Slashdot Mirror
Wii Now Confirmed to Not be Region-Free
legoburner writes "Contrary to an earlier Slashdot story, Nintendo have now stated that the Wii will not be region free. The original claim came from Nintendo America, but Nintendo UK have gone on record denying the claims. They put it rather bluntly, stating: 'We are region-locked,' and that Nintendo America made a mistake by claiming otherwise."
Yes, that is the resounding sond of Booohs heard across the world. Come on Nintendo, if you're going to play the $250 console card and appeal to the customers, at least do it right.
Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
This isn't suprising, most systems are region locked as it is. Besides I'm sure someone will make a region-lock bypass similar to Gameshark or something.
When expecting to find intelligence in a person, do not look at their age but instead look at their IQ and maturity firs
No one is certain..
Title: Wii Now Confirmed to Not be Region-Free
Next line: Nintendo have now stated that the Wii will not be region free.
Bit lower: They put it rather bluntly, stating: 'We are region-locked,' and that Nintendo America made a mistake by claiming otherwise.
Whos right?
liqbase
Left hand, right hand. So which division's telling the truth? Both? Neither?
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Wii where wrong.
All together now: 'Wii shall not, Wii shall not be moved...'
Because it's region-locked, you see...
Oh, never mind.
I think that this is a shame, although my DS is region free and I've never bought a game from either America or Japan, so it's not going to be too big of a problem to be. I doubt many people will be upset about this. Still, it's a shame.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I'm waiting for the word from Nintendo of Japan before I believe anything.
Is it that hard? The dollar/pound/euro/yen is the only voice they'll hear.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
the cosmos in 20 words or less: thumbuki.com
Wow, I remember the post-E3 hype where people were talking about a 150 dollar Nintendo console that was going to rock the console world to its foundation and change the face of gaming forever with its revolutionary and innovative controller.
Fast forward and see how times have changed for Nintendo:
* Expensive console - 250 dollars for a souped up GameCube
* Expensive controllers - so much for having three or four friends over all using Wii controllers without shelling out big bucks
* Ho-hum games - A whole lot of Wii titles look to be "GameCube game with some pointing"
The Wii is looking like the Colin Powell of consoles - everyone loves it as long as the details aren't pinned down and gamers imprint their own hopes and desires on the console. But once the facts about the console come to light support starts to disappear.
I've owned all nintendo units (even the old famicom back from the 80s) except the gamecube, and most regional lockouts were easily defeated. I still have fond memories of modding all my old American units to work with Japanese games as a kid. Nintendo - Had to buy an extension to insert the small cartridges into the nintendo unit. Super NES - Two little plastic strips that I ripped out with pliers N64 - Got smarter this time at the age of 15..... heated up a paper clip and melted off the more substantial nubs in this unit. I'm not familiar with the gamecube, so I have no idea if this one needed a more substantial mod. I've never quite understood the reason for these regional lockouts, can someone explain to me what the reasoning behind it is, and how it benefits them? If I buy the game all the same, what difference does it make where I buy it from?
If it is locked - and I don't really know what the overall conclusion from this article is either - then it's certainly bad news for the UK gamers. Seems that the announced prices for the Wii will make it most expensive in the UK - for reasons that aren't clear to me for one.
I suspect the reason is the same one as used by every other company - "you're British, if we shaft you on price you won't do anything about it. It's just cos we can charge more that we do."
Infinitives requested to not be split
The price of Wikipedia is eternal vigilance
With the wii already a third more expensive in Britain, no doubt the games will have a similar markup.
By your sig's logic you can give me credit for preventing an asteroid attack on the planet. My anti-asteroid device has been working perfectly -- no attacks yet! Credit where credit's due please.
Actually Ive got the inside scoop on this region issue. Nintendo are constructing a special magical field put around it. Its called the FuckYouEuropeField, whenever a european enters europe with the wrong coded region console/game, the unit will automatically self-destruct, taking the offender, or as Nintendo calls them 'EuroScum', with it.
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
Why is this filed under the "Portable Games" category?
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
Finally, Sony has launched its PS3 right for the Christmas sales, at least in Japan. Last year, when Nintendo's Wiii hit the shelves, initial sales were stunningly low until about March. Various groups blamed this on the hack published in February that allowed region lock to be circumvented. Nintendo was not available for comment.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Could it be as simple as there being no specific region codes... but pal/ntsc versions being incompatible? (so usa/japan(ntsc) games would be interchangeable with each other, but not european(pal) games?)
