After tactfully cornering Nintendo's VP of Marketing at their NYC event, Joel Johnson from Wired News was able to extract a rather valuable tidbit of information that will likely please gamers all across the world. Perrin Kaplan casually confirmed that all first-party Wii games will be free of draconian region locks, thus allowing them to run on a Wii system purchased from Japan, Europe, America and everything in-between. The same doesn't hold true for third-party games yet, but one can only hope they follow the glorious example and do away with an annoying system that has long since been dropped in handheld platforms. If you can surmount the language barrier, feel free to gleefully bring Nintendo's next turnbased roommate adventure Pokemon dating card RPG to America, even if they won't.
[Via Game|Life]
[Update 1: Gamesindustry.biz reports that Nintendo UK says the Wii is region-locked. This is contrary to Perrin Kaplan's statements, though her exact comments may have been misinterpreted to begin with. It's possible that Kaplan implied first-party games would specifically be region-free -- which is not the same thing as saying the console is region-free. After all, one can play region-free DVDs on a region-locked DVD player. Not that the Wii can play DVDs anymore...]
[Update 2: It was too good to be true.]
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(Page 1) Reader Comments
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What about the Wii hardware though? Will they be NTSC Wiis and PAL Wiis still? Not that I can't get a TV convertor of course...
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ready go!
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I really wish region encoding would just disappear. Why throw up invisible roadblocks for legitimate consumers.
Maybe that's already happening. I thought I remembered hearing somewhere that the PS3 was also going to be region free. Can anyone confirm that, or was I just dreaming? If Sony wasn't supporting region encoding that would certainly spell region encoding's demise.
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...Actually, I'll keep my cheaper Japanese Wii, and sell my US one to someone. Yeeeeesssss.......
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I assume there will, and I would think that the PAL Wii would probably output at PAL60 only, seeing how PAL TV's that don't support it are basically non-existant these days. Even old dumpster TV's have it (mine does). This would avoid any of the 50-60hz conversion hassle.
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I'm going back to Japan in March, and there's gonna be so much junk I can buy then.
Thanks Nintendo!
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"Will Wii users be able to add storage via USB hard drives? No. The Wii's storage will be exclusively via flash memory storage, such as SD memory cards, at least at launch. Kaplan said a hard drive addition could be in the future, but that sounds more like a "Sure, why not?" response than one based in any immediate plans."
I knew that was too good to be true.
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/sorry for shouting but I'm excited.
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I can confirm that.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/23/playstation-3-to-ship-region-free/
So, good for Nintendo, but they're just keeping up with the competition.
It's always good news to see region locks removed, though.
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I suspect that they are limiting downloads to SD due to the DRM nature of SD cards. Each game downloaded could be tied to a SD card so as not to allow owners to copy them to other cards. I could be wrong but if this is their reason it would make sense.
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MEDICINE. In Africa, AIDS medicine costs next to nothing compared to in the US. Drug companies are either out of charity or because of some higher purpose are choosing to sell these things at cost or at a loss in non-industrialized countries. Yet they cost much more in the US, hence, region-specific charges.
Games, though, who the F knows?
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"Who would have thought Nintendo would cut what is basically a form of DRM first? Awesome."
First? Or third?
phillosmaster:
"Maybe that's already happening. I thought I remembered hearing somewhere that the PS3 was also going to be region free. Can anyone confirm that, or was I just dreaming?"
Yes, Sony announced similar region-free plans for PS3, and Xbox 360 has had this in place since launch . MicroSoft never really came out and made a big announcement about it, so people seem to have forgotten about it.
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Posted at 6:36PM on Sep 14th 2006 by burninhell
That actually is a really interesting question. i always wanted to pick up Nintendo Puzzle Collection and the Japanese Donkey Konga (they have anime themes and j-pop in them)
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It also seems that Sony will be doing the exact same, and letting third parties decide whether or not to include region coding. Yes, it runs contrary to what Phil Harrison said back at the GDC, but that's the way it's looking...
But I'm with burninhell's comments in wanting to know how both Sony and Nintendo will handle region coding for their older games. While a "region-free" console is a feature that Microsoft currently does not have (with the exception of a few region free games), being able to play the PSX/PS2 and GCN libraries as well is a big plus.
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All consoles since the NES have not been region free, excepting handhelds. The Xbox and the 360 have been the first consoles to at least have a region free designation as an option for games, but that option is rarely taken. That has only brought them on par with standard DVD regions, but not truly up to region free.
Region free cannot give the people making the product the option of locking the content to a region. If they have the option, calling the hardware region free is an oxymoron.
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