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Wii U Will Be Region Locked

The latest edition of Japanese gaming bible Famitsu has revealed that Wii U will be region locked. The news shouldn’t come as too big a surprise to many as both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii are region locked. Still, it would have been nice if the console was region free like the PlayStation 3.

“What can be played on the Wii U is restricted by a region-lock feature; software not sold in the same region cannot be played.”

 

183 thoughts on “Wii U Will Be Region Locked”

  1. Well at least they are bringing the bigger titles over (mainly monster hunter). So I guess as long as they bring over the bigger titles I wouldn’t really care.

      1. Region locking is a way that Nintendo can monitor and differentiate between the sales of different regions , mainly Japan Ntsc , USA ntsc and European PAL .

        Think about it people , the price is different all over the world .
        If the wiiu was region free I would order all the cheap ass games from USA or whereevver ./

        They want the sales of games to stay within each region to help the sales of each region and not make one region more successfull than the other .

        simple economic logic . which spoils our fun a tiny bit . There is enough good games in the UK and EU for me , so I don’t give a shit about region locking .

        1. Well, I do care for Region Lock. Remember Operation Rainfall? If not for that operation, we would never be able to play three of the most wanted JRPG’s for the Wii. And there are still lots of great games exclusive only to Japan that most western gamers would love to play. Project X Zone is on the verge of being a Japan exclusive title.

          I do understand the economics part, but I think there are better ways to protect the sales of other countries. The extremely abusive high taxes over video games our “dear” government puts on the gaming market makes everything game-related to cost at least three times it’s original price. For example, the Wii U costing $300.00 will be somewhere around R$1600,00 here ($800.00), without counting the profit the stores should have. PS3 launched at R$3000,00 here ($1,500.00). To protect the internal market, the price for NSMB2 by download is the same price as stores normally charge here (R$150,00 – $75.00).

          My point is: people would buy games from other regions only if
          1)Games were cheaper on other region and in the same language;
          2)The game was not released in their country;
          3)The gamer prefers to play games in other language (like me, I prefer to play games in Japanese)

          For all of the cases, people would only be able to buy games by ordering from internet or by visiting another country. Just think about it: if I have a relative that goes to a business trip to Europe, I’d ask him/her to buy me some games there because they’re cheaper there, or they haven’t been released in my region. But if my console has region lock, I won’t be able to play any of those games. With this limitation, I might prefer buying a PS3 because I wouldn’t have this kind of problem (yes, there are people who think like this, those who don’t care for what platform they have).

          I think a good solution for this problem would be charging games for the same price they are i your country when you buy them through the internet. That way gamers would only buy games in other region in the second and third cases. That is a very simple, yet effective way to counter the problem, and most retailers would love doing that: they would end up having even more profit for a single if the game in other region was cheaper!

          I hate the region lock, specially because of the changes in names, the horrible American dubbing, and the fact that I can’t play most anime based games. I wanted to play Metroid Other M so bad, specially after I found out you could choose between Japanese and English languages and subtitles! It was the perfect game for me! Then, when I got the North American copy of the game, my dream crashed: it only has English option for Western countries…
          I played Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Tales of Symphonia in Japanese because of the dubbing, and some changes they made on the story, and even gameplay. I have to say, in this era of connection regardless of distance, separating what gamers can and cannot play because of their region is pretty much discrimination!

          Here’s something to clarify my ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E648Ae6g2sk

          1. I agree with what you say , and wish it was the way you say . But some governments are more rich or poor than others and are more greedy or less than others . Nintendo cannot persuade countries to set there price .

            Unfortunately the only way to combat An australian or a brazillian pre ordering all his ames from europe or USA is with region locking .
            Different countries have different currecies , different minimum wage , different everything .

            1. Actualy be region locking nintendo is encouraging these out rages prices.

              Plus it encourages piracy, so region locking once again is a huge fuck up again by nintendo.