Dont get me wrong, I am not anti Nintendo, I am as Nintendo neutral as anyone can be. But I can see the history. Nintendo has a long history of stumbling over their own arrogance.
This time it seems the rule not the exception. They had everything right, the momentum was there after E3, everyone loved the console, which ought to be not the latest in technology bug cheaper than the rest and with a new controller enabling good gaming ideas.
And now... Scam pricing to ripp off different regions: Hint at Nintendo, even 250 USD is not 250 Euros, even with the VAT calculated out the thing still is more expensive than the US version.
Enforced bundles so they can hike prices in certain areas: Hint at nintendo, an enforced Wii sports bundle does not help sales, it would have been better to sell the console for 200 and let the people decide which game to buy, in the end you will lose money on that decision.
Hidden costs: Hint at Nintendo: charging another 60 dollars for another controller set pushes you way over the XBOX360 pricewise.
Dropped features: No dvd, while not being really important anymore, they could at least have offered dvd as buyable option instead of leaving it out entirely.
Region Codes: While this was heavily promoted, region codes suck, europeans hate them, some americans as well, go for it Nintendo. You just give certain people a legal justification for selling modchips.
I have yet to see a single company pissing so many people off in such a short period of time, the discussions in the forums, basically have all the same tone (wtf did you think nintndo i do not want the f*** wee sports just for price hiking) like Nintendo has last week, they had everything in place. Ship the console for 200 Euros no bundle, plain, no discussion lots of sales. They have the DS momentum on their side. Now if Microsoft just drops their prices 50 europs over here, Nintendo lies flat and dead in its starting position and ends up with a Cube like fiasko.
They're always last to hear the news. I trust Perrin Kaplan over David Yarnton.
They're region loocked: http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/732/732982p1.html
They're not region locked: http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/732/732748p1.html
Madness.
They might both be right, and wrong.
Wii will not have a region, as in USA v.s. Japan. But it will have PAL v.s. NTSC versions. (Stupid UK TVs have a different number of pixels on screen and pixel-aspect ratio).
Hence, the UK version will be "region" locked whereas the american and japanese versions will be free to share.
Nintendo US and Nintendo Japan had their events, completely forgetting about Europe with Europe being something console manufacturers apparently don't care that much about with the increased prices and the fact they're always last for console and game releases. Nintendo US and Japan rejoice in the fact that the Wii is in fact probably region free between those countries and mention this publicly. Then someone remembers Europe, Europe no doubt being the centre of shaftdom, a place where companies can screw consumers to the Nth degree without fear of reprisals and brings up the fact that Europe can't in fact use games from Japan or the US because they intend to charge more in Europe to rip customers off and hence they have to correct their mistake that whilst Japan and the US can enjoy game swapping, Europe can't. Okay, now back to reality somewhat I realise that's a totally cynical view and I'm probably off mark but on the same note it is getting kind of tiresome in Europe that we're treated so much worse in terms of releases of games and gaming equipment. The US version of the Wii is going to cost £133, whereas the European version will cost £179. I certainly realise we suffer taxes much more here and I realise with our strong currencies it costs a little more to distribute it here, however I fail to beleive that those two factors add up to a 25% price increase for Europe - some of it HAS to be greed on the manufacturers part, plain and simple. Also, the fact we get it later also adds insult to injury. So whilst my original point had a strong hint of over the top cynicism, I can't help but feel that it might have some slight truth to it that the reason the Wii is region locked - whether for Europe only or all 3 regions that it's again because of sheer greed by Nintendo. I really want a Wii, but when someone's trying to screw me I do feel very tempted to just not bother, not give them my money and buy something else instead. One final note, I do realise Nintendo aren't the only ones guilty of this, I guess I just hoped that Nintendo weren't going to screw Europe like Microsoft did and Sony will... I hoped they were better than that, oh well :/
Even without region lockouts, when taking things from US/Japan to Europe/Australia, you still have to deal with PAL vs. NTSC.
At least that isn't a problem with HDTV, but I don't think the Wii supports HDTV, unlike its contemporaries.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
So the Wii will be either region-free or region-locked and the only way to be absolutely sure is to buy it.
I only hope it won't be in some kind of quantum superstate between the two.
I don't know where you live, but in the United States, the vast majority of DVD players are region locked, and most people don't know or care.
The only people who have region-free players are people who've hacked them (some models had override codes you could put in) or who bought them overseas.
Most people go down to Wal-Mart, plunk down their $30, and buy whatever's on the end of the aisle, on sale. They barely stop to look at the name of the brand, much less anything so esoteric as region coding.
