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Let's convince Nintendo to go region-free!

1. Kind of. They didn't really look at what the games actually were, but the supervised with the ordering process and obviously inputted all of the personal info. I recognize this is an abnormal case though.
2. Nintendo makes a lot of money, and these people are a relatively small market. They'd probably try to avoid anything that could cause any sort of problems with parental controls. They probably want to avoid any sort of problem that could ever exist whatsoever with parent controls in order to maintain a family friendly image.

Granted I'm just playing devil's advocate at this point. I yeah'd dozens of Miiverse posts, posted a couple of my own, and tweeted about this. I think that it's definitely within Nintendo's best interest. And whoever brought up the Europe/Australia thing had a good point.

Your answer to one kind of proves my point. If your parents help you order a game, then it is their responsibility (not Nintendo's). Heck, it is always a parent's responsibility (why did I need so many words in order to come up with this :lol:).
As for two, I'd love to point out that many people who love Nintendo nowadays, do so because they grew up with Nintendo games. For a company not only short-term profits, but also long term customer binding is important. Which is why games like Pikmin 3 are delayed. I can find myself agreeing to the risk of losing the family friendly image, though.
It's good to have a discussion. The more relevant arguments we have, the more likely Nintendo is to listen, as they will ask themselves those questions too.

Speaking about likelihood of listening,
Feel free to start one.
Actually, I'd advise against it. As this campaign is on a roll now, it is better to keep it at one. I would love a general Nintendo account system (Wii U and 3DS), but now is not the time. If we would start many petitions at the same time, we risk that Nintendo ignores them all.
 

jtm33

Neo Member
So it seems like the main reason they want to region lock the 3DS is due to their Parental Controls system. How they can't handle games from different regions if the system is unrestricted. The hilarious thing about this is that they already do handle games from different regions.

I tested this out with my Australian bought 3DS (identical to European 3DS systems) and tested with a variety of European and Australian games.

We have different ratings systems, Europe uses PEGI and Australia uses the ACB. A rough equivalence of two ratings systems are (there are exceptions):

PEGI --- ACB
3 --- G
7 --- PG
12 --- M
16 --- MA15
18 --- R18

So I set my 3DS to Australia, and restricted my rating to MA15 (the highest the 3DS allows for some reason). All of the European games worked (even Resident Evil Revelations), except for Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor Overclocked. SMTDSO was not released in Australia and therefore has no local rating. Also, Shantae Risky's Revenge didn't work, as that was not rated locally either (the DSiWare shop stores ratings info). All DS games worked.

Next thing I did was set the restriction to G, the lowest. My European Animal Crossing worked, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D did, as did any other game that was rated G by the ACB. Anything that was rated higher than G, even if it was a European version of the game, didn't work. The same to games that were not rated locally.

I set the system to PG to see how it handled games which were rated differently in regions. My Australian version of Kid Icarus Uprising was rated PG, but it was rated PEGI 12 in Europe. Of course it launched fine when restricted to PG. I set the system to Europe, and PEGI 7. The game didn't work, as it was rated PEGI 12.

So the things I found out:
- Games store information on multiple ratings systems and use that for Parental Controls
- For imported games, it will take the ratings information for your local ratings board if it is available and use that for parental control use (assuming your 3DS is set to your local region).
- If there is no local ratings information, it will block the game on all ratings levels.
- DS games have no restrictions.
- DSiWare games do have restrictions, and if the game has not been rated in your region it will be blocked.
 

Somnid

Member
So it seems like the main reason they want to region lock the 3DS is due to their Parental Controls system. How they can't handle games from different regions if the system is unrestricted. The hilarious thing about this is that they already do handle games from different regions.

I tested this out with my Australian bought 3DS (identical to European 3DS systems) and tested with a variety of European and Australian games.

We have different ratings systems, Europe uses PEGI and Australia uses the ACB. A rough equivalence of two ratings systems are (there are exceptions):

PEGI --- ACB
3 --- G
7 --- PG
12 --- M
16 --- MA15
18 --- R18

So I set my 3DS to Australia, and restricted my rating to MA15 (the highest the 3DS allows for some reason). All of the European games worked (even Resident Evil Revelations), except for Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor Overclocked. SMTDSO was not released in Australia and therefore has no local rating. Also, Shantae Risky's Revenge didn't work, as that was not rated locally either (the DSiWare shop stores ratings info). All DS games worked.

Next thing I did was set the restriction to G, the lowest. My European Animal Crossing worked, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D did, as did any other game that was rated G by the ACB. Anything that was rated higher than G, even if it was a European version of the game, didn't work. The same to games that were not rated locally.

I set the system to PG to see how it handled games which were rated differently in regions. My Australian version of Kid Icarus Uprising was rated PG, but it was rated PEGI 12 in Europe. Of course it launched fine when restricted to PG. I set the system to Europe, and PEGI 7. The game didn't work, as it was rated PEGI 12.

So the things I found out:
- Games store information on multiple ratings systems and use that for Parental Controls
- For imported games, it will take the ratings information for your local ratings board if it is available and use that for parental control use (assuming your 3DS is set to your local region).
- If there is no local ratings information, it will block the game on all ratings levels.
- DS games have no restrictions.
- DSiWare games do have restrictions, and if the game has not been rated in your region it will be blocked.

Very interesting. I think inter-PAL isn't as problematic. I think it could be a fear of some loli game out of Japan hitting an Australian child-porn law and someone getting up in arms over it. I also don't think it helps that NOE is headquartered in Germany which is the nanny-est country in the Northern Hemisphere. Didn't they have that whole eShop curfew thing?