          2. I know this is random, and I don’t want to sound mean, but you’re probably only saying American dubs are horrible because you’re so used to hearing Japanese a lot, especially since it’s always corresponding to the art style. I don’t think a lot of American dubs are even horrible anyway; they’re okay, really. According to what you’ve said, you prefer games in Japanese as well as anime, and I have a lot of friends that are obsessed with anything Japanese. Like I said, I don’t want to be mean, but basically people who like anything Japanese-related tend to dislike anything western-related. >_<

            1. I don’t mean to say I hate anything America-related. I do find the dubbing of a lot of games made in western countries amazing. But if the game comes from Japan, no matter how much space the disc has, they rip out the original Japanese audio. I understand they think not many people will have interest in the Japanese audio, but if there is space in the disc, I don’t see any reason to take it off. And there are some changes on the gameplay, as well, some changes in the story sometimes. I think we should have the opportunity to choose what we’re going to play, not be forced to live with what they want us to based on the place we are.

    1. Nintendo home consoles have always been region-locked, so I don’t see why this is so surprising and a deal breaker for others when there’s only a few noteworthy games to import on all systems whole life spans.

          1. If you would have taken your time to actually take a look at the whole thread, you would have noticed that he was talking about digitall copies of PSP games. And if you look at the date of the thread, you’ll see it was posted in january. What does this tell us ? It tells us that there was no American PSStore update for the Vita up back then because the Vita wasn’t even out in America at that time. And that person most likely owns American PSP games. So, it’s not really that surprising that this person had problems installing them on his Vita, regardless of whether digital copies of games were region-locked or not.
            And, to clear up things: None of the physical copies of Vita games are region locked. None of them. Only digital copies are, if I’m not mistaken. But if you own a Japanese Vita, you’ll be connecting to the Japanese network anyway, so it doesn’t even really matter in any way if digital copies are region-locked or not.
            For some really weird reason, he seems to be the only person who had that kind of problems as well. Really weird, huh ?
            So get your damn facts straight before spreading your bullshit.

        1. By semi-locked I mean you can technically have games from another region on your Vita, however to do so, you must deactivate one memcard and then restore your Vita to factory settings then sign up to a new PSN account for the region you want. To change regions you have to repeat this process.

          1. False.
            The Vita is not region-locked. You can play any physical copy of a game from any region on your Vita from any region of your choice. And you do not need to do any of the things you just listed.

              1. Shame it’s not backwards compatible and everybody still has to keep hold of their psp . If the ps vita was backwards compatible , the psp would not be selling in japan , just like what happened to the DS when the backwards compatable 3ds arrived .

                Sony failed with that one .

                  1. Not good enough . I have a huge stack of Hard psp games . are sony going to replace them all digitally ??? nope .

                    By your logic the 3ds is backward compatible with NES , GB , GBC , gamegear etc . The 3ds is fully backwards compatable with DS games . Thats why DS’s dont sell in Japa n

                    1. Okay… And what the hell does backwards-compatibility have to do with this topic ? Right, absolutely nothing.
                      Trying to look for things Sony has done “wrong” to cover up Nintendo’s absurd decisions ? Not working, bro.
                      I do have physical copies of PSP games too but unlike you, I don’t start whining for such a senseless reason. If you own physical copies of PSP games, that should mean you own a PSP system as well. So… Why the hell should Sony replace the games digitally ? You own them already and you can still play them, just not on the Vita. So, where is the sense in your statement ? I’m assuming it’s nowhere.

    1. Tbh, if region locking stopped you wanting the WiiU, you didn’t want it much in the first place. Let it go to someone who does want it.
      Besides, region locking isn’t a new concept …

    2. Aeolus likes to suck off monkey dicks, and the monkey is Icy Dead People, and they also seem to be a idiots

      Why are you always posting the same comment every time ”bad” news appears. And I put them in brackets because if you were a console manufacturer, would you like it if all your customers bought the games from the cheapest country possible? Even Valve doesn’t like it when people do that on Steam, goddamn Valve. Also Sony has basically prohibited many countries from the PSN store, like the Baltic countries in which I live, so they have to create a fake account in a country that uses PSN with a credit card from that country.

