About bloody time if it is Link http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=143392 Full article Region-free Wii? Wednesday 26-Jul-2006 11:33 AM Nintendo of America's Perrin Kaplan hints - and simultaneously side-steps - the issue With the DS enjoying huge success at the moment, thanks to its mighty catalogue of quality titles, many are finally taking advantage of the system's region-free capabilities by importing games and avoiding the lengthy delays we frequently endure in Europe. Now, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing and corporate communications, Perrin Kaplan, has tackled the issue of possible region-free capabilities on the forthcoming Wii. Unfortunately, given Kaplan's somewhat acrobatic approach in response to the question, it's still unclear whether region-free Wii is a possibility - although it seems Nintendo is at least considering the issue. Speaking to IGN on the subject of region-free, Kaplan explained, "Clearly, the success of Nintendo DS has offered a lot of lessons about what works in the marketplace -- and we certainly intend to keep our fans satisfied. For the Wii system, we are finalizing all the relevant details and will be making announcements in the coming months." Kaplan continued, "We know that isn't what you all want to hear (or read) but at least we are being honest! We will share a lot of ways people can play globally, regionally, without boundaries. You're right that the region-free approach has proved to be a successful and attractive feature for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection on Nintendo DS -- we have even blown the doors off our own anticipated numbers! Cost, ease-of-use and player privacy are the three things that were a focus for us with Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Those priorities also will apply to the Wii system." Of course, you could argue that Kaplan deliberately misunderstood the question, seemingly interpreting the notion of region-free as 'being able to play against people anywhere in the world'. Still, as vague as the whole thing is, it's still nice to think that we might finally be able to enjoy games from all markets without the arduous wait often imposed by Nintendo's European arm. Of course, for a definite answer to the region-free question, we'll just have to wait until Nintendo is ready to spill its mighty satchel of Wii beans this September. Bah
Cool. I hope it is truely region free, as in it won't require some modifications to the hardware like the old Nintendo consoles required if you wanted to play an import. Albeit, Nintendo consoles where in fact region free before, but not 100% region free right out of the box. What I mean is, take for example the N64, the US could play JP games but needed a physical modification to allow it, but it did not require a modchip to allow play. The same with the NES, although with that you needed a cart pinout converter, and the same thing for the SNES. Basically, they required little, simple modification other than that they were technically region free when compared to PSX, Saturn, etc. But of course you needed to fully mod the system in order to get it to play PAL games as well.
IGN asked about it being region free, but kaplan said that "WiFi connection games will be region free" which means u can compete worldwide. Kaplan cleverly dodged the question and threw it around to make it about WiFi connection, and not the actual region-code of the discs themselves. From this I would say that nintendo is going to probably keep the tradition of having region-locked games (unfortunately)
Pardon my ignorance if I am misunderstanding this (very possible), but isn't the entire region setup in place because of game developers/publisher/distributors and not the console maker itself? What I mean is, I didn't think the developers were waiting for a "region free system" I thought the systems were divided into regions because of existing legal issues with game(or general entertainment) media distribution. In any case, a region free game system would be nice, but we'll have to wait and see.
It's in place because of both. The console manufacturer makes money for each game unit sold. Unfortunately, games do not cost the same worldwide and games/systems are more expensive in some regions. The region restrictions are in place to prevent consumers from buying cheaper games/systems from a different region and importing them easily.
mairsil altough I am aware of the truth in your sentence, the GameBoy/DS region-free system could be said to be in breach of that notion. After all, Sony is doing the same for PS3 games. Nintendo could easily follow suit, but I doubt they would.
The GB[A]/DS systems are definitely contrary to the previous notions of region based systems, and I believe that they are better for it. An argument could be made that regions help prevent consumers from purchasing games and hardware that are incompatible with their television equipment (i.e. NTSC vs. PAL formats), but I think there are a few inconsistencies with this. I have yet to see a good, acceptible reason for region locks, only greedy reasons. I despise region locking on anything, particularly DVD's.
Here here. It's just another way of screwing the consumer over for a bit more cash and giving them less options, as far as I can tell. I remember importing DVDs in the early days and spending hours trying to get the damn things working with various region free hacks and such, a complete pain in the arse it was, and no doubt will be again for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Anyway, while it'll be nice if Wii is region free, Kaplan's statement is essentially meaningless. It's just corporate PR bullshit, he completely dodges the question.
Sounds more to me like it won't be, otherwise he would have given a straight answer. You could argue that it should be a given, since the PS3 and XBox360 are both region-free, but Nintendo don't follow the trends of their competition.
I never understood it, except for the argument of television standards (which is nearly nulified now), a sale anywhere is still a sale.
The 360 is region-free for games? :shrug: Regarding Kaplan, she's one hell of a horseshit-talker. Everytime someone at IGN asks her something she generalizes and repeats everything given away the previous day in an "official statement". She never really answers anything really that we didn't know. I believe that nintendo will want to keep the region lock on the Wii in order to adjust content and perhaps development fees and content in extent for different region-versions of the software. Besides, don't forget that different regions may get different publishers for the same software. (THQ released Conker on the n64 for example in Europe - not sure about Australia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_games_without_region_encoding Most are conditional though.
well if the console itself holds a region value it can't be said to be truly a region-free console, because it is that value that is used to compare the inserted region-protected game to the console's region-code. Else a japanese 360 could play a US game freely.