This will have a greater affect on people in Europe than in the U.S.; people here just don't care enough about imported content (with the exception of people who are into stuff from Japan) to notice region coding. Most Americans don't travel (and thus wouldn't come into possession of a foreign-region disc), don't speak any other languages (and so most foreign content is useless to them), and have enough domestic content available that they're not dying to get their hands on stuff from abroad.
The very small percentage of people who care about having a region-free DVD player or game console will pay the price premium necessary to acquire one on the grey market. With DVD players this usually means getting one originally destined for Europe or Asia, and with game consoles this means installing a mod chip. I don't think the Nintendo Rev--excuse me, Wii--will be any different in this regard. The very small number of gamers who want to play Japanese import games will get a mod chip.
The biggest effect that the region coding will have in the United States is that it creates a semi-legitimate excuse for mod chips to exist. If there wasn't region coding, and thus the excuse of wanting to be able to override the console's programming and play foreign games, then mod chips would be viewed more as a purely piracy-oriented tool; as it is, it's pretty easy to market them (with a hefty wink-wink-nudge-nude, know what I mean).
As someone who's never bought an un-modded console, I'd like to take a moment to thank Nintendo for this development. The modchip manufacturers and blank-DVD producers of the world salute you.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
But I hear that its followup, the WWii, is going to take American markets completely by suprise and, for a while at least, completely dominate the Pacific Rim.
NoE loves annoying the hell out of their customers and generally try to make us realize we're much better off with a PC. Wouldn't surprise me if NoA made everything region free but NoE added a lock so Europeans can't use those region free games.
Maybe I should respect their wish and not buy a Wii, then.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Oh come on. Now, I know fanbois generally have the habit of accepting any good rumors and denying any bad news, but you're just being silly. It's not like this was a rumor from the "Interweb", but something that's been confirmed several times (see the links in the original story). Here's in all likelihood what happened:
1) VP of Marketing at US conference announces that Wii is not region locked for some reason (probably some a mistake/confusion on their part)
2) Nintendo freaks out and realizes the mistake
3) However, Nintendo is not about to put out a major press release or bring out Iwata to say, "Oh we ARE region locked"
4) So, Nintendo tactfully announces the bad news in the UK conference, and clarifies to the media the mistake that was made
Those fanbois who think that "Oh, it didn't come from NOJ, so it must not be true!" are doing EXACTLY what Nintendo intended (either purposely or as a "convenient side-effect") to do, which was build enough doubt that its most ardent supporters will still think that it's region-free, while not outright lying to the media.
Now, I imagine what some of the confusion might stem from is that first-party titles are not region-locked, so there might be some truth to what the VP of Marketing said, but it certainly isn't what most fans really wanted (which was no region-locking functionality in the hardware at all, preventing 3rd parties from using it).
That said, I'm not blaming or looking down on Nintendo for not being able to make the Wii region-free. I happen to know how difficult it is to do this, from a business standpoint, although it obviously sucks for consumers. I applaud Nintendo for at least having its portables being region-free. And it is unfortunate that they screwed up the announcement in the first place, but mistakes happen.
What I just can't stand is "fanboism", which results in gamers like you that are willing to be misled so easily. Let's be realistic here.
-- jchenx
No. Nintendo is a large enough entity that they can afford doing their own customer surveys, polling, studies, etc. rather than "testing the public" through mistakes in their press conferences. You would also do such investigation MUCH earlier, and not 2 months before ship. (And remember, Wii is already in manufacturing already) Whether or not you allow region-locking has far more implications on the business-side, and we should all know how long it can take for legal and business departments (between Nintendo and 3rd party developers) to work things out and agree on something.
And as someone else mentioned, the "customer responses" are not useful. You would only be polling the hardcore fanbase that actually pays attentions to these press conferences. The bulk of their sales (especially considering Nintendo is going after the more mainstream crowd), will come from people that probably don't even know what region-locking is, and would not understand why anyone in their right mind would import a game that's not in their language.
-- jchenx
As a person who is bilingual in Japanese and English, I'd planned on buying a Wii and getting games from both sides of the Pacific Ocean (primarily English games, but a few Japanese games that would never be translated and brought to the US). If it is true that the Wii will not be region-free, I don't think I'll be buying one: I make it a point not to buy region-locked things unless I can easily get around them (e.g. DVDs which I play with VLC). I guess I'll wait until someone discovers a hack to get around the region problem.