    3. Nintendo always had their consoles region-locked in some way or another, so this should have been quite obvious from the beginning. I’m not saying region locking is good in any way, shape, or form(I hate it personally), but for it to be the thing that “cements” you’re decision to not buy the Wii U is either just awful knowledge and ignorance of video game history or blatant trolling. It seems like your decision to buy the WiiU was made long before this news was made, and you’re comment was just made to troll and make mountains out of molehills.

    1. It would actually be cool if Nintendo allowed legal homebrew. Like Xbox 360 indie games(Technically homebrew you have to pay for), but free and more flexible.

  2. Prepare for a deluge of people that apparently have a perfect understanding of Japanese despite there being few schools in the Western world teaching the language.

    And of course this will be a deal breaker for them.

      1. Kind of missing the point, but ok…

        I first noticed it on another site when people were asked if they were interested in the Wii U, some said yes, some said no.

        What was funny was seeing all those who said no pretending two days later like certain things only just announced were the cause for them deciding no. Even though they’d said no prior to the announcement…

        1. Here’s a tip:

          People move. I’m now stuck with an american 3ds and living in Germany. Yay, portable console not really portable!

          Don’t act as if this would only affect people who want to play japanese titles.

          1. Sorry, but you are the minority. Sucks for you but it’s just tough. Of course you can import games to Germany from America if you so desire. Nintendo don’t have much of a negative stance on that practice, unlike Sony who have history of putting import sites out of business.

            1. And besides that, Europe and America have different power supply standards, so someone who moves between the two and tries to take anything electrical with them is going to struggle without a transformer (as well as the obvious adapter required for differing wall outlets), as I found out when I had initially planned to take my UK 3DS on a trip to California.

              A home console especially would suffer there.

        2. should have made it clearer what your point was then, because it sounded to me like you didn’t believe those people claiming they want to import japanese games

          1. That’s just it. I don’t believe them.

            If you read reactions on stories like this and then applied the ratio of those who it is apparently a big deal for to the wider population, you’d think about 90% of the planet could understand Japanese…

            1. well i’d prefer a console without region lock since i’d like to import mine but once it’s modded that doesn’t really matter anymore

      2. Yeah, everyone at my school learned Japanese in 4th grade.
        All te schools teach it, hell, English is practically on it’s way out. Duh.

      3. Yeah, the day i actually pay and take months and months of time to take Japanese language lessons so i can play imported games is the day i need to rethink my life

    1. who said it had to be japanese.. There are some games that are released in the UK (which has English as part of their many languages.) that are never released over here.

    2. That’s what I don’t get. Lets say out of 20 games he wants, 2 are from another region. If he can’t have all 20 then he doesnt want any of them! WTF!? It doesn’t make any sense! Fucking morons…

      1. Not that it’s any of your business, but it wasn’t actually long ago that I cut my hair, I used to have way longer hair before. However, I feel comfortable with somewhat long hair, it fits the rest of my style pretty well, so that’s why.

  3. I had no idea the PS3 wasn’t region locked :O
    does that mean it can play dvds and blurays from other regions??
    I’d be even more surprised if it could bearing in mind almost all dvds and bluray films are region locked!!

    1. Just games are region free.

      Blu-ray and DVD are locked to their regions.

      (Actually Persona 4 Arena is region locked) just an FYI.

  4. Doesn’t matter to me. I was expecting this anyway. I do hope we get more Japanese-centric titles on Wii U. Like some sweet RPGs. No need for an Operation Rainfall, if NOA or some other 3rd party decides to translate them. Leave luck to heaven.

          1. Then you don’t understand how hope works. I know we haven’t seen much JRPGS in the West this gen, but I want that to change this gen.

        1. KAIRI don’t try to be a smart ass with the Donzaloog. He’s part of the Triforce the missing piece which would make it a complete solid Triangle. If u didn’t know that, now you know! >:|

      1. He doesn’t use sources.
        He just talks out his ass because he’s Jealous of Nintendo’s success.

        Don’t let this troll get to you. He’s been making an ass of himself for months. But I admire your spunk. ;)

        1. Yeah, you’re right, but I can’t help myself, people like that just annoy me so much. Oh, well… I guess I should be doing something productive with my time instead :p

        2. not months years, i know he was here when 3ds was just a rumor, and that was before i join mynintendonews, so you can see he was here way longer than any of us you know, piff and he said we have no life but he has come here more than two years.

