Will the Wii be region free?

Wii News | Not even Nintendo knows where it's headed.

One of the best features about the Game Boy and the DS has always been their ability to play import games without modifications. In a recent interview with IGN, Perrin Kaplan, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications for Nintendo of America, the question of whether or not the Wii will be region free was discussed. Her reply left any answers we were hoping to receive relatively ambiguous.

"Clearly, the success of Nintendo DS has offered a lot of lessons about what works in the marketplace - and we certainly intend to keep our fans satisfied," said Kaplin. "For the Wii system, we are finalizing all the relevant details and will be making announcements in the coming months. We know that isn't what you all want to hear (or read) but at least we are being honest! We will share a lot of ways people can play globally, regionally, without boundaries. You're right that the region-free approach has proved to be a successful and attractive feature for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection on Nintendo DS - we have even blown the doors off our own anticipated numbers! Cost, ease-of-use and player privacy are the three things that were a focus for us with Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Those priorities also will apply to the Wii system."

Whilst not clearly a statement that the Wii will be region-free, this definitely opens up the possibility that it could be. Despite this we won't know for sure until Nintendo makes up its mind on this topic. Consoles for a long time have been able to be modified to play these games either via physical alterations or via boot disks, such as the Freeloader, however it would make a lot of gamers happy if there was no need for all the hassles that these things bring. For the moment though there's still a hope that all those bizarre dating sims you’ve been hanging out to play might soon be making their way to a Wii near you, plus postage and handling.

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27 Comments

mysterymarty

5 years ago

i believe that they have started production of the wii but the officials don't know if it is region free because they have not been informed of all the speccs that are infolved in the console.

themak

5 years ago

Who are the officials?
For an October 2nd release, of course the Wii is in production.
Wether or not the Wii is region free is not to be told- probabl until release. And even then whether or not games use this is left to be decided.

MrAndyPuppy

5 years ago

realitybites wrote

Firstly it should be region free. Music is and now are DVDs. The handhelds have been since games began.

Making regions stops grey marketing and allows a business to grow in the country.

Now the Internet is a market place in its self and not bound by regions physical regions seems to me to be archaic for this type of product.

huh? When did DVDs become region free? As far as I can tell, we're still locked into regionalised DVD encoding. In Australia and some other countries there is a prevalence of DVD players that ignore region restrictions (or can be hacked to do so), but the DVDs themselves are still encoded as Region 4. It's quite rare in the US to find a DVD player that can do multi-region.

I understand what you're saying about grey marketing, but it also makes it difficult for local divisions of an international company. Take Nintendo as an example. If games are region free as a matter of course, then as people become more and more comfortable with online purchasing (btw, I agree with what you said about buying over the internet), they will shop around for the best price.

In a country like ours where tax rates and shipping costs cause prices to be inflated over other countries, the local subsidiary will lose out against those in international countries that can avoid those same taxes, and sometimes other costs.

Yes, it WOULD help in getting rid of some of the artificial inflation on pricing, but some of that increase is actually real and unavoidable for the company.

Now, if that was the case, and Nintendo Australia saw a drop in sales, Nintendo HQ might decide to close the local subsidiary to save costs. People lose jobs, the town/city loses infrastructure, etc. Australia might receive less advertising budget (wait, Nintendo isn't a very good example for that...

), and less attention because it is seen to be a low producing territory.

(Personally, I would love to have region-free stuff so I can always buy games from OS when they are released earlier than here or not at all)

admeister wrote

They did it with the DS, didn't they, so why not?

Handhelds are different because of their very nature - portability. Because the player itself is transportable and DESIGNED to be taken with you when you're on the road, it would be illogical to follow the same regionalising rules as for a normal console. If you take your PSP to the US and while you're there want to buy and play a new game, you can.

A PS2/GC/Wii/Xbox(360) is (normally) set in one place and doesn't move. It usually only supports one video format (PAL vs NTSC-U vs NTSC-J) as well. These two things means that if you were on holiday in the US you are unlikely to be carrying your console around with you, and if you were going to buy a game for it, it would likely be for you to take home and play in the home country exclusively.

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