Nintendo "Currently Investigating" The Idea Of A Region-Free NX

I think the only upside of region locking is that it makes people rally up and make their voices heard for games they want to be localized. If the console was region free then people would just instantly import the games, and game companies would be too lazy to localize because of it. Of course, there are loads of counter arguments for this. It's just a matter of pros and cons. But I'm not really sure what weighs more with regard to region locking.

IMHO at least remove region locking for games that are both translated in english. (NA<->EU). Of course the eShop needs to be region free as well for DLC and such.

@Zyph well from the consumers point of view maybe region locking is mostly bad, but for a big company like nintendo they want to earn as much money as possible, and region locking is almost necessary for that.

@97alexk Yeah I get that. But I look at other reasonings behind the restriction as well. P4Arena is a great example. With the difference in price points between regions, one might just wish to import rather than buy the localized version. Which results to lesser sales for the title in your own country or the other, and money spent for localization would just be a total waste, which is bad for the publishers themselves. Of course you could argue that P4A had identical content between regions. But you get the idea.

But yeah in our point of view, region locking it's still a "bad" idea for us consumers. I personally prefer a region-free game system.

While there's games like excitebots or fatal frame I'd like to play here in the uk ,I really don't see this being a huge game changer.its one of those things nintendo haters use to justify not buying consoles n if it is removed I highly doubt they'll all rush out n buy an nx.In the bigger picture though if this is representative of large scale changes in the way nintendo do things it may be a positive sign that they're going to be more directly competitive with the other companies.

yaaaay progress

Perhaps the NX will not even support physical discs? We don't know yet. With increased digital distribution there will not be as much need for region-locking.

They need to step up their digital offerings then. I think one of the reason they are region-locking are issues with retail prices and sales. Some would rather import for cheaper offerings.

@polarbear I doubt it. There are so many countries with very low internet bandwidth. Having to downloads gigs of data will be so impractical. There are places where it takes days to weeks for just downloading a couple gigs.

Looks like this confirms the NX is not a handheld, Iwata wouldn't be saying this if it was because all Nintendo handhelds before the 3DS are region free!

Certainly for digital distribution, the current system makes zero sense. It's a massive duplication of effort having to separately publish in different regions, and getting rid of that will save Nintendo and 3rd party devs time and money to be better spent elsewhere.

Other platforms let (3rd party) developers pick and choose which countries to release their games in and I think it should be the same for Nintendo systems/stores. There are sometimes legit (often legal) reasons why games can't be sold in some countries, but no need to deprive others that have been lumped into the same region from having a game.

Hopefully the new combined system for getting games age-rated will come to Nintendo consoles sooner rather than later. At that point, for digital games, there'd really be very little reason left for having separate publishing regions.

Also, a lot of fellow indie devs I talk to dream of releasing their games in Japan on Nintendo systems, just because how frikking cool would that be? At the moment, it's nigh on impossible.

Also on the physical disks thing, Steam offers a pretty good service and that's all digital. Many developing countries (outside of Africa) have surprisingly good broadband and within developed nations, it's only really the US that has a problem in towns and cities (rural broadband is a different matter at least here in the UK).

A digital only NX would save Nintendo and 3rd party devs / publishers a lot of time & money in the long run. It's clearly the future, but I can also see the arguments of ppl who live in places with sucky internet, so I expect NX to have disks, but be the last console with physical media.

A good compromise might be a diskless SKU / version of the console. Same price but with extra HDD space.

You know, after years of region lock debacle, I become careless about the region lock. If this practice makes the fans to force a company to localize their game, then I don't mind.

We are seeing big titles like Yokai Watch and Fatal Frame V being localized thanks to region lock.

Consumers think that this practice is bad, where in actuality, they are paying more than they are supposed to in order to import games. I don't want to play game without understanding the story of the game, or knowing characters' background. What's the point of localization team if the console is region free?

