Nintendo UK: Wii Region Locked to Thwart Piracy
I don’t know anyone who was thrilled with Nintendo’s decision to region lock the Nintendo Wii. Nick discussed it shortly after the announcement and during a recent Q&A with Gamespot, Rob Lowe of Nintendo UK discussed a few reasons why the system ended up that way.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Lowe only gave one actual reason at all. The rest of his answer is the usual corporate filler that we’ve all become so accustomed to.
Here’s the meat of the Q&A with my thoughts in bold.
Gamespot: Why was the decision made to region lock the Wii?
Rob Lowe: Well, there were a number of reasons for that. Obviously in the UK you’ve got Wii Play coming out and in America they haven’t got Wii Play–we try and cater for different audiences. (So US customers get the shaft, thanks for that) We have to localize all of it in loads of different languages: America is just English and Japan is just Japanese, which is why it takes a little longer here. (So if Nintendo didn’t region lock….they would stop making a US and Japan version of the game?) Also we always have specific software for specific regions, so we try to keep it that way. (Yes, he said that already, see Wii Play…) Obviously, it helps against game piracy as well. (There’s the beef.) There are a number of reasons why. But I don’t think it will be a problem, because a very, very small minority of people import games anyway.
Honestly, I don’t think Rob Lowe even understood the question and if he did, I’m surprised Gamespot didn’t ask him to clarify. What do you guys think of his reasons for region locking?
Via Gamespot.com
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FSK
