Topic: 3DS Hardware/Software Regio-Lock confirmed

i take that personal!!!!! (<-----like this!!). but yeah i'm on your side. let me count ALL of my imported games......0......hmmmm let count that again.......yeah zero.

that makes a total of zero imported games in the last decade (not joking here). so for me personal it's nothing to cry about. i'm more on the fence about the possibility of not beeing able to see the 3D Effect 'cause i'm stupid on one eye. BAD NINTENDO!

And people need to realise that this action has NOTHING to do with anti-piracy workarounds. just think about it and tell me in what way Nintendo could benefit from this piracy-wise.

cheers!

As I said on the news story:

So now I need to buy two 3DSes. Good work Nintendo.

Good to know that you guys are hell bent on letting Sony beat you before the PSP2 is even properly unveilled.

Grrr, after getting into importing with the DS, Nintendo now pulls this little debacle. Great, just great. Looks like I'll be depending on the PSP for my Japanese games from now on. And Tales of The Abyss better get localized or I swear I'm done with that series.:angry-face:

Don't care, it sucks for those that do, and it will be broken in a matter of months. LET'S KEEP ROLLING!!!

It also means that Nintendo's promises that the 3DS will provide a better online shopping/ gaming experience are BS.

Because region-locking is a retail play, and counter intuitive to online.

That makes absolutely no sense because the console with the best online experience also happens to be region locked. They're definitely not mutually exclusive.

Not mutually exclusive, no, but region locking is a retail play. Region locking allows retailers to better gauge how many units of a game will/ have sold, and thus allow them to better check inventory levels. If too many people import from overseas, it hurts a retailer and local publiser's business, not Nintendo's.

And can the Americans please understand the European and Australian games often need to import from the US for English games. It's not just about Japanese games - region locking hurts the consumer's choice beyond just that.

Psst, Waltz -- exactly one person out of the three who've said they don't care in this thread is actually American, though quite a few of the ones disappointed by this decision actually are. Thanks for singling us out on it, though, we appreciate it. :/

I don't really mind. I've never had a desire to import. Good games come out as fast as i can play them, and if you're in a lul, puck up something from a bargain bin/buy a retro game. You may just discover a gem you missed the first time around!

Besides, you can't blame them for wanting a more secure setup, especially if they're going to provide bigger down-loadable titles/an altogether better online experience in return!

Just because they have a strategy involving retail games doesn't mean their online shops/gaming experience won't be improved. As long as they're selling retail games, they need to have some strategy to selling them. And let's be honest, there's so much that can be improved with Nintendo's online strategy, it'd be difficult for the 3DS's to not be better than the DSi/Wii's. That argument's a bit of a stretch, Waltz, unless you were expecting their shop's to be region free, like Sony's. I'm not sure why you would have expected that though.

There's not so much of a difference between EU and NA releases though anymore, and next generation will probably be even better. Australia's getting screwed with this move, but they've always been screwed as far as consoles were concerned. I'd imagine they'd still be able to import from the UK. All you really lose is the exchange rate difference between the US and the UK, which is probably significant, but hopefully still better than Australia's outrageous prices. This is mainly going to be an issue for those who want Japanese games.

The thing I hate about the 3DS's region locking is that many people that go overseas for holiday will take their handhelds and play them on their long plane flights, and they may buy a game while they're there so they can play them on their long flight back.

Just thought I'd mention that adding a region lock is actually counter-productive in terms of preventing piracy. If they got a flash card working on one region, they could set it up so that when you order your card you have to pop on some region-specific firmware. Not to mention that more and more people will be rushing in to crack the 3DS and get their Japanese/European/American games. Adding a region lock doesn't really add any security...it encourages hackers to put more effort into their work.

That argument's a bit of a stretch, Waltz, unless you were expecting their shop's to be region free, like Sony's. I'm not sure why you would have expected that though.

Actually, that's exactly what I expected Nintendo to do. I suspect it would be difficult to have an online shop region free, while retail games were region-locked, so I expected Nintendo to keep the console unlocked to help promote the development of their online consumer base.

There's not so much of a difference between EU and NA releases though anymore, and next generation will probably be even better.

There is quite a difference in online releases, however. If you take any console's online shop portal, the US, Australian, European and Japanese product lists are very different. Why? I'm not entirely sure, but given that Sony is region free, and Apple's App store games are usually released globally, I was surprised to see Nintendo go down the consumer-unfriendly path with their online portal.

With the DSi, it was the unfriendliest handheld console for downloadable games, and region-locking the 3DS is not going to help that case whatsoever.

Meh I just wish they wouldn't have a region-lock on anything. The PSP and PS3 are well enough without it.

Region Locked?
OH NOES! ITS THE END OF THE WORLD!

Couldn't they download a few games instead?

@Waltz: You're giving Sony entirely too much credit for their 'region free' store considering that profiles can only be for one region, which also means that on the PSP you have to restrict access to some of your own content to get other content and also the fact that the vast, vast majority of people have to give false details to access other region's stores. IIRC the PSN cards are also region locked. It's clearly meant to be restricted, they just failed to properly enforce it.

Also from a policy and legal standpoint it makes much more sense to have a locked online store and unlocked retail software. Software has to be rated by the appropriate board before it can released so a region free online store would either require publishers to get rated on every single ratings board or it would enable the sale of unrated software. There's also the factor that if someone takes their 3DS abroad they can still purchase compatible software from the online store, region lock or no region lock which isn't the case with physical software.

Expecting region free online stores is as silly as expecting Nintendo to endorse copying and redistribution of games based on gamesharing.

@Waltz: You're giving Sony entirely too much credit for their 'region free' store considering that profiles can only be for one region, which also means that on the PSP you have to restrict access to some of your own content to get other content and also the fact that the vast, vast majority of people have to give false details to access other region's stores. IIRC the PSN cards are also region locked. It's clearly meant to be restricted, they just failed to properly enforce it.

I tend to believe it's the other way around. For whatever reason it was poorly implemented into the PSP, but given that you can have multiple accounts running happily on the PS3 means I don't think Sony is concerned in the slighted if people want to set up "dummy" accounts. If they really wanted to restrict it... well, it wouldn't be hard to figure out that a single console can't exist in both Japan and Australia at the same time.

Software has to be rated by the appropriate board before it can released so a region free online store would either require publishers to get rated on every single ratings board or it would enable the sale of unrated software.

Not at all. Again, the PSN store is unlocked. But Wizardry (a Japanese PSN exclusive) is not rated on the Australian ratings board.

So easy. Set up a Japanese/ American online shop. Host the content there, then "fail" to region lock the console. No laws are broken, but locals can access those offshore shops.

It's a separate issue, but you don't need to get Apple App store games rated at all, so the releases are ususally universal. That's what Nintendo's up against, and that's what Nintendo needs to compete with.

Expecting region free online stores is as silly as expecting Nintendo to endorse copying and redistribution of games based on gamesharing.

Once again, if Sony can do it... Nintendo's got no excuse. It's not a cultural thing either, Sony's also a Japanese vendor, it's just that Nintendo is unnecessarily controling, to the point where it hurts Nintendo's consumer friendliness.

Nintendo is not Sony.
Nintendo is not Apple.

If they don't want to do anything that you want, either;
A) Don't buy it.
B) Make your own 3D portable console with region free online shop and region free games.