Good, hopefully they will be able to remove region locking. Sony and Microsoft have consoles without region locking, so it's definitely possible to do. Though I've only ever imported 1 game, I'd still like to do it in the future if there's a game that I really want to play but will never be sold in my country.

I'd like to know just what these "various issues" plaguing the current hardware that apparently doesn't apply to the NX are. I can't think of any that new hardware would magically make disappear, short of a lock-out chip.

@erborlongan
It really doesn't. There have been plenty if games that didn't make it out of Japan or to one western country or another (mostly Europe) throughout the years, and that's with region-locking being fairly common outside handhelds.

The main concern with localization is what they think will sell well, and where importing is a big concern games can be region-locked individually. There's no reason for the hardware to be locked down completely

@polarbear iirc about 85% of a console game sold are physical games. Digitial only takes up 15% of the sales, despite the so-called pros for digital. Physical isn't going away anytime soon. At least not for dedicated game consoles.

Unfortunately, as much as I LOATHE region-locking, Nintendo has been proven right about doing so in the near past.

The Nintendo DS was region free, and now, just TRY and purchase a non-pirated copy of a DS game on eBay. Over 90% of DS games currently for sale on eBay (and even preowned in EB/GameStop stores) are knockoff copies.

I have literally no idea of how a region free console equates to such an over saturation of pirate copies dominating the platform, but Nintendo claimed it was one of the main reasons for using region locking on other consoles, and when they removed it, the piracy did indeed (and still does for the platform) reign.

@DroothR

No the reason DS has pirate copies everywhere is because Nintendo had a very poor anti piracy system in place.

This idea that region free gaming creates piracy is pure BS. Please explain why the Vita doesn't have rampant piracy even though it's region free.

Nintendo could release a patch that enables the Wii U and 3DS to be region free tomorrow but they won't. It's ridiculous that in 2015 we have region locked consoles. Iwata acts like region free is some major headache which takes a huge effort to create. It's simple and Sony and MS have shown this can be done.

I wonder, but maybe, Nintendo will go the same way as Steam. Like this, the region lock could go away but only the censoring will happen, which you can easily avoid by gift codes (if this is still possible at Steam) or another ID. This would mean a worldwide start for games and even easier access to them when it comes to patches and DLCs.

Also what is all these various issues that Iwata feels stops current consoles becoming region free.

Nintendo only have to inform publishers of a new policy change. Ask if they have old titles that shouldn't be region free and then release a patch.

This is not difficult.

If they have license deals that are based on non region free gaming which in turn will cause headache to renegotiate then that shows that region lock was an idiotic idea in the first place.

So long as games had English subtitles I actually think games like Fatal Frame might actually benefit from keeping the audio in Japanese. But rarely would I buy a game that would only read in Japanese. I hope they get rid of the locking, freeloader on my GameCube has been essential for me.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah but the 3DS wasn't region free so it could still be a handheld.

Region Locking is an issue to many gamers. If it's a 'non-issue' then why doesn't Nintendo just drop it? Oh maybe it helps them with ratings, or....something!

No. They were fine up until the DS came along, and their biggest two competitors manage to get by without it. It's an outdated practice, and one that needs to go away.

@Zyph - So basically it's a good system because it gives consumers nothing as opposed to an option to import it, enough so that people have to complain in droves that they cant play certain games. Yeah, that doesn't sound like a good thing.

@erborlongan - Do you have some statistics to back that up? As someone who's currently waiting for about 6 games to be localised to Nintendo platforms, more than before region locking came about, I don't think that's true at all.

@Azooooz - Games are localised for every platform except Nintendo's, which also happen to be region free. This fallacy that games only get localised because a console is region locked needs to stop.

@GLA whilst fatal frame's style would suit Japanese voice work (for obvious reasons) the fact its a horror game make subtitles a distraction, I'd rather not miss a subtle detail like movement in the background raising tension because I briefly looked at the sub's.