Nintendo, you just lost a sale of console and all incidental game purchases I would have made. Congratulations!
It's almost guaranteed there will be a gameshark/action replay device for the the Wii that will negate the region lock crap.
There will be 3rd party controllers, cables and other cack that will cost significantly less than Nintendo's (and Sony's, and Microsoft's, and Sega's...) high prices. Yes, most will be shoddy, but there will be some decent peripherals.
Games get on the secondhand market very quickly these days, costing a reasonable £30 and less, and if you've gotta have the game/console as soon as they are released then you have to ask yourself why.
I have little doubt that the Wii will be region-unlocked (mod chip, anyone?) and running Linux within the first month of its release.
So it looks like the PC is coming out ahead in this console generation. I think I'll just shell out 150-200 bucks for a vid card upgrade instead and wait the extra month for the X-Box games to make it to PC. All the good Wii games are gonna be on Gamecube anyway (Well Zelda, that's the only one that really matters) and I have yet to see a PS3 game worth 600 dollars. Sorry console industry, you can only push it so far (SEE: Jaguar)
I think that part of the licensing requirements is that a manufacturer has to comply wth "regioning", among other things...
Remember the flap Apex got when they made it too easy to get around the mandated restrictions?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yeah, it's a Region war... the Allied NTSC against the Axis of PAL. But seriously, it sounds like it's just like that, and I'm guessing that there will be two reginons, maybe three (Australia). Nintendo and Nintendo of America have been growing pretty close, it seems, but the foundering EU Nintendo sales have made European branch a bit defensive, and worried that they're being ignored and crapped upon by the other branches. When you hear statements like this, especially one branch out-right publicly shaming another, you KNOW that there's a power struggle going on up the chain, and not just a miscommunication. There's probably a big disagreement in how the company should market their products internationally, and Europe may feel largely ignored, and possibly sacrificed for the whole. Remember, that in a company that big, it's only logical that branches on either side of the world would have largely different adjendas and ideas on how the company should work.
Of course, it's the mother ship (Japan) that has the final say, but it doesn't mean that another branch is going ot take it well. I am guessing that what happened was, in am execuative board meeting, Nintendo of America did a fairly good job of stating their case of region-free encoding to Nintendo of Japan, who all but said "let's do it", Nintendo of America comes back here, and at the first possible press confrence, claim their region-free victory. The European branch, however, has put their foot down, and realizing that Japan hasn't made the final call, is stating THEIR victory.
This doesn't look too good for the European branch. For one, they're already a bit of an outsider, PAL, and probably being largely ignored. Secondly, knowing Japanese culture and business ethics, public ridicule is highly taboo, and Nintendo of Japan is likely to just say, "fuck off, deal with it, and grow up."
Don't think of Nintendo, as many people do, as a saint, or as an evil demon, think of it as one big (disfunctional) family.
This kind of stuff happens all the time within companies. What's unique about this, though is that most inter-branch conflicts go on behind closed doors, as everyone agrees that public disagreement will be very bad for the company's image. I work for a small-town ClearChannel TV station (yes I know, their evil), and we're commonly pretty pissed at the mother ship, which ignores our pleas for upgrading out equipment to something at least resembling mid-90s technology. Most of the people in the company do not have a very nice view of CC, and we have no interest in helping them further their media dominance as an entity. To the average middle-man, all they do is tell us what equipment we're supposed to buy (their contracted equipment), tell us what software we can use (all windows... including TV production, where I work, which SHOULD be Final Cut), and ignores us when that system they've forced us into doesn't work. Ya know, when they tell us, "You are forbidden from using Firefox because we have an agreement with Microsoft (and also because our spyware doesn't work well with Firefox)" it doesn't really make you feel all warm and cuddly.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Has a case against region locking ever reached a court in any country?
I'd imagine the US or at least the EU should have slammed protectionism attempts like these long ago. DVD movies should have provided ample opportunity for making an example out of this free market prevention tactic. Since I still see region coded movie DVDs being sold, I simply have to conclude that the EU has failed miserably in their vigilance to promote free flow of goods. Since the free flow of goods is one of the cornerstones for existance of the EU, this is pretty serious from a European standpoint. It turns the stated goal into a mockery, where one could add subjective exceptions to the statement like "Free flow of goods some goods" or "Free flow of goods unless you pay to get an exception".
In my mind, there can be no logical reason other than bribery for why region coding / locking is still permitted in countries at least trying to pay lip service to the notion of a free market. No wonder a lot of people in Europe view the EU as a big scam, there to serve not it's citizen foremost, but some other stake holder.
