Topic: Region free is back in!

[Artimus]

According to GameSpot and a Nintendo rep.

Quote
The official story: Getting answers from Nintendo proved difficult during one of the company’s busiest days of the year. However, after a lengthy exchange of cryptic e-mails, a rep finally confirmed that Kaplan’s words regarding regionless first-party titles and potentially regionless third-party titles were indeed correct: “[The] Wii will be region-free.”

http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=24981977

NOA has now backed off of that statement.  And a thousand geeks suddenly cried out in unison, and were silenced.

-- Rick

[Ian Sane]

How come every time Nintendo releases info there are conflicting things said by different Nintendo execs?  How hard is it to just get everyone in a meeting before the event and get everyone on the same page?  "These are the canned answers you are to give.  Got it?"

[JonLeung]

Funny, I JUST read a thing on GoNintendo that said it was region-encoded again.  >_<

[Nick DiMola]

Well hopefully this is the final news and it is indeed true. Region free should be a no brainer at this point.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: JonLeung
Funny, I JUST read a thing on GoNintendo that said it was region-encoded again.  >_<

For now I'm taking the word of the VP of marketing over Gonintendo and any so called "official" statement. I have no doubt that even gamespot has mroe connections than Gonintendo

[JonLeung]

Perhaps it's a question for another topic, but either way isn't the point kind of "moot" or whatever?

If it's region-free, hooray.  I'm assuming you guys expect to import some games.

If it's region-locked, I'm sure that with the Wii being as popular as it is (or rather, as popular as it sounds like it likely will be) that soon enough someone will find a way to bypass such protection via mod chips or otherwise.  If you don't mind voiding your warranty or whatever, that is.

The last time I played import games was in the last days of the Super NES.  That was an easy fix - just taking the pliers and snapping off the tabs in the cartridge slot.  If only they were still that easy.

[wandering]

Quote
I have no doubt that even gamespot has mroe connections than Gonintendo

Minor point, but the news comes from Wired, not gamespot. Less minor point: Gonintendo's story is the latest official word (by about four days). So I'm going to assume that games will be region-locked until someone else says otherwise.

[Viewtiful mario]

I'm glad that it's regin free, I wouldn't import games myself but I know a girl who's crazy about this japaneze Bleach game.  She says thaat she's going to make me get it for her birthday and then she's going to steal my Wii and play with it for hours on end.

Man that sounded sexual.

[Infernal Monkey]

I wish Nintendo themselves knew about the Wii. Region locking would just mean publishers would have an excuse to delay games again in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. "YEAH BUT YOU GUYS HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE PAL VERSION SO YOU CAN PLAY IN GERMAN OKAY". And by wait I mean they just flat out cancel the game anyway because that seems to be the popular thing to do with DS, GC and GBA.

[WuTangTurtle]

It seems nowadays almost anything that has to deal with Nintendo is sexual.....

[Smoke39]

Nintendo = sex.  Best marketing ever.

[18 Days]

Can't wait to bombard NAL with questions.

[Donutt007]

Maybe the UK version will be Region locked, but the others won't? Everyone on the NOA side seems to be saying it's region free, but the UK folk seem to be saying something different. Who knows!

[ThePerm]

with the advent of the hdtv...pal and ntsc are dead. region free is the way to be. If possible I could start an export business and give aussies good prices

[KDR_11k]

I thought HDTV still uses the refresh rate of the region?

Donut: Pretty much what I'm thinking. Bu then again NoA sounded like the games set the region option, not the console so how would NoE prevent american region free games from playing on a european Wii?

[thejeek]

Presumably the hardware itself is region coded, and the region test is optionally implemented in the games? If the game chooses not to test the hardware region, then that game is region free

[Cap]

nintendo should really release some sort of official statement on this.....1up is saying the wii will NOT be region free.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3153746

[thejeek]

I think both sides can be correct here:
 - the Wii is region coded, in that each Wii sold is internally marked with it's region and games running on the Wii can detect this region
 - game media can be marked with a region on manufacture
 - the Wii does not check and enforce these region codings
 - games have the option of checking the region version of their media and the Wii they're running on and refusing to run if the developer/publisher choose to do so

[KDR_11k]

I think it's like with DVDs, a game has a tag saying what region it's for and if that tag doesn't match the player's region setting it won't play. If the DVD has a region code of 0 it will play everywhere.

[thejeek]

OK, either way though, the Wii itself must be region coded for this to work - which is perhaps where the confusion about 'it's region coded' versus 'the games are region free' comes about?

[KDR_11k]

The Wiiis definitely region coded but I think NoE disagreed on whether the games will be.