The translation of what he said was incorrect, he said "how can we remove region locking from the NX and still make loads of money, I'm looking at this optimistically going forward"

I would imagine that region free consoles would save some money and time, not having to produce more EU versions if demands high, just ship some ear marked for less demanding areas.

problem with region free patches/DLC is it might won't be compatible with the version you have, it still needs to be localised. Games on x1/ps4 still have regional versions

Region locking is bad, it doesnt always mean there will be support for international release unless it is a big title that gets a lot of attention. Some of my favourite DS games were not released in Europe so I imported them. Im not about to buy three consoles to do so. They also need to think about their digital shop that attaches a purchase to a single console rather than a proper account.

@Azooooz The main issue I have with region locking is in the instance that for example, someone lives in the UK or somewhere in Europe (so PAL system and games), and for whatever reason (job, etc.) they have to move to the US (where the games and systems are NTSC), it really screws them over. Sure you could use the eShop, but with Nintendo's shady online infastructure in that things are tied to the console, people may not want to go digital (and Nintendo's digital prices are ridiculous)
Furthermore, there are a lot of fallacies regarding region locking. When people use the excuse that the DS had a lot of piracy due to region locking, this is not because of region locking, but rather because Nintendo had a poor anti-piracy system in place. Also, games that are region free these days are localised for every platform. Nintendo is the only one continuing with this outdated practice, and it's ridiculous.

Wow...nintendo's actually listening to what fans want out of their next system? This could be a good turning point for them, they'll end up getting more profits in the long run from the people that buy oversea's games. I don't, but this is good news for those people.

@Grumblevolcano the dsi was region locked

I'll agree that the process of region locking is archaic and pointless. But in addition to this dropping it will encourage improved localisation from Nintendo and third parties.

@andrew20 I thought you could play DSi games on other region systems than your own? At least that was my logic in thinking I could import New Mystery of the Emblem from Japan and be able to use it on my New 3DS.

Please. Nintendo needs to accept that people actually cross borders in this day and age and that people should be able to take their systems from one country to another and be able to buy games for their system in another country. I had to wait 2 years to buy a Wii because I knew if I bought one when I lived in South Africa it would be useless when I got back to Canada.

This is good, region locking has to go. Thanks to the PS4 being region free, I was able to import MLB The Show and Guilty Gear Xrd. Both are unavailable to buy in stores in Australia, but thanks to no region lock it was extremely easy to get my hands on these titles.

@Grumblevolcano
DSi-enhanced games are region locked if played on a DSi, so no online features (which are useless now): the console has a tantrum when you try to play it. However, you can play the game on any original DS/DS lite with no problems. Which is probably what you want to do.
Edit: I should also point out that anything region-locked newer than the DSi will also reject the game.

Region Free would be nice. In my country 99,9% of Nintendo games are already in english and not in local language anyway. There was so much great games for Wii that i only had change to play only as pirated versions because they didn't sell those games in here. Dokapon Kingdom, Trauma Team, Excite Bots etc..

@97alexk Not sure how region locking makes them more money, it stops imports and therefore reuces sales, but it also means you can't buy grey market SE Asia games either. I don't think that's much of a problem nowadays though, so hopefully it means Nintendo don't have a reason to region lock anymore.

@97alexk Um.... no, they will earn more money not having region lock for the simple reason that I could buy the games that release in Japan online here in North America while still buying the same way I do now for games released in my region.

Hooray! Just need to do away with the 3DS being region locked and I'll be a happy chappy.

Love reading some of the pro-region locking arguments here. Region locking doesn't make localisation any more likely in my opinion.You just need to look at all the niche JRPGs being released on Sony's systems to realise this. Most games are still localised, even when you can buy a copy from another region. Gamers had to BEG to get Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii to be localised. And I imagine that Fatal Frame 5 is being localised due to a lack of games on the Wii U.

Region free consoles give players the ability to buy a game that would not normally be allowed in their region, encouraging more sales. Simultaneous releases would encourage people to buy their games within their region rather than import the Japanese version (usually released earlier than other languages). Better to have the game than to have two separate consoles, one of which only the most enthusiastic of importers would get much use out of.

