NTSC Wii ok to play online in UK?

[vertigo]

When one of you nice chaps gets your US Wii, would you be so kind as to let us know whether the US one is fine to connect to the Wii service in the UK for game downloads and access to all the rest of the stuff? And how does it work with regard to having a US machine but browsing to the UK service? Is it all handled by your time zone setting or IP address or whatever? Or some other way.
The answer to these questions will be a probable decider in whether we get a US or UK one.
Just wondering whether Nintendo are going to be bastards and literally region-code their machine, so that imports are a no-go for online play until someone invents tunneling software.
And if I get a US one all I need to hope for then is that some nice person comes up with a switch for JP games fairly soon

[revlob]

The Virtual Console thread (if one of the mods would be so kind as to shift it into the Wii board) has a link to a CVG article which states:

We are already aware that you won't be able to gain access to the Japanese or American VC in UK with a UK console. But if you import a US or Japanese Wii into UK, will that machine be capable of accessing the UK VC servers to download and play games made available to us Brits?

Nintendo: No. The European Virtual Console will be available only to European machines. If you import an American machine they would have to connect to the American service and use American Wii Points cards to buy content. Their warranty would also be void so this is not recommended.

I'd say that was fair grounds to believe no blocking will occur, but an American console in the UK will only be able to access American content.

[Magnakai]

It'd probably be a good idea, though. I think it'd be fair to assume that the US will get better/quicker online content than us. Plus you'll undoubtedly be able to buy points online via ebay or some shops or the sort.

[dragz]

This will probably seem like a bit of an obvious question but has it been announced what online content/services/games will be available from launch? This particular bit of information seems to have slipped by me.

[revlob]

Check the Virtual Console thread linked two posts up.

[vertigo]

It'd probably be a good idea, though. I think it'd be fair to assume that the US will get better/quicker online content than us. Plus you'll undoubtedly be able to buy points online via ebay or some shops or the sort.

Yeh, exactly, I'm more down with that, although tbh I just wish someone would grow the balls to stop all this regioning, but it's the publishers that tend to want it more than manufacturers. The US Wii Virtual thingy will probably have more stuff than the Europe one anyway, plus they won't have to go through all the "make it safe for Germany" crap either. And when we come down to one of those same game for $5 or 5 quid arguments, I know which money I'd rather be spending.
Must apply for a credit card then, eh?