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
Region locking feels like a throwback to a pre-Internet boom, pre-globalization era. Global society is becoming more mobile; moving to another country isn't an unusual thing today. It's easy to see and purchase items from another country across the Internet.
The world has changed. Time to move on Nintendo.
really?
We had you down as the good guys.
But it seems we were wrong, and you're actually playing the same games with us as Microsoft and Sony.
One black mark against you, and a drop in the high esteem with which your Wii plans were being greeted.
Instead of staying focussed on buying more games, we'll now be spending our time trying to get the region locking cracked. And instead of gleefully buying more games from all over the world and notching up your profits, we have to look to grey or even black imports which are quite likely to be evading your profit channels.
Bad move Nintendo, very bad move. For you that is. You made a great move from the point of view of Microsoft and Sony.
It's a shame that the editors didn't bother to turn on their brain when looking at this story. Instead they went for the 'dunce digg' approach of regurgitating the story which has been misinterpreted by the poster - probably because it has been mistinterpreted by many other new sites perhaps hoping to drum up some click-hype. To re-iterate... Nintendo of America *never* said the Wii wouldn't be region locked. It said that First party titles from Nintendo will be region free. The *games* not the console! They even went on to say that 3rd party developers could create region locked titles. All Nintendo in Japan are doing is confirming this. The Wii has a region, Nintendo first party games will not be region locked, but other titles may. I expected slashdot to be the beacon of clarification on this topic... guess I hope for too much ;)
Well, that's a fanboism statement if I've ever heard one. No, that's what you WANT to happen.
It's already been a day since the news broke that the Wii is NOT region-free. Even though it's the weekend, if it were true that Nintendo EU was incorrect, don't you think we would have heard otherwise by now? Puh-lease.
And before anyone accuses me of being anti-Nintendo, I *want* the Wii to succeed, and am also a fan of Nintendo's products. But I don't tie myself to one console either, and I try to be realistic about the things that I read about. I swear, it's the Nintendo fanbois that are going to be the downfall of the Wii. There's been so much hype about the controller everything else about the Wii, that there's the very real danger of disappointment when the system finally gets into people's homes. Let people judge the facts for themselves. Coming up with excuses or denying bad news like this may ultimate hurt Nintendo more than it helps.
-- jchenx
You are expected to collect all 3 Wii consoles, just as you are expected to collect all 151+ Pokémon. Did you really think Nintendo would let you get off paying less than the price of a PS3, which is region free?
Americans who can read American English can read British English and Australian English. Most games that show up in Europe and/or Australia but not North America are localised into British English and/or Australian English.
So when you buy a DVD player, do you habitually buy three DVD players, one for North American discs, one for European and Japanese discs (which are in the same DVD-Video region even if they are not in the same video game region), and one for Australian and NZ discs?
It's not the only reason. Copyrights expire at different dates in different countries. For instance, copyrights in sound recordings expire much earlier in the EU than in the USA. An upstream copyright owner, such as the owner of exclusive rights in the story on which a game is based or a musical work appearing in a game's soundtrack, may charge more for copies intended for distribution in territories where the upstream copyright owner still owns a subsisting copyright.
Case in point: The copyright in Peter and Wendy, the first Peter Pan work written by J. M. Barrie, has expired in the United States and Canada. The European Union members and other life+70 countries still recognize a copyright in this work, assigned by Barrie's last will to Great Ormond Street Hospital, but such copyright will expire by the end of this decade, except in the United Kingdom where there is a statutory perpetual copyright on Peter and Wendy.
The sound of Nintendo fan boys shifting into another gear to explain to us why region-locking Wiis is a GOOD thing.
P.
My PlayStation game console from 1997 came with a disc with playable demos of eight different games on it.
That's because Microsoft overcharges. A Wavebird controller for GameCube costs 30 USD.
We have a problem, who is right? Nintendo US or Nintendo UK? It's possible that they are both right mayby UK Wiis will be region locked and US ones will not be.
I could be wrong, but don't some countries have laws against region-locks (I know some, at least, allow you to buy region-free or deregionalize your device without legal repercussions).
Is it so hard to show a NTSC game in PAL mode but 60hz and the same res as NTSC? Yes you can.
There are xbox games that do that.
And if you must do 50hz for old tvs, then do it in 576, but do it in cropped mode where you show full
640x480 in the same field, so you get black bars, big deal.
