Nintendo 3DS

[Leon Retro]

Region locking is ****ing madness. And I am shocked, utterly shocked, at people's continual apathy towards it. Why isn't everyone getting bloody agitated and ranting and sending furious emails and bombarding the games press with complaints and setting up hacking campaigns to take down the Wii network or something. I want to see RAAAAAGGGGEEEE!!!!

People never fail to annoy me with their apathy. I love to read rageful posts like this It's good to vent your frustrations - and hopefully inspire others.

I fully endorse your stance - and hate the Nintendo business people even more. I want to play Pole's Big Adventure Back to Terry's Big Adventure on the Amiga lol

[Papercut]

Rage is funny, but doesn't help the 'cause', it just makes people look obsessive and ignorable.

I'd love to see all consoles region free, it would save me a lot of money, but playing devil's advocate here I can see why it's done.

I've given you a good example why, which you've ignored - different region versions of the same game not always being compatible. Age rating is another very, very good reason. To satisfy both of these would cost platform holders far too much money to be justifiable given the tiny minority it affects.

For something like Ouendan, if the DS had been region locked, wouldn't that have increased the chance of it being released in the West, and broadening the audience it has? It means otherwise obscure imports like this have more chance to be seen. The analogy to this is Parappa the Rapper, which was released in the West thanks to glowing reviews of the region locked import version.

Thats ignoring EBA of course, Nintendo's valiant attempt to bring it to the West, which somehow just wasn't as good with a Westernised sound track. If Ouendan hadn't have been so widely imported though, I think there was more chance we'd have seen the original over here.

When it comes down to it, if you are teh h4rdc0r3, you will just buy an import machine if you have to, and no one is particularly discouraging that.

[sj33]

To be honest, I don't agree with your latter point at all. It was the very fact that Ouendan was so heavily imported in the first place that made Nintendo realise that people in the west actually wanted to play the game. If it hadn't of been such a popular import title, it would never have even appeared on Nintendo's radar.

The fact that Nintendo made a misguided attempt to westernise the game as Elite Beat Agents is just unfortunate, but I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that many people had already imported it, more the fact that Nintendo probably felt a purely JPop soundtrack wouldn't have appealed to the wider audience that Nintendo wanted to target.

[JSR]

Rage is funny, but doesn't help the 'cause', it just makes people look obsessive and ignorable.

I'd love to see all consoles region free, it would save me a lot of money, but playing devil's advocate here I can see why it's done.

Nice to see someone treat the situation with rational arguments rather than blind fury.

And I agree with you, region seems to be - for the creators of our games - a necessary evil. It gives Nintendo the control not only they themselves need, but also control that is demanded from both their publishers and stock holders.

[sj33]

Maybe the forum does need a rebrand after all!

[Dogg Thang]

For something like Ouendan, if the DS had been region locked, wouldn't that have increased the chance of it being released in the West, and broadening the audience it has? It means otherwise obscure imports like this have more chance to be seen. The analogy to this is Parappa the Rapper, which was released in the West thanks to glowing reviews of the region locked import version.

Thats ignoring EBA of course, Nintendo's valiant attempt to bring it to the West, which somehow just wasn't as good with a Westernised sound track. If Ouendan hadn't have been so widely imported though, I think there was more chance we'd have seen the original over here.

When it comes down to it, if you are teh h4rdc0r3, you will just buy an import machine if you have to, and no one is particularly discouraging that.

Not buying your Ouendan argument for a second. Like Shakey Jake, I'd say without the import interest, the chances of Elite Beat Agents happening would have much slimmer.

As for no one discouraging playing on import machines, didn't Nintendo threaten to pull distribution to some places that were importing Pokemon? And Sony, for all their kudos they get for the PS3 region freeness (it's a word), pretty much shut down PSP imports. I'd call that discouraging.

[Neon Ignition]

Region locking has NOTHING to do with piracy. If anything it's the inverse. Every system I've modded for regionallity (PS2, Xbox, Wii) I have ended up pirating for because hey, it's there.