Finally, the Vita is region free, and there was rampant piracy and jailbreaking on the PSP. Probably not to the degree of the DS but it shows that piracy was due to anti-piracy measures on the DS were inadequate, not region locking, otherwise the Vita would most likely have been region locked too.

They could still have a European, American and Japanese section of eShop, Miiverse and other services, as long as everyone can get access to all content that's out on the platform.

Well...I guess this could be a good thing. If there's a game in another region I'd like to play, problem solved! However, it makes me wonder if there'll be less of a chance for localization of certain games because of this. I'd like to at least understand what's going on when playing my games.

Me: YES, YES AND YES!
My wallet: Nooooooo!!!

Good news.

@Geonjaha It good (and bad) thing because if we didn't complain about Mother 2 or Xenoblade not coming here, we wouldn't have it. Not only that but you can pay less if you just wait and you can actually understand what's going on in games like Last Story. The only thing that is bad about region locking is people that don't really have a good understanding of English in America wouldn't be able to buy the game in their language unless they import a system.

I think it'd be nice if everyone had the same Virtual Console games so no one would feel like they're missing out but I wouldn't go insane if Nintendo decided the NX wouldn't be region free.

Yes! Remove region lock! I'm against any arbitrary policy that limits my choices as a consumer. And that goes for games AND consoles. If the new 3ds was region free, I would have been able to import one of those white standard ones from Japan.
It's not too late Nintendo, you can still get my $200. Just allow me to purchase the one I want, the money is all yours.

If anything, I'd want a region free eshop since I don't import games.

I would be so happy if I don't need to buy Japanese hardware to buy Japanese games ever again.

Sony and MS' consoles are region free; this is a very anti-consumer move by Nintendo.

I would love to see region free just for the fact that some games just will never get localized for western audiences.

I have never really had a problem with region locking myself though it could be useful for games that companies refuse to localize. Whatever they do, I am ok with it.

I honestly don't think removing region locking will affect sales at all. It will only end up helping a few multilingual system owners in the end. At the very least though, it will improve the public opinion of Nintendo slightly. Either way, I don't mind the outcome.

Christ; does Nintendo even look to the side every once in a while to see what its competitors are doing, right now? Stop talking like this is some major challenge and setting it up like there's even a small chance it won't happen next-gen and somehow that would still be acceptable. Region free should be standard on all modern technology and if Nintendo's next consoles aren't region free, both home and handheld, then it's just one more in a long line of utterly stupid mistakes the company has made in the last few generations imo.

Sure; changing/fixing one small element of a console and its services etc won't suddenly make these machines a success but it's when you think about all the various things that could be changed/fixed happening together; basically not having any stupid flaws and issue with a system and its services etc. Then it can make a huge difference.

For all the grief that Nintendo tends to get from all over the place, region locking is the only one that really bothers me.

I just finally bit the bullet and ordered a n3DSLL from Japan so I could finally play games like Game Center CX3, the Kunio-Kun games, Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary, Zookeeper 3D, among others. Not to mention a ton of eShop games.
Instead of having to waste almost €200 on another system that I basically already own, I could have bought 4-5 new games... :-/

Yes! I hope we will be able to download games from other regions as well, seeing as more and more games are being released as download-only. Like PS3 rather than like Vita.

One can hope...

I travel a lot and it's annoying to have the region lock on my 3ds. It should be a system that works for you everywhere, no matter where you're from. Want a new game while you're hanging out at the hotel? Nope, I have to wait till I get back to the US. It's dumb and outdated.

At the very least make Europe and America compatible with each other, it can't be that difficult.

This will surely never happen, Nintendo of Europe likes releasing games 6 months later than the rest of the world too much to allow it!

I just want simultaneous release dates for games more than anything. We got Smash a week before EU which was kind of messed up, and we haven't even got a release date for Yoshi Woolly World, but they are getting it in June, for some examples. VC over here is way way behind with some releases.

