Wow, this certainly is a bothersome bit of news for everyone. As you may recall, Nintendo held a big unveiling event last week and in the same breath as all the news about the console's launch, it was mentioned by Piper Flannigan (Perrin Kaplan), or whatever her name is, that the Wii would be region free. Well, it turns out that Nintendo's most important people are either flat out liars or they don't inform their top people of what the console they're making is capable of. That's right, somber Nintendo fans. The Wii will NOT be region free. Oh snap. Here's the official quote:
"Wii will be region encoded by territory."
So there you have it. For those keeping score in the next-gen race for moral superiority… and I know some of you are, Sony is the only offering that will be region free. Apologies to all the Wii hopefuls. You might want to consider cancelling that Lik Sang or Play-Asia preorder.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:59 am
Well that's bit of sad news, never found the idea of region coding to be anything useful than to block region A from playing/watching Region B games/movies. Import games c'mon, theres nothing bad in them :/
September 20th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Region coding isn't useful. Especially considering the number of people who would import anyway. Oh well. That's how it is though. Sony reazlied that region locking wasl ame, and dropped it. Oh well. I'm sure it won't deter too many people, though it is a sad prospect.
September 20th, 2006 at 11:04 am
SON OF A-
So now I'm forced to cancel my import preorder? Amazon pre-orders have already sold out. EBGames seems to be the only source of hope now. Looks as though Nov 17 - 19 will officially be Wii/PS3 campout weekend here in the states :/
September 20th, 2006 at 11:25 am
I know. It's going to be shitty trying to get both consoles at launch. I'm probably the only one on the internet that plans to do so, though. But yeah, this lack of pre-orderability is unnerving. I mean, I want one, but the preorders are nuts, especially with Amazon taking them down just to be safe. I WANT NEXT GEN GAMING! My Xbox 360 is just a PC with a controller and a fancy MSN Messenger. WiiS3 plx!
September 20th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
[…] Wii not being region-free: Not that big of a surprise there. Well, at least it ain't Sony. Here's hoping it won't kill Nintendo's sales. […]