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."
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
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.
Well, they both thought they were right. When the origional question was asked "would the wii be region free across the world?" Wii USA answered Yes, because they thought America is world.....
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
You know, the main problem that I have with Nintendo locking regions is that I travel quite a bit. Why shouldn't I be able to pick up a game that I come across while I am in Europe, or wherever else? It just makes it less convenient.
Or if I end up moving to another country for work for a while... should I have to have relatives purchase the games for me and ship them over whenever I need a new one? C'mon.
Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
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."
Well the reason for region coding in the first place is simple: price fixing between regions. I know for instance a person with triple citizenship (china, australia, and the US) and she can often get things cheaper in australia even with the cost of shipping than she can in the US itself... The companies want to maximize profit by region though, so they lock devices and media to regions to control the ability for people to buy cheaper versions by importing.
In a very real sense they don't care about your special needs...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
With the wii already a third more expensive in Britain, no doubt the games will have a similar markup.
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.
My most untechnical brother and sister-in-law know. They are smart people, but just not technical geeks.
They know because they learned the hard way through DVDs. He travels a lot and she teaches foreign languages.
My mother knows. Her stupid Powerbooks (and I am sure other notebooks) lock a specific region to her DVD drive after only 5 or 6 changes. It may sound like a lot, but if you are an International traveler, you end up saying "WTF! I have a DVD drive, why can't it read all DVDs?"
I doubt it will matter as much to games though as the people who travel with systems is much less than Notebooks or something. But in the end, I have to ask for the sense of it? Players are not going to play games in languages they don't understand just to get it cheaper. And it pisses off the people who want to buy copies of Japanese games because all it forces them to do is either install a mod chip, or import a system.
Region locking sucks for a lot of people.
I was shouting "Boourns"...
Good post, erm, whoever you are. I was at first writing a response to him, but then figured it wasn't worth the time to.
However, the general attitude that "people are stupid" is silly, and really isn't the way it works in real life. That attitude works making a post on Slashdot, but there are a large number of intelligent people in this world... many of whom completely understand what regional encoding is. In fact, I don't recall the last time that it was brought up and the person looked at me awe-struck and said "Gee Wiz, whats that?".
So anyways, AC, thanks for your response to the previous post. I for one am tired of people walking around with the attitude that people in general are stupid.
Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
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.
And does Europe really get all that many games that we don't get in the US? About the only place you might have a real argument is European gamers getting impatient and wanting to import US titles.
The problem isn't just impatientcy, Europe doesn't always get the games the US does at all. (Especially geeky Japanese stuff). Think stuff like Xenosaga Ep. 1, WarioWare Twisted[1], Shining Tears, Katamari Damacy and I'm sure there are more. Plus the delays can sometimes be stupid, although usually not on the level of the 2 year delay of Animal Crossing.
Plus I'm especially impatient, as I'm in the UK and I speak English, so all this locaisation stuff doesn't matter to me at all.
[1] Although in that case, I can import it of course.
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
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.
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 :/
I have yet to see a television set in years over here in Europe which is not able to handle NTSC quite nicely, this mode is called over here 60Hz mode and the old analog tv sets have been able to handle that since the good ole VCR days. Heck even my old 25 year old portable tv could handle the 60Hz mode....
ntsc conversion never has been a big issue over here in europe.
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.
It wouldn't have been surprising if they'd said nothing. The fact that they promised region-free and are now withdrawing the statement will bring about a lot of negative publicity that they could have saved themselves by not lying to the public in the first place. It also casts doubt on their other statements.
Nobody is berating Sony/MS for region locking, but then they never claimed that they'd do anything else. Nintendo, on the other hand, seemed to be doing pretty well in the media wars, and now they've gone and shot themselves in the foot. How many tech blogs/news sites today will be complaining about Nintendo? Quite a few I imagine. Will the bad publicity end up costing them more than having a non-locked system? Well that's their judgment call and I guess they've made it...
The 60Hz mode on a lot of televisions in the UK is PAL60. This is a variant of PAL that runs at 60 fields per second, instead of the standard 50, and a lower number of scanlines. Converting from NTSC to PAL60 is easy (the number of lines and frame rate are the same, it's just the colour encoding that's different), and so it is a good investment if you are looking for a TV to watch NTSC videos or DVDs on; most DVD players can output PAL60 for DVDs that are encoded for American audiences, since they are just 30fps (interlaced) MPEG-2 streams and can be converted to PAL or NTSC equally easily.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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
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!
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)
The controllers are comparable to controllers on the market.
Except that they cost almost twice as much, oh and they are also not compatible with all the games on the console, so you have to get additional classic controllers to play all the games the console has to offer.