That line about removing it from current consoles is BS, a simple firmware update would do it, hackers have proved that.

Good to hear.

It would be good if not only the NX were region free, but despite what Iwata said here, release a patch to remove region locking on current Nintendo hardware. I got a copy of Solatorobo on Amazon that doesn't work on my 3DS. The region on the game didn't match the box art that Amazon put up. When I placed my order, I looked at the box art, and it clearly showed the ESRB rating. When it came in the mail, it was perhaps a European or some other region. I think it was something other, because I think Europe uses the PEGI rating system, and it doesn't have PEGI on it, it just says "General." That all it says. I'm unfamiliar with what region that rating comes from. In any case, the region copy I got is different than the box art shown on Amazon. Amazon is a great marketplace for the most part, but they do make listing errors like that. When you have region locked consoles, it is a problem when Amazon puts up the wrong box art! My copy of Solatorobo is completely useless. Even if the 3DS was region free, it would still be useless to me if it had the CERO rating on it, because that would mean the game is only in Japanese, which I don't understand. But it definitely doesn't say CERO on it.

I still prefer to get games in my own region, because the ESRB rating is what I'm used to. What I mean is getting games that are rated by the ESRB matches the box art of the games that I already have. It isn't because I think the ESRB is superior to the other rating boards.

As for the issue of region free consoles causing companies to not localize games. Even with region locking, we have companies not localizing games. Square Enix didn't want to bring over Bravely Default, and we're probably not going to get Bravely Second. We never did get DQ VII for the 3DS, and we would never have gotten Bravely Default if Nintendo didn't fight for it and even publish it for SE in the end. So region locking does not force companies to localize games if those companies hate Nintendo of America. Square Enix hates Nintendo of America, therefore they are going to be douches about localizing games whether Nintendo goes region free or not. Square Enix really only cares about Playstation owners in North America. In Japan, they can't afford to ignore the 3DS, but they want to ignore the 3DS everywhere else. Unless it's a game like Theatrhythm Curtain Call, that requires very little translation.

It should be noted that region free systems don't work perfectly though. I got a European version of Child of Light because Amazon doesn't carry US copies. It turns out that US copies of Child of Light are Gamestop exclusives. Unless it was Best Buy, I forget. Anyway, I can't get to a Best Buy or Gamestop, whatever exclusive it was, so I picked up a copy on Amazon with the PEGI rating on it. But it comes with DLC codes that can't be redeemed. What's more, is that you are locked out of buying the DLC entirely. So the digital version I bought before is superior to the physical copy I picked up. I didn't expect the physical copy to come with DLC codes that don't work. After that experience, I find it even more important to get games in my own region.

The thing is, I don't expect the NX to play DS games, so even if it's region free, it still won't likely let me play the copy of Solatorobo that I got in the mail. DeNA should be able to help Nintendo remove region locking on current consoles if DeNA is as competent as gaming sites have made them out to be.

@JWFinnegan "General" is one of Australia's ratings.

While I do think that they should remove region locking, I don't think it will make that much of a difference in the long run.

@Grumblevolcano Ah, I see. I suspected as much. When I was typing up my comment, I wrote that it was an Australian copy, but I wasn't entirely certain so I edited it before posting it. I'm completely unfamiliar with Australia's ratings, but process of elimination suggested that it was most likely from there.

In other words, they're trying to figure out if they can still get away with screwing their import fans over or if they will have to figure out a new way to restrict the NX in order to extract more money from their consumers.

