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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.
Regionally tailored content I can understand, but you could:
Just do a check on the region, and have a default if you have no content tailored for that region
Region locking is especially painful when it comes to portable devices. When I travel, one of the advantages of a DS is that if I see a game I am interested in, I know I can buy it and play it regardless of where I bought my DS.
All I can say is that this greatly reduces my enthusiasm for the device as it becomes more clear that Nintendo want to keep the region restrictions that allow the crazy price variations viable. In Australia it is still cheaper to buy a console and games from the US and pay shipping than buying them from the actual storefront.
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.
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)
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
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.
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.
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.)
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
yea, this is a pretty disappointing announcement.
that makes no sense at all. region-locking isn't required for providing region-specific online services. even without region locks you can still have different region releases connect to different online servers. and even with region locks you can still import a Japanese DS and use it in the U.S. to connect to Japanese services.
the parental controls argument is also completely nonsense. there's no need to stop adult gamers from playing import titles just so a U.S. parent can control what games their child plays. if they're worried about conflicting rating (censorship) standards they can just add an option in the parental controls which lets parents region-lock that particular machine. what is so hard about that? and if the region-locking only affects DSi-specific games then kids will still be able to play games without parental controls. so what's the point of all this?
this whole DSi thing seems like a really dick move by Nintendo. not only are they confirming that the DS/Lite will be obsolete and unable to play many new releases (just 2 years after the DS Lite was launched), but they're also needlessly restricting consumer freedoms.