          1. Actually I’ve been her for a while, back when sickr posted like 2-3 articles per week. And every one got along, even if it was only 3of us posting.

            And no auolus wasn’t here then.

      1. Honestly, being region-free is CLOSE to the last factor for people purchasing a system. Some consider of course, but those who are responding negatively NOW probably wouldn’t have purchased one in the first place; I view it like a way of sorting out. Nothing new here though.

        1. Actually its a big deal for people who import, specially since NoA has been dicking us out games and NoE iscatering to its fans.

          Say pandoras tower, if it doesn’t make it to the states, people could’ve easily imported. From europe and played it. It might not be a huge deal to you but to some its a deal breaker.

  5. Aslong as I get it I don’t give a shit.
    Only idiotic nerds complain.
    However I get annoyed that EU charges more than other regions because of the fuckin Euro.
    300€ is not 300$ and so on fucking shit…

    1. The reason for this conversion is there are extra things like VAT in Europe. Actually here in Denmark 350 euro(2603 dkk) is cheap for the Wii U since stores will sell it for 3300 dkk(442 euro). I went to the German city Flensburg near the Danish-German border which had ZombieU bundle for 389 euro. That’s around 90 euros cheaper than in Denmark. : /

    1. i think that title is reserved for the 3d feature of the virtualboy! bearing in mind that feature stripped the system of its portability as well surely makes it worse than region locking a home console!

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  7. Oh please, why would anyone want to cancel a preorder just because a games console is region protected. Good for Nintendo really.

    If some of you are going to cancel then you shouldn’t have preordered in the first place. Oh and grow up!!

  8. I SO FUCKING HATE REGION LOCK!

    Nintendo: WE REGION LOCKED THE 3DS BE CAUSE WE KNOW WHAT IS THE BEST FOR THE COSTUMERS.(Nintendo Europe said something like that)
    Really?

    I can understand why they do it. But I do not understand why THEY EVEN REGION LOCK LOCAL PLAY??? WHY ??? What advantage do they have by locking LOCAL PLAY????

  9. LET’S REGION LOCK THE CONSOLE! LET’S NOT GIVE THE LATEST SUPPORT AND UPDATES TO EVERYONE ELSE OUTSIDE EUROPE, AMERICA AND JAPAN.

  10. nearly all nintendo and sony consoles are region locked, both the original xbox and 360 are region locked. some people boycotting over region locking just proves to them you never wanted the games to begin with, diminishing an already small niche

  11. Well, okay, it was the most obvious thing that they will region lock the Wii U, too. Now I’m pretty glad that my favorite game series nearly stopped producing games on Nintendo consoles, because the games rarely get an European or American release… Well, it’s a shame, but that’s Nintendo. I’ll consider buying the Wii U again in a year or two~

  12. Was expecting this fully, but if the Wii U wasn’t region locked it would be amazing. But oh well, nothing worth getting annoyed about, or not buying the console over.

  13. nearly all nintendo and sony consoles are region locked, the original xbox and 360 are region locked. boycotting over region locking just proves to them you never wanted the games to begin with, diminishing an already small niche.
    sorry if this double posts i’m writing from my PS3 at the moment because my computer is down.

    1. “let’s do what we’ve been doing since the SNES (with the only exception being the DS)”?

      Valve, Microsoft and Nintendo all reigon lock. It’s the norm, there’s nothing “absurd” about it.

        1. I did not in any way imply it was. I said it was the norm. Sure It’s annoying for the people that want it, just like any feature that’s excluded.

          Either way, it’s not something to be surprised about. It’s the expected decision.

          1. True, it’s not really surprising. But I can’t really say I was expecting this either because I thought this time they might actually make a smart decision concering the region-lock.

