Yarnton: 3DS region lock partially due to ratings, DLC
UK Nintendo boss defends decision and draws parallels with DVDs
Nintendo UK boss David Yarnton has defended his company's decision to region lock the 3DS and its games by claiming that the decision is at least partly down to DLC support and the difference in international ratings systems.
Speaking to Eurogamer in an interview, Yarnton also compared the region locking to that of DVDs, which has long been accepted as common practice.
"There are a number of different factors that come into it. Part of it is, when you're looking at the software and the different areas, what additional features are included that may not necessarily be available in other territories? For example, we might have in one territory downloadable content that's not necessarily suitable or we don't have the means to do it in another territory. So therefore it may not be compatible," the executive told Eurogamer.
"The other thing is, if we look at it at on a regional basis, we have to be very conscious of - the customer may not really care about this - but different territories have different ratings. We're very conscious of making sure we toe the line as far as government goes. In Europe we've got PEGI. In Australia there's a different rating. America's got a different rating. Japan's a different rating.
"The other part, DVDs are also region-locked. It's nothing new. I know people would love to sample the box of chocolates from everywhere, but at this stage... As time goes on, who knows what's going to happen?"
The decision to lock Nintendo's newest handheld, meaning that games purchased from outside your geographical region won't play on a locally bought 3DS, surprised and many disappointed some, who were hoping to import niche titles from Japan. These hopes were dashed by an attendant PR in the Eurogamer interview, who responded unequivocally to the line of questioning.
"All games will be region locked."
I don't mind the Region Lock as long as you release that niche Japanese game I want in European Territories.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Marlon Andall on 20th January 2011 12:45pm
The DVD argument is also moot. Pretty much any DVD player is multi region, or can easily be changed to be region 0.
Sadly, we can't change anything. Nintendo has made up their minds and will punish gamers for seemingly no reason.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Richard Westmoreland on 20th January 2011 5:23pm
I'm sure some fine folks will find a way around it. The fact is, why stop folks from playing multiple game titles from different areas. I'm sure with patches and additional support that Nintendo intend to roll out, this logistical issue can be solved (not necessarily easily) but still quite doable.
Heck from march till June, as long as the support is golden - there are many opportunities to unlock and upgrade the user experience.
For me regional lock is just a means to protect their regional business so they can plan better launches of blockbuster games in phases to boost sales figures throughout the year (as different regions have different financial year calendar) so they look a lot better on the books. This will probably mean that certain regions will have much later launches of certain games.
The whole regional lock thing is trollish in my opinion. Just like when Square Enix made games of different regions can't communicate with each other even if they have LAN or online capability. I'll probably just wait for people to crack the regional lock on 3DS before getting one as I import niche games from other territories that may never see the daylight in Australia.
As people have pointed out, it gives hackers a moral leg to stand on when they start hacking the system.
Nintendo could use it to limit damage from piracy - but even this would be limited.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Chia-Hao Liu on 24th January 2011 6:45am
That said, yes, the whole idea of maintaining region locks on games is a poor one; games at least are not burdened with the history (especially contractual) that the film and television industry has to deal with. Perhaps Nintendo really wanted to the region restrictions only for video, and just thoughtlessly added it to games as well. Or perhaps they really do have business executives who are stuck in a pre-Internet world.