Nintendo DSi Software Will Be Region Locked

aliquis writes with news that software made for the recently announced Nintendo DSi will be region-locked. Nintendo's reasoning is that the DSi "embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region." It's also been discovered that accounts with the DSi's online store won't be linked with the Wii store, so points for one won't work with the other. Nintendo has stated that they don't intend for digital distribution to replace retail sales. We discussed the DSi's announcement last week.

Comments

Re:No more imports for you

[Sparton]

Wrong. From the Gamasutra article that also reported on this (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20525):

The DSi, however, will be able to play standard Nintendo software from any region, similar to the original Nintendo DS model and the Nintendo DS Lite.

The article is only partly right; the region-free aspect is only going to happen for games. Whatever new shenanigans they come up with for the DSi is what will be region locked.

Re:Region locked? Sounds like...

[Trogre]

It also sounds a lot like something Nintendo would do:

The Nintendo Wii has region locking, and many games (such as Zelda) use it.
The Nintendo Gamecube and SNES also had region locking, though more primitive.
The Sony PSP supports region locking of UMD movies and games, but no games are locked.
The Sony PS3 supports some degree of region locking for games, but no games are locked.

(Please someone correct me if I'm wrong about any of these)

Re:I really hate Nintendo as a company...

[aliquis]

Except the flashcarts uses the NDS-slot now adays. so this won't stop them. And if it would be as easy as just blocking a key or something such it would probably have been done by now. So I don't see how removing the GBA slot will stop the current piracy alternatives. It will also break a few utilities.

I think it was an issue with size.

Built in ram, bigger screens, SD-card reader, smaller size, something had to go, GBA-slot did.

Also maybe they want to sell GBA games as downloads to SD-card, which don't seem all that weird.

This message is licensed for sale and play in...

[pizzach]

Your right in that Nintendo seems to be on a general path to region locking and Sony seems to be doing the opposite. Regardless, the DSi issue especially is a shock to many because the time to pull a switch like that would have been when the original DS was released. Changing their policies mid-game feels a bit cheap.

One thing that I want to point out is that in a few spots the region locking was differing hardware/features. Usually the actually region locking was ridiculously light otherwise. There was no game of making modchips that had to use stealth modes not to get caught.

• The Famicon had some extra pins in the cartriges that some developers used to develop better sound in their games, making them incompatible in the US. Also, the Famicon, much like the Wii, had speakers in the controllers. The two systems in many ways were totally different consoles.
• Japanese games would fit into a SNES console and work with no problems whatsoever. The reverse was not possible because SNES cartridges are much larger than SFC cartridges.
• The N64 employed slightly different tab placement that the notches on the bottom of the cartridges fit into. Break the tabs, and you have a non region locked console. This struck me as the first obvious attempt at enforcing regioning.
• The region on the GameCube was determined by a single wire being grounded on the circuit board. No need for any special chips like other consoles. What was a huge annoyance as the memory cards using different formats. This would mean Japanese games would attempt to format American formatted memory cards and vice-versa. Was this also a form of region locking? Maybe...
• I know nothing about the Wii as I don't own one.

I don't own a PSX either, but I do have one PSX-J game. I play it on an emulator because I would rather not have to buy a Japanese PSX. It'll be the same for the PS2 when I get fast enough of a computer. The PS3 was pleasant a surprise after those two. But still, Sony isn't too innocent with their PSP firmware race and blu-ray video regions. They are just the good guys right now. Are PSP movies regioned too?

In the end, most games are licensed for sale and usage in their specific regions. Until the big three stop putting that ridiculous label on everything, I will stay weary of all three. (If I was wrong somewhere in this post, someone please correct me.)