@Zyph
Sorry, but I wanted to be one of those people who have a counter argument.
Sorry, again, for my language but:
"If the console was region free then people would just instantly import the games, and game companies would be too lazy to localize because of it."
This BS is just a carefully crafted excuse made by Nintendo or their fans in order to sway their fans and the general populace into believing their sorry-ass decision to region-lock their consoles. They made it simple to understand and easy to believe for those who have very limited knowledge on the issue.
There has been no evidence whatsoever that region-free-ness reduces the chance of a game being localized. Nintendo overestimates the import population and they expect everyone else to do so as well. In fact, what region-locking actually promotes is PIRACY as evidenced in the Wii's final years. For example, Xenoblade's sales could have been better if NoA wasn't 100% against localization for so long. By release, many people either imported to play on a hacked Wii, or they simply pirated. This was when Nintendo had no intention of localizing whatsoever. Who would want import another modern console just to play one game?
Anyway, DS (pre-DSi) did perfectly fine being region-free. So did GBA, and its predecessors. And for an example from today: The Vita. It's region-free, yet plenty of Japanese games are making it over. IFI brings/is bringing more of their Hyperdimension Neptunia games in addition to their other IP (most recently Omega Quintet for PS4, also region-free). Tecmo Koei brings their niche Atelier series for Vita over (admittedly only digital, but its still something) and they're also now bring Ar no Surge Plus for Vita over (digital, but with a limited edition physical release). NISA regularly has games releasing and Aksys localizes games as well. Sega as well with the Project Diva games (first games to come outside of Japan are on the region-free Vita) and Atlus brings over their games as well.
Of course not every Vita game gets localized, but, contrary to popular belief, that's the exact same situation the 3DS is in. Heck I'd argue the 3DS has less games being localized than Vita now. And unlike the 3DS, Vita owners still have the option to import what games don't get localized without being forced to spend another $100-200 on a console they already own.

EDIT: This is longer post than I thought it'd be...

Region locked or not...it won't bother me as long as the games I do get are good.

And hey, waiting for Xenoblade Chronicles and Last Story was a pain, but it was GREAT when they did come.

Region Locking is anti consumer, its 2 main purposes is as a selling point when selling the rights to an IP or game to a company in another region and to discourage importing if said company from the local region that decided to purchase an IP or game decides to take 2 years to localize something, as if the language barrier wasn't enough in most cases. The "various issues" Nintendo mentions are not legal ones, but image control and contract negotiation ones. And if you decided to import an console from a different region, Nintendo makes more money from you anyway, so it's another win for them no matter what.

@BarryDunne
He's looking at all the money he's getting from forcing importers to buy yet another 3DS and deciding if he wants to part with it.

@Funbunz "And that goes for games AND consoles. If the new 3ds was region free, I would have been able to import one of those white standard ones from Japan.
It's not too late Nintendo, you can still get my $200. Just allow me to purchase the one I want, the money is all yours."

Well said. I feel exactly the same way. If they would only give me the option of the white standard New 3DS, I'd dish out the $200 or whatever it costs right now. And that's why I hope they do away with region locking.

Region is only for players who want one version then the other. Basically an lazy biased household who wants to upload cultural values is the original source for these things. Take the original NES and the removal of various artifacts that points to religious ideas. It gets grittier as various translations/edits/localizations/censoring removes small pieces of text. But guess what? it is also done in Japan as well for many things. Honestly if Nintendo do this it will not affect anything asides me not using "Freeloader" tool to play certain games. That is all it will do. Some people will purchase three game consoles to have whichever version. Nintendo knows this so they have kept the standard of region blocking.

However internet content proves this difficult to control.

How about testing it with a 3ds update that DOESN'T boost 'stability' but ALLOWS bypassing regional lockout? Or a Wii U backwards compatibility regional lockout bypass update? It's technically previous gen then, what can you lose? Not that I need the last, my Wii has been modded. I was always against the idea, but Project Zero 4, Excite Bots, Ikenie No Yoru, and Kirby Dream Collection convinced me otherwise.

@Zyph

I'd like to see some examples of game companies "being too lazy to localize games" on the Xbox One or Playstation 4, both of which were region-free at launch. Because I don't think that's likely to be accurate.

This might apply to indies, but in that case, casting the charge of "laziness" is itself intense laziness or ignorance. A lot of indies simply do not have the resources to do a full localization for different regions, so being region-free suddenly means way more people will have access to the games.

