm.
Because that rewards them for region locking, assuming you're buying a local region console as well. If it was region free you wouldn't own 2. I own a North American 3DS and am not going to buy anything I can't play on it, nor will I buy a foreign 3DS out of that principle.
Nope. It's been like this since the original Famicom/NES.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
You'll get fucked from both ways. The only time you can make a totally informed decision is post the systems life when everythings been released and you can tally up which region box got the most you wanted, and what you could live without. Eff that "BUY TWO OF THE SAME CONSOLE" noise.
Strange that they decided to make the DSi region locked.. it all started there..
Why would you buy a local region console as well? I'm importing from Japan (fair enough I've been learning Japanese for 3 years), but I know for a fact it'll have the best games/shop (look at the 3DS). I guess it's more of a problem between US/Europe as sometimes one region gets one thing and others they don't. Xenoblade is a bad example of that.
SolidusDave
Member
Companies can and should change their policies if it benefits the user (w/o really hurting the company), Sony did that after the PS2:
PS1 -> region locked
PS2 -> region locked
PSP -> not region locked
PS3 -> not region locked
PSV -> not region locked
PSN -> not region locked
(does not include the rare exception of the rule as well as DLC being mostly locked to the respective version of the full game)
I will rage if the PS4 (and new PSN) will be region locked. At least in the early PS3 years I imported quite a number of games, in particular English versions from Asia of games that never released in the west or took too long.
Regarding movies , that's not one company's decision, but at least it got much better with BD (but got worse again with digital releases, if you don't live in the US that is).
DVD -> mostly region locked
Blu-ray -> half? of the releases not region locked (or even more, only Fox is the one studio nowadays locking most of their releases)
VoD -> region (b)locked
The DS was region free... did Nintendo ever explain what made them change their mind again?
In this specific case it's not a dealbreaker though, no plans to buy a WiiU anyway
PS1 -> region locked
PS2 -> region locked
PSP -> not region locked
PS3 -> not region locked
PSV -> not region locked
PSN -> not region locked
(does not include the rare exception of the rule as well as DLC being mostly locked to the respective version of the full game)
I will rage if the PS4 (and new PSN) will be region locked. At least in the early PS3 years I imported quite a number of games, in particular English versions from Asia of games that never released in the west or took too long.
Regarding movies , that's not one company's decision, but at least it got much better with BD (but got worse again with digital releases, if you don't live in the US that is).
DVD -> mostly region locked
Blu-ray -> half? of the releases not region locked (or even more, only Fox is the one studio nowadays locking most of their releases)
VoD -> region (b)locked
The DS was region free... did Nintendo ever explain what made them change their mind again?
In this specific case it's not a dealbreaker though, no plans to buy a WiiU anyway
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
The whole point is that if smeone REALLY wants something they will pay to get it which is what Nintendo is likely banking on.
The only issue is say for example, Smash Bros or Mario Kart Online play, would it also restrict that as well?
The only issue is say for example, Smash Bros or Mario Kart Online play, would it also restrict that as well?
They didn't really change their mind again. The GameBoy was region free. They changed policy once with the DSi and stuck with it.
You'll never get a straight answer as to why. Some say it was pressure from third party publishers.
Because it's cheaper to buy local, to play with friends or there's a language barrier. I couldn't justify importing New Super Mario Bros. U from Japan for $70+ when I can just get it from a local store for less.
because people dont need to know japanese to play fighters and shmups and stuff that only get a japanese release but want to play story based games in english/their native language? there are people who cant speak a word of japanese who have played the shit out of games like Virtual On and Gundam Extreme Vs
Palette Swap
Member
Because I tend to buy games from all 3 regions. I'm in Europe:
- I tend to buy in the UK regular games that are released here.
- I tend to buy in the US jp game localizations when they're released earlier or when they're not released at all here.
- I tend to buy in Japan games that will never be released here that I still want to play.
There's a reason I never gave up on my OG DS lite.
I've never seen that before but that's pretty amusing. That was just a bypass of the physical cartridge modification of the NTSC regions right, not for between PAL and NTSC?
Haunted
Member
Terrible, just terrible. Especially since importing would actually make more sense for their console compared to the others given their spotty localisation history.
Fuck you Nintendo.
IIIVI.
Fuck you Nintendo.
I had one of these. PAL game in front, US game in the back. It's how I played FFremember this badboy for the snes
DLC is disc region-locked.
PSN is also sort of region-locked since 1 or 2 years. Previously it was possible to use creditcards from everywhere and then they locked it to only accept creditcards from the respective region.
Yeah, I could use PSN cards, but I don't want to. Instead I'm "using" a friend in US and he uses me for European store purchases, it still sucks.
How is that even a question? Why don't people bothered that they have to buy an extra console just to play japanese games buy an extra console to play japanese games?
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
Expected, but awful news all the same.
