Will the Wii be region-locked?
Friday, October 20th, 2006 - 8:52pm
Warning: This thread may be extremely coughable.
Here is the best that I can come up with for an answer.
Quote:
It was only a few hours ago that we reported that Nintendo Wii was going to be region free for the most part, with the possible exception of some rogue third party publishers who would have the option the option of locking individual Wii titles. Wired News' Joel Johnson had brought us the glorious news straight from Nintendo's VP of marketing Perrin Kaplan.From our earlier report, this was Kaplan's reply to the direct question: "Will the Wii be region free?
"Yes. Like the Nintendo DS, the Wii will be able to play games from other regions, such as Japan, without any restriction. Kaplan implied there might be a region lock that publishers would be able to flip on, but it doesn't sound like the first-party titles from Nintendo will be restricted."
Nintendo has now done a complete 180. A Nintendo UK spokesperson in London has now admitted "We are region-locked." The spokeperson went on to shift the blame to the States, stating that US arm of the company had made a massive blunder by stating the contrary.
This is getting a bit Rashomon for our tastes; Portable Planet will keep you updated as this Wii region dilemma escalates.
I'm trying to find out the answer to this question because I have a friend who's going down under for a couple of years and he's trying to figure out if he should get a North American version of the console here or get one there, or if he should even try to get one at all.
If he gets an NA Wii and it's region locked, then he won't be able to play any games over there.
If he gets an Australian Wii and it's region-locked, then he won't be able to buy any new NA games for it when he comes back.
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
Last I heard region lock is a definite. From IGN's Wii FAQ:
Boo!
Since I have about 6 JP games, I wonder if the freeloader will work with the Wii then?
Being that the Wii is backwards compatible with NGC discs and all.
neither lesbian nor kitten!