In the end, there are almost no good reasons for Nintendo to continue this "region-locking" nonsense, particularly as no company is worse at localizing games than they are. We still never saw Disaster: Day of Crisis or Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse in the US. We still don't have Dragon Quest X, or two other Dragon Quest games on the 3DS.

@AVahne

Oh, you covered this pretty well. Also, the Vita is region-free with it's memory cards, which is about the only positive thing that can be said about their memory cards... grumble grumble grumble....

@Kirk

Your comment highlights a lot of how Nintendo works lately. Rather than being the industry leaders or innovators, they've fallen a full generation behind in their thinking and technology. But they still paint every idea as if it's some kind of daring new concept no one's ever heard of, and that they have to tip-toe through it.

Be it plastic toys for games, harddrive use, region locking, online gaming, voice chat, DLC, freemium games, or mobile games, Nintendo is just woefully behind the times in literally every single aspect of modern gaming. Yet they talk as if they're stepping into brave new territory. No, Nintendo, just because it's new for you does not mean it's remotely a new concept. Microsoft and Sega set the stages for online gaming two generations ago. Everybody else picked up on DLC last generation, and the concept of post-release expansions is far older. Nintendo going to mobile is only a big deal because they adamantly stood against it for so long. Sony, Microsoft, Sega, Capcom, Square-Enix, and countless others have been wading into, and studying up on mobile software since the launch of the iPhone or Android operating systems. Hell, Activision offered to work with Nintendo exclusively on the entire Skylanders concept and Nintendo turned them down. They went out of their way to sell the HD "power" of the under-powered Wii U in the vein of "it's a big deal that Nintendo is HD now, even though everyone else has been doing this for the better part of a decade."

These days, Nintendo is a company perpetually playing catch-up, yet constantly talking as if everything they're doing is some kind of brave new concept of daring innovation.

@Quorthon True. But one could argue that the XB1 and PS4 has an ever-growing install base both in JP and in the US/EU. So publishers, in one way or another, won't think twice about getting their games to other territories and those systems. And also [a little off topic], while we're talking about these 2 consoles, let's remember that most of their games out now or soon to be released, were always released in multiple territories. Which pubs like NIS America or even Xseed have an established track record for those system so some JP games are bound to get localized. The games I'm talking about that we keep requesting to be localized are the ones that are mostly geared towards JP culture. It's not just Nintendo. Capcom and some others usually won't bring their games to the west even if you're console is region free or not.
Of course what I said in my first post is far from accurate. It's just an opinion or a (intelligent?) guess in my part. What you're saying might hold more weight than mine.

@Quorthon The prices for Vita memory cards are outrageous, and I think it hindered it reaching mass market success in North America. That - among other things. Despite it having superior hardware, it never seemed like Sony truly put their full weight behind it. Even now, with a nice schedule of games coming out for it, most are download only titles with very little retail presence. I saw MLB The Show in a retail box the other day with a banner saying it only contained a download code - much like how they treated Minecraft Vita.

And their prices are still obscenely high on those cards.

I think that in 2015 and going forward, it would be a no brainer to not region lock consoles anymore. I'm surprised this debate is still even a thing.

@ericwithcheese2

I blame the memory cards, in large part, for harming the Vita's potential. Had Sony just gone with SD cards, the thing would've sold far, far better.

Because it's a great system--it's smooth, it feels good (could use some triggers and clickable sticks, though), it looks fantastic, and it has a robust series of features and options. But when a consumer is looking at it, they see the memory card prices and how hard it is to find the big ones, and it becomes a major turn-off. I went to half a dozen places trying to find the 32GB card after I got my Vita, and it was a complete pain in the ass. Eventually, I found it, thankfully with a slashed price, at GameStop, but it was still something like $55. I can get the same amount of memory in an SD card for half the price.