Xbox 360 wireless controllers are 50, and there is a good bit more tech in the Wii controller. That makes them 20% more expensive. Where are you getting the 2x figure from?
I agree that the classic controller thing is weird / silly, but how else would you emulate 6 different consoles that have a very different control setup?
The ______ Agenda
Really now? So what exactly is THIS supposed to have ment? Sony is JUST as full of hot air as Nintendo is, but in Nintendo's case, it seems like it was an honest mistake made by a single person, as opposed to a mindful shift made during design. If the Wii was never region free in the first place, and no one had ever said anything about it, would we be complaining as loudly? I do admit that Nintendo should have kept their mouthes shut in this regard, or at least made it a little more low key (having someone from the UK section basically say "We are region-locked" is not exactly buttering it for our eventual forced consumption, and I think this was a mistake.
It doesn't matter: people who find this out and actually know what it means aren't going to refuse to buy a Wii on these grounds, and people who don't know what it means won't care anyway. I don't see Nintendo losing as many sales over this as I see Sony losing sales over their decision to only ship 500k units worldwide at launch, or their slaping Europe in the face.
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
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.
I think pretty much every consumer knows to only buy region free DVD players.
No way. Most people don't even know or care about regional encoding. If consumers only bought region free DVD players then all of them would be region free. I buy a DVD player for picture quality, not lack of region encoding.
Would you buy a region locked DVD player? Would you even be able to find a shop that sells them?
Yes and Yes. Most of the DVD players sold in stores ARE region encoded.
quote from timefordvd.com - "There are some multi-region DVD players (those that can play more than one DVD region codes) and even region-free DVD players (those that can play DVDs with any region code). Many of these multi-region and region-free DVD players are altered as after-market models by third-party vendors. Chances are during the alteration process, these third-party vendors have voided the manufacturer warrantee."
Quote from Wikipedia - "Some countries' laws consider regional lockout to constitute unfair restraint of trade; all DVD players sold in those countries must be region free." Maybe you're from one of those countries?
I'm just guessing, but I'll put it out here anyway: if you've got a Gamecube controller, you probably won't need a classic controller anyway. Unless Nintendo has changed what they said in the past, and GC controllers are no longer usable with the Wii, you don't need to buy a new one anyway.
Hopefully, most of the games that lend themselves to four players won't require the use of the nunchuck extension, only the Wiimote itself. Really, though, you shouldn't need four Wiimotes yourself: through implimentation of the while Mii! idea, with the character you create stored on your own controller, it seems they're encouraging people to take these things with them when they visit with their friends. Just make the party a BYOC, and no problem.
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
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
You're joking right? What kind of goods can you get in Australia that are cheaper than the US? I'm in Australia and I often buy stuff like electronics and games/computer gear from overseas because it's so much cheaper than here. We have to pay literally 30-100% more than what other countries pay.
1. Nintendo is making a mistake by packaging only one controller into the bundle, when the game that is packaged into the bundle is best played with two or more players.
2. They are targeting non-gamers, and the best way to win them over is to let a person have fun while playing with at a friends house who has already bought a console. 3.I'd rather have a gamecube with two wii-motes and Wii-sports for (100+60+60+30) 250 dollars than the Wii package plus another wiimote for 310 dollars. The Wii isn't much more powerful than the GC, but they aren't the same. They spent research dollars on making the technology small and energy efficient. These are good things, but they also drove up the cost of the Wii. 4. People praise Nintendo for not selling the Wii at a loss. Sure, it might make business sense, but I'd rather have them make it back through having a large userbase. I am a consumer, and I want to see the same discounts that are applied elsewhere in the industry. I want the Wii package for below $200. Besides, if they want to expand their base into non-gamers then they need a lower price to encourage sales.
5. Finally. I think Nintendo began to be encouraged by the internet hype and got overly greedy. Greed is natural for businesses, but too much greed can hurt their business. I believe that Nintendo thought that the Wii is SO popular that success is ensured already. I tell you what. Most people(read: non-gamers) don't know what a Wii is. Its going to take word of mouth, grass roots viral .. And to do that they need a critical mass to set things off. A low, heavily subsidized price($190 with 2 Wii-motes) would create that critical mass. I think Nintendo is being too conservative and will thereby limit the extent of their dominance and cultural penetration. THey have a console that is addictive, versatile, and friendly to all age groups. They have caught the competition flat-footed, and now is the time to be aggressive for mindshare and market share. This is their chance to let it be known that they are the gaming company, and that gaming is for everyone. No, Nintendo is hedging their bets and being conservative.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
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).