I think they can work something out though.
 

kaioshade

Member
Actually, I'd advise against it. As this campaign is on a roll now, it is better to keep it at one. I would love a general Nintendo account system (Wii U and 3DS), but now is not the time. If we would start many petitions at the same time, we risk that Nintendo ignores them all.

You mean how they are ignoring this one?

Nintendo does not care. Did Iwata not come out and say they dont care what others are doing?
 
I hope this moves along nicely. I'm getting tired of only playing karaoke U. I mean its cool but, you know it gets old quick once I have gone through the 5 songs I know how to sing.
 
LTTP: I've just done my part.
Thanks for organising this guys.
I hope Nintendo respond positively.

Imagine the positive press if they put out a firmware update that removed region locking, added an account system to tie purchases to and released Mario Sunshine or Luigi's Mansion on Virtual Console to apologise. Wonderful.

EDIT: I'd also like the ability to have different region eShop accounts on my WiiU. I have a Japanese system and can't watch Netflix on it :(
 

vctor182

Member
This is spreading pretty good now, let's keep the ball rolling. Do you guys think that if we make a website/forum for this movement more people will join the cause?

I'm sure there's Nintendo Fans outside of Gaf upset by this.
 

69wpm

Member
NOA:

Nintendo has no plans to remove region locking from our systems. By taking this approach, Nintendo is able to include parental controls and ensure compliance with regional standards and rating systems.

Source

Well, that is sad. I hope they put more effort into localizations to make up for it.
 
Nice, each refresh seems to add a couple more signatures. Should hit the goal today.
The more news sites this gets picked up by, the better.

Nintendo's response stinks of BS as usual when it comes to these sorts of things. Why, if the case is what they say it is, we're handheld systems until DSi region free?

Also, has Nintendo Europe removed the restriction on buying adult rated games from the Wii U store yet? Weren't the hours something like 11pm to 3am? What a fucking joke that was.

Nintendo is one stupidly run, fucked up company at times. You couldn't make this shit up even if you paid someone. Except of you're Microsoft with the DRM debacle.
 

also

Banned
This is getting bigger and bigger. I really feel we can do this!

Also, has Nintendo Europe removed the restriction on buying adult rated games from the Wii U store yet? Weren't the hours something like 11pm to 3am? What a fucking joke that was.

Nintendo is one stupidly run, fucked up company at times. You couldn't make this shit up even if you paid someone. Except of you're Microsoft with the DRM debacle.
They did remove that nonsensical restriction.
 

NeoRausch

Member
The more news sites this gets picked up by, the better.

Nintendo's response stinks of BS as usual when it comes to these sorts of things. Why, if the case is what they say it is, we're handheld systems until DSi region free?

Also, has Nintendo Europe removed the restriction on buying adult rated games from the Wii U store yet? Weren't the hours something like 11pm to 3am? What a fucking joke that was.

Nintendo is one stupidly run, fucked up company at times. You couldn't make this shit up even if you paid someone. Except of you're Microsoft with the DRM debacle.

yes they did, fine for a few month now. that was the biggest bullshit.
 
I finally make a Miiverse post about this and got negative responses for suggesting I won't buy Pikmin 3 if there isn't even a response to this.
https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAABAADOUV52CmkVBA

This campaign isn't about boycotting, it's about driving positive change for all of us. Pikmin 3 is a poor choice of games to boycott anyway, given that it'll be out in all regions within weeks.

Persona 4 Arena was another story.
 
oh and:

what the hell has NOA to say nowadays anyway? they are puppets and stand even below NOE.
This is so true, haha.

Keep this going, people. Anyone here that works for any half decent gaming site should be asking the hard hitting questions on region lock, especially in response to these pitiful excuses Nintendo is making. E.G. Why were handhelds okay all these years until DSi and then 3DS with full region lock?

Please excuse old typos. My phone keeps autocorrecting to grammatically incorrect words. Ugh.
 

Keyouta

Junior Member
42 more supporters needed to get to 15k at the time of this post!

Wow, the petition has really launched off since it hit 10k, must be the abundance of articles being put up!
 

Azure J

Member
I'm so glad to see the persistence towards the goal here. PR speak, no matter how low level, always has a tendency to dissuade otherwise reasonable people from doing things.
 

wrowa

Member
Why would it be an excuse? The business-oriented logic makes even less sense.

Because they could easily block out of region games for kids and give parents the possibility to unblock them.

Kids aren't going to import anyway. The only way they get in touch with out of region games is during vacation.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
If parental controls enabled, no games from other regions can be played.

Done! You're welcome Nintendo. You are now more consumer friendly and support your biggest fans more while still being able to provide parental controls.
 

Somnid

Member
Because they could easily block out of region games for kids and give parents the possibility to unblock them.

Kids aren't going to import anyway. The only way they get in touch with out of region games is during vacation.

That's pretty much what they are doing, just not very gracefully with parental controls. Also online shopping is a thing.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
That's pretty much what they are doing, just not very gracefully with parental controls. Also online shopping is a thing.

No. that is not what they are doing at all.
They are block you as an adult from playing a game you bought while traveling abroad for your handheld.

They are releasing games that are not being localized outside of Japan and preventing you from playing them.
 

Somnid

Member
No. that is not what they are doing at all.
They are block you as an adult from playing a game you bought while traveling abroad for your handheld.

They are releasing games that are not being localized outside of Japan and preventing you from playing them.

While I was being a bit hyperbolic in my statement, I understand none of this.
 

tolkir

Member

nothing_stops_this_train-9763.gif
 

xandaca

Member
The campaign's doing a great job getting the word out, forcing Nintendo to resort to such bulls**t excuses only shows they've felt pressured enough to issue a statement, which is a big step forward. It's definitely something to be encouraged by. I don't really use Miiverse, but have been RTing various messages from the campaign twitter account.
 
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