Found one of those or something like it in a charity shop. Never tested it mind since I have no imported SNES games.
remember this badboy for the snes
didn't need it. all you need to do is get a plier and kinda clip/pull/remove those little plastic chips inside the cartridge hole to enable playing jp cartridge.
nintendo got smart on n64 and made the plastic blocker more thicker. had to open up the console to dremel those plastic blocker for playing jp n64 cartridge
That only worked between the US and Japanese systems, same as with the N64.
For the Pal systems you needed a converter since most games needed a domestic cart to boot.
One should think that after the homebrew catastrophe on the Wii Nintendo would know better and make the Wii U region-free from the beginning. Many of the achievements of Wii's homebrew scene only have been possible because people wanted to play their fucking out-of-region games...
It's not surprising, of course, but with more sophisticated online infrastructures consoles aren't as easily hackable as in the past. A freeloader would be blocked in a few days' time nowadays and if Nintendo's OS isn't a clusterfuck this time around they might even be able to prevent hacking.
As always, the enthusiast customer is the loser. Why not throw a bone to the part of your userbase which buys the most games by far?
It's not surprising, of course, but with more sophisticated online infrastructures consoles aren't as easily hackable as in the past. A freeloader would be blocked in a few days' time nowadays and if Nintendo's OS isn't a clusterfuck this time around they might even be able to prevent hacking.
As always, the enthusiast customer is the loser. Why not throw a bone to the part of your userbase which buys the most games by far?
TheGreatDivide
Banned
Region locking should be up to publishers, not hardware owners. I have no objection to region locking when it's done for real reasons (different publishers in different regions, differences in releases dates, etc). But a blanket region lock policy is dumb. Microsoft did it right with 360.
I have been there many times. It sucks, big way.
Having a region blocked Japanese system opens you to all the weird and wonderful stuff that never comes here (taikos, rythmn games in general, SRW, adventures, Simple, etc), but if you don't know Japanese you end pretty tired of always playing using faqs (if there is any). And you need to buy everything via mail, and don't have warranty.
Having a USA system, well, Atlus is there, most niche companies are there so you get most the JRPG available and avoid situations like 8 months of waiting between USA/EU, but you are forced to buy everything from USA, and then you are not safe from the Localization Gods caprices (hello Xenoblade!). No warranty as well.
EU systems are the most comfortable/lazy. No need to worry about watts, you can buy wherever, you have your warranty, but then you are forced to wait if the Localization Gods are merciful with you for every Japanese game that interest you.
Universal systems avoid all the problem and have all the advantages= me, a happy consumer.
I'm going to bit my tongue about people here pushing their stupid agendas. Region block sucks, end of the story. I don't believe it makes any good, and if it does, it´s certainly not in my best interest.
Augemitbutter
Member
weird. everyone i knew had either one of those converters or a mod in their system back in the 16bit days.
Time for a bet. What will happen first; Gaming gets real journalists or Nintendo makes a home console region free?
Place bets now!
I wouldn't say they did it right with 360. Sure, it's better than a completely locked system, but I would be annoyed having to ask "is it region locked?" every time a game comes out.
Sony did it right with PS3.
remember this badboy for the snes
Hey old friend, long time.
remember this badboy for the snes
I have this
It works 1 time out of 10
" " " " " " 3 when I blow my deadly air in all its slots :O
TheGreatDivide
Banned
As I stated, I don't think region locking is an automatically bad thing. THere's reasons to do it beyond "lol screw the customer lol".
Nintendo got it wrong by forcing it on all titles. I imported a lot of 360 titles so I have no real issues with the way MS did it.
As I said before I'm sure it was nintendo that really clamped down in stores that sold imported hardware/software. Legally I was never aware of any laws broken by the retailers but CEX was spooked big time and stopped selling imports when at the time it would of been a big part of there business.
phosphor112
Banned
Your avatar makes me want to assume the fetal position and cry.
SolidusDave
Member
Yeah I mentioned the DLC situation, but actually it's not even a real region lock. You can buy the (foreign) DLC etc. but you must use the one that correlates with the full game version you have.
Of course I would want that to change as well and I also remember the glorious days of using the cc in the US&HK stores.
But at least nowadays you can buy any PSN card from any region via ebay etc.
In principle there is nothing that prevents access to a downloadable game or free demo from a foreign store. They can be played on any PS3 with any account etc. That's very different to the IP block of VoD or Nintento's shops.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
I thought the whole point of having blu-ray tech was (i) having 25GB disc space and (ii) having region-free games.
MadraptorMan
Member
K then guess I'm not buying one here.
co-sign. If I knew that all those titles that get released in Japan were coming to europe it really wouldnt bother me but thats not the case.
IrishNinja
Member
i tend to assume it's that, can't imagine another reason, is the thing. DSi was when they started out with some digital content, right? maybe that was a part of it?