The cards are microscopic, so at the very least, Sony should have put multiple slots for them in the Vita so that it could hold, say, two or three memory cards at once. With PSN+, it doesn't take long to fill up that space. But the cards themselves are still too expensive. It's a double-whammy of fail as the cards are too small and too expensive.

My girlfriend bought me the Vita a year and a half ago for Xmas, and it was part of an Amazon bundle that came with a 4GB memory card, Walking Dead, Uncharted, Retro City Rampage, and I think one more game. All of the games were downloadable. The cruel irony was that the only game that would fit on the memory card, I think, was Retro City Rampage.

no seaport. buy games from your own region and stop buying oversees for cheaper games you cheapo!

Most games that are JPN only I don't really care about, if they region free how would this affect the eShop.

@Quorthon I very much agree.

@BinaryFragger

Yeah, that quote frustratingly sums up how the company does things now. It's shocking how they went from being the most forward-thinking company in gaming--creating the first licensing concept (albeit, a terrible one at the time), modernizing the analog stick, making 4-player gaming a standard of a console, making portable gaming something other than an afterthought, inventing the simple D-pad, creating the prototype of the modern game controller (SNES, then evolved to a new standard by Sony and MS), etc.

The places where they utterly lack confidence or understanding totally baffle me. When they were saying "players don't want online games," they should have taken that as a cue to invent the kinds of games that change this the way they changed what a controller should be with the NES. And you're right, WoW showed, probably better than anything else, that online and social gaming is the future.

Instead of cowardly shying away from voice chat "because some people are mean," why not find a way to revolutionize voice chat to encourage it to be better? Hell, you could even put in a simple concept like, if the game registers a form of hostility in a person's voice, it automatically makes their character trip and fall or blunder with increasing frequency. If the very way a player performs becomes affected by their language or attitude, that would heavily discourage that kind of attitude. I'm nobody, and I can think of that--surely innovators like Nintendo could have come up with better.

I remember this issue when the GameCube was struggling, and Nintendo execs just bitterly dismissed much of gaming as "people just want to shoot at each other," instead of trying to find a way to capitalize on, and reinvent that. That was the proper time to create Splatoon. In some ways, Splatoon may be two generations too late. They didn't understand the appeal of shooters, didn't understand the popularity, didn't understand the reason they were so popular. They even seemed to refuse to understand it because they were angry and bitter that players didn't automatically flock to their style of games.

@Quorthon You're right, I just got a Vita and its great system bar the memory card issue. At least I can easily copy and store games on the PS3, but it is a pain to only fit a few games on the system at one time.

Returning to region locking, Nintendo even went to the level of updating the region lock on the Wii for its Gamecube mode, to prevent the use of existing Free Loader discs. An issue as many PAL Gamecube games are 50Hz only, while 60Hz US discs run better and some even support EDTV, a feature no PAL Gamecube games support.

Investigating, investigating. And still deciding against it. Typical Ninty.

@BinaryFragger that was a 2004 quote then, back then online was still new and nobody knew we wanted it... argument invalid?

@Uberchu

That argument is not invalid, as he pointed out, WoW launched that year. On top of that, the Xbox brought online gaming to consoles in 2001, and the Dreamcast did it in 1998/1999. Before that, online gaming existed on PC's, and even to an extent with peripherals on the Sega Genesis and Super NES.

The very term "MMORPG" was coined in 1997 after years of other games testing the early online gaming waters. One of the earliest online games was Island of Kesmai from 1985, which supported 100 players and cost an absurd $12 per hour to play.

Online was hardly "new" in 2004. And even if it was, Nintendo very clearly still lacked foresight concerning it, despite building the GameCube with a space for a broadband adapter.

@Quorthon The Vita is a great handheld. It is far superior technically than the 3DS, but it never had the same kind of support that Nintendo gave their console. The memory card situation is just ridiculous, and it seems Sony - despite having a wealthy list of PSN games coming and a small handful of retail games - has all but given up on Vita here in North America. Which is sad because I am not sure they will release another handheld.