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Famitsu: Wii U region-lock confirmed

Sucks.
Since this'll mean Wii Backwards Compatibility is region locked to.
Why Nintendo are you doing this? You hurt no one but your most hardcore fanbase.
Didn't they learn anything from Xenoblade? Game had a huge base that imported it and ended up having to use softmodded wiis to play it.

PS2 backwards compatibility was still region locked on PS3's capable of playing PS2 games... Even if Wii U wasn't region locked, Wii games would be (it's a contract thing)
 
Well dang thats lame.

Tell me about it... when I acquired a launch PS3 I was sure my import copy of Gundam: Generations of CE would run on it... but it through up an invalid region error which made me quite sad.

Had to keep my modded PS2 around for a while longer till it eventually died -_-
 

Oersted

Member
I never made any absolute statement like "ps3 can play any disc from anywhere". I said Sony's last three systems have gotten me used to region free gaming.

And yes, 100% psp games, 100% vita games, and 99.9% region free ps3 games gets people used to that.

it was common use to home consoles being region locked. x360 and ps360 are also doing this. only not that often. the hypocrysis in this thread comes from judging this as a nintendo only thing. plain wrong
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
it was common use to home consoles being region locked. x360 and ps360 are also doing this. only not that often. the hypocrysis in this thread comes from judging this as a nintendo only thing. plain wrong

The Wii and Wii U appear to be region locked at a hardware level. This is incredibly shitty. This is a bad thing. This negatively impacts me. This negatively impacts many other people. Nintendo has not proven to be a good steward in terms of localizing their own titles.

Xbox 360 is region locked at a per-game level. Many games are region locked. This is bad and MS should be complained about, but there are also plenty of opportunities for importing.

The PS3 is not in any meaningful sense region locked. Of the ~1000 unique titles on the system (and I'd say well over 2000 unique region-game titles--in other words, counting the Japanese release of Ratchet and Clank separately from the US release), 1 has a region lock (3 counting the other two regions of that one game). Atlus should be strung up over region locking that game, and it's a real bummer that Sony allowed them to, but the PS3 is not in any meaningful sense region locked.

There's no hypocrisy in coming to the conclusion that Sony, while imperfect, has had a good record with the PS3; Microsoft, while heavily flawed, has done okay. Nintendo's position on imports is the worst of the three and should be condemned the most.

stumps, since you're here:

i think we can argue the merits of efforts like Operation Rainfall (or even less successful ones like Starman.net) for awareness, to what extent do you think that's viable here? because in nintendo's case, i think the people making the decisions in japan possibly have no real idea this is something consumers even value, and i'm wondering if there's any hypothetical effort that could alter that.

Region locking purports to solve two problems:
1) Multiple publishers have the same game in multiple regions; one doesn't want the other to erode their sales due to imports. I don't think this is all that important anymore, especially with digital options. I mean, in 2015, if Atlus wants to publish their games in the EU, they'll basically be able to, right? They'll just be digital only.

2) The same publisher has the game in multiple regions, but makes a different amount of profit per sale in each region, and doesn't want people in high-margin areas to import from low-margin areas. In the Japanese case, the most germane fear would be US->JPN imports, since JPN sales are more lucrative due to the high yen and the high MSRP over there. I think this fear is at least a little valid, I'm just unsympathetic.

I'm not 100% confident, but I'm also fairly certain that many of the biggest importers will simply buy multiple consoles. Not that Nintendo endorses it or anything, but I think that's their "solution" if you need one.

fair point, but...what if the pressure from pubs at this point is so minimal that the perception of fixing one of their base's complaints (as theyve clearly been working on with online, increased 3rd party support etc) was shown to be worthwhile? in a cost/benefit analysis sort've way.

I think this maybe subscribes a little bit too much of an active awareness or babysitting on Nintendo's part. They strike me as a company that simply mutes any issue that doesn't strike a certain awareness threshold with them. Many big companies do. Companies seek ROI in a very tangible way--it's not enough to simply make a good decision or a profitable one, but rather they don't invest their time or energy in anything considered small fry.
 

EuroMIX

Member
I always thought that there might be a legal reason for region-locking such as the differing rating bodies and music licensing across different regions, but supposedly this isn't the case?

If all games were released worldwide at the more or less the same time, or at least the ones that make sense, then I would have no qualms with region-locking. I just hate it when, say, Europe has to wait 6 months to never for a game, especially from renowned developers.
 
I always thought that there might be a legal reason for region-locking such as the differing rating bodies and music licensing across different regions, but supposedly this isn't the case?


It's not done for legal reasons... If you purchase a game in Europe, it met all the standards (and royalties for stuff like music) there. The problem is with publishers. Publishers in Europe and North America especially make money from localizing or at the very least buying the license and packaging the product for their home region.

Nintendo wants to keep them happy because they pay additional licensing fees just for releasing the same game in their home region. If Nintendo allowed for full importing, it would hurt publishers who release their version too late (3 months between NA and Euro release could end up costing them a lot, especially if the games are purchasable from Nintendo's eShop)

Is it anti-consumer? Kind of... But there is some logic to it.
 
This doesn't make this any less expected but FWIW, SNES and N64 were only half-region locked in the sense that the only region protection across NTSC territories was the form factor of the cartridges between JP and US. Physically modifying your console was enough to play JP games on a US console and vice versa.
PAL was still fucked though lol.
 
This doesn't make this any less expected but FWIW, SNES and N64 were only half-region locked in the sense that the only region protection across NTSC territories was the form factor of the cartridges between JP and US. Physically modifying your console was enough to play JP games on a US console and vice versa.
PAL was still fucked though lol.

I think the main thing they wanted to avoid was another NES10 pin problem they had. The NES lock out chip is what caused most errors when people wanted to play their games (restarting console, corrupt graphics, etc).
 
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