PS3 which is region free = never once did I even consider hacking it.

How does this mentality form where anti-piracy equates to region locking. When I read that guy from Konami saying this, in GamesTM's recent article, I assumed he was misinformed - part of the old guard who have no ****ing clue what's really going on.

http://www.gamestm.co.uk/discuss/region-locking-in-2011-a-new-age-of-control/

Shinji Enomoto is off his bloody rocker!

To be fair you quoted half my sentence, cutting out the half which makes clear that I wasn't implying region locking affected piracy only that it will be an unfortunate by product of it. The industry still has the 90's mentality that people importing games loses revenue from over priced territories like the PAL market. It's not fair but unsurprising they'd try some old skool tricks in such harsh market conditions

[sj33]

Slightly off topic since this is not 3DS related, but since we're talking about the reasons for region coding, the arguments for region locking here contrast quite nicely with Capcom's attitude to region coding using Games for Windows Live on PC.

http://www.capcom-unity.com/sven/blog/2011/05/25/stuff_you_want_to_know_about_ssfiv:ae_for_pc

What about Japan?
Now, Japan is a supported region on GFWL, however there were no plans to distribute the title in Japan at retail so it was never CERO rated. And unfortunately, as a result our offices in Japan are not prepared to offer customer support on the game in that territory (sorry).
That said, if you are in Japan, you should be able to buy it from any of our digital partners and it should function normally provided you have a GFWL account (Japanese or otherwise). There is no geofencing turned on for GFWL supported territories. Just be aware that the level of service you would normally see from Capcom locally isn't going to be there.

It would be quite trivial for them to enable region coding using Games for Windows Live, and they chose not to.

[Papercut]

As for no one discouraging playing on import machines, didn't Nintendo threaten to pull distribution to some places that were importing Pokemon? And Sony, for all their kudos they get for the PS3 region freeness (it's a word), pretty much shut down PSP imports. I'd call that discouraging.

I'm saying no one is discouraging you from buying a different region machine, not from buying different region games...

... which only happens, as in both of those examples, when the system is region free. If the DS and PSP were region locked, Nintendo and Sony would have never cracked down on imports.

That Capcom/Windows Live thing is a lot more interesting though, but here we are talking about one version of the game, from one company who is both the developer and the publisher. There would be conflicting interests if multiple publishers and versions of the game were involved.

What Capcom have written is quite risky though, it sounds like it must come from the devs. They are effectively advising customers to ignore the local T&Cs and age restrictions, and buy it anyway. In terms of their responsibility to the consumer, that is very stupid.

[KusoGaki]

They've dropped the price on a couple of games on Amazon.co.uk, only ?12.99 for Puzzle Bobble Universe.
Read a few bad reviews for it, but seems like a decent price considering it hasn't even been out that long.

[abigsmurf]

Tesco were selling it instore for ?23 when it came out. From what I understand it suffers from the same issue as most of the launch games: no content.

Incidentally, DOAD has got the lowest first week sales of any Dead or Alive game in Japan (including the xbox ones). Think there'll definately be sleepless nights at Nintendo the night before Zelda launches. If that can't drum up 100K first week sales...

[sj33]

On that note, was there any truth to the rumour that Nintendo Japan are producing an extremely limited initial run of Zelda?

[abigsmurf]

Yep it's true. They over-produced Spirit Tracks and it went straight to the bargain bin so they're trying to ensure a much more even supply:demand this time.

I am still amazed there are no Zelda 3DS bundles

[BaronSqwelch]

picked up Puzzle Bobble for 13 quid in gamestation....and Ridge Racer for 20. Both had triple XP on the elite card too.
I love PB and will buy every slightly different version til the end of time

[Flabio]

Picked up 24 streetpass hits at the MCM expo today. Would've probably been more, but you can only have 10 at once before you have to clear them out.

VERY long queue to have a go on the Zelda remake as well, gave up in the end.