            1. region locking is implemented in the first place to prevent importing titles from other countries where they cost less, this is why it’s to be expected even on the likes of Steam.

              since we’re getting titles like Monster Hunter/Dragon Quest, it’s not a big deal until region-only games start arising

              it still sucks for the relatively niche circle of importers, but it’s not much of a downside if we keep getting games like these

    1. OFC u can, europe is an entire region, i can buy a wii u in spain and play italian games if i want
      and the same with the whole america and japan, but u cant play japanese games or america games in a european console

  14. Ah good ol’ sony keeping them region free. Not like I import games in the first place xD but it is a pain in the fucking ass for nintendo to be doing this if I want to buy my dutch bf a game (like pokemon black 2) :/

  15. Pingback: Wii U confirmed to be region locked | NintendoGlobe

    1. Go back to NaziLand, von Scrotum. ZombiU and Mass Effect 3: Special Edition on Wii U has great graphics… but Call of Duty: Black Ops II on the Wii U has spectacular graphics running in true native 1080p and runs at 60 fps!

  16. I can understand for the games that are not going to be localized being region locked but for the ones that aren’t… Or why not this… if the game is purchased overseas like say America, why can’t they pay the American division a percentage? idk whatever I don’t know why people are so upset about this. I mean all consoles are region locked so it isn’t like Nintendo is doing something different.

  17. This is not entirely unexpected. I imagine it will be one of the first ‘fixes’ if the Wii U gets hacked for homebrew applications. I’m not endorsing this kind of activity, but you know someone will try.

    1. Gamers across the pond were going to be screwed big time due to region lock, but considering you have that awesome avatar, I think you already know that…guess they still got screwed with Pandora’s Tower and Disaster: Day of Crisis though
      Region lock can never be considered a good thing :(

  18. The only game I’d really import would be smash bros because I know it will be released in Japan a couple months before it hits the states like brawl

  19. not a surprise in itself but still a pain. I have a big problem with game/console being region lock.

    Most of the time you won’t take the pain to pay a game which will be available to your region from 2 to 4 months later. Where it becomes annoying is when the game you want is not in your region or the same game has less feature than the game in different region.

    So if Nintendo or others developers don’t dare to take a risk or do not believe enough in their product, don’t wonder why people will always try to find a way to hack the hardware/software. or winge about being region lock

  20. I’ve heard that an australian gamer can import a game from the UK because it’s in the same territory or something. Is this true for Nintendo’s region locking?

  21. Unless we get every single game that also comes out in japan, fuck you nintendo, I really like you guys, but this region locking has got to stop, it is so useless I can’t believe it. All it does is add frusteration to gaming, it just really needs to stop. Lots of countries miss out on a ton of titles because of this.

    1. Joey… nobody gives a flying fuck what you think. It’s Nintendo’s decision to have a region lock on game systems… not yours. If you want to play an imported game, buy an imported game system… problem solved. You don’t see me whining ang bitching about my game system having a region lock. Grow the hell up!!!!!!

      1. I’m sorry, but even as a Nintendo fan, I have to agree with Joey. I mean, of course it’s Nintendo’s decision, it’s their console, jeez…but are you seriously telling me, that in this day and age, you think it’s fair that you have to go out and buy another console just to play import games? Come on dude…

          1. If everyone simply accepts what they do without at least complaining, North American gamers would probably not have had the opportunity to play Xenoblade and The Last Story…my point is, you should NOT be forced to pay for another console because of some region lock chip. What they have chosen to do =/= the right thing to do, and we as gamers have to speak out when this is the case

  22. lol sry not getting this shit till its hacked and region free best beleive there will be japan games that the simpleminded american players cant play but the rare breed of us Jrpg and action players want this!!

  23. Region-locking sucks. Not all games will sell well in all nations, but there are still people who want certain games not available in their regions enough to import them. I did so myself with Nintendo Puzzle Collection. Nintendo should stop being such a damn control freak just let the people have what they want!

  24. Pingback: Nintendo Confirms That the Wii U Will Be Region Locked

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