The region locking is nothing about difficulties playing ntsc on pal tvs, its trivially easy. Its to keep the
cartel sales distribution happy.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Of an old saying I hold near and dear to my heart. The saying is of course "They couldn't be dumber if they cut off their own heads". Do the British think we're happy to hear this? Do they think it will help sales making this rather terse admission? They are acting like the little brother who tells mom you didn't split the cookies (you just convinced her you didn't take them) right and it wasn't fair that you got more. All the while knowing he will get his cookies and no punishment because he supposedly is too little or stupid to know better. The whole nyah nyah thing is really amusing too. They were probably thinking "We'll get those cheeky insurrectionists and they'll look like idiots"
Dude, have you seen aussie tvs?
Even crap ones from 8 years ago could do NTSC.
Dont forget we have somewhere near 15% asian population here, so there is a large demand for NTSC/JAP compatibility.
Just about every single analogue tv chipset from philips etc.. supports PAL/NTSC, it makes no sense
to make two chips when making one is easier.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
when it seems to be coming to light that EVERYTHING is region locked. You didn't really have it straight yourself. Thus, it's not the fanboys that are confusing it: whenever a company contradicts itself, there's always confusion over who's telling the truth.
Region-locking isn't confusing, it's just not something that becomes an issue most of the time, excepting special cases like gamers who travel or people buying unreleased games from Japan.
I do agree, however, that it would have been much wiser to just leave sleeping dogs lie, and avoid the issue entirely, instead of proclaiming that it would be region free (pre-production), and WAS region free (post-production), and then having to retract both as lies. It is a little unfair to Nintendo, though: they didn't actually tout the machine as being region free at any of the press conferences. It was only when specifically asked about it did the rep from NoA say it was.
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
China doesn't support double citizenship. Many of my friends that were born in China still have to apply for visas when they go home to visit relatives, because they couldn't keep it when they took Australian citizenship.
I don't think the USA supports it either, but I'm not sure about that.
I'm still buying one.
You berate the GP for saying "it's just greed" and then say "they are a corp: they are looking only for profit" and admit that is pure greed.
Then you later on say that there must be a non-greed version for selling it higher in the UK and think it cannot be greed. Huh? The EU has the euro and the UK has the pound. People won't know the difference in price, so greed makes them WANT to sell higher in the UK. If the UK used Euros, this would not be possible without making it hugely obvious, but with a different currency, it is easy to hide.
having read the press release material I am once again sickened by those that seek to
.... or if they do its 8 months later :-(
rip the british public off. once again we are facing to pay a mysterious extra
amount for our hardware in the UK. taking todays currency exchange rate, we are paying
almost 40% more for our console in the UK. yes, thats right. $350 is the price
we'll be paying in the UK (£180).
the true, real price, that the rest of the world will be paying (apart from europe...which
are also 10% above the dollar price) is $250. I make that approx £135.
so. either we get some damn fine bundle for that extra £45. eg extra controller, a few extensions,
correct AV cables and a game or 2, or Nintendo will have just launched a reason to unlock/hack
their box. again.
the DS is region free. why some other method for the Wii ? i want to play those great
Japanese/US games that never get to the UK.
and at still top-spec pricing
I guess I haven't been clear enough in my last few posts: games can't be region locked if the console isn't. So yes, the console is region locked.
If the console WEREN'T region locked, then games wouldn't know which region the system they were playing on. Well, the game could determine that through whatever region/language/etc. the USER selected, but that's definately not strong enough, as the user could simply change that at will in the system settings. Region locking the hardware means that as the console itself is manufactured, some switch is hardcoded to tie that console to the region. That's why you usually have to get a console modded to override it.
-- jchenx
new interview in which perrin kaplan confirms that the wii is region free.
d _NO_DVD_PLAYBACK
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Wii_is_Region_FREE_an
..like it is on the gamecube:
u cts_id=1964
f ication.html
SoftMod = buy a disc
http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=81&prod
HardMod = jump a trace or install a switch and two wires
http://www.superufo.com/review_html/Gamecube_Modi
I really appreciated this about the 'cube. It's like Nintendo saying "well if you want to play these imports, we'll let you, but it's at your own risk!". The people who want to play the imports, can, and legally (depending on regional laws), and regular players are none the wiser. No mistake, I would prefer no region locking from a practical and library standpoint.
This all said, region locking is meant to protect regional publishers ability to make profit, and hence release more games with localalisation. However, this did not seem to help in Australia, where GameCube titles are absolutely pitiful in selection, and sweet fuck all outside of big N first party releases.