Iwata to consider region-unlocking ?

[D4rkDragon]

Some progress has been made.

According to the guys @NeoGAF, during a conference with investors, Iwata addressed the difficult question that is "When will Nintendo stop region-locking their consoles ?". Indirectly, but he still referenced it.

Q4: At present, your company's hardware and games make use of region-locking, by which games purchased in one region cannot be played in another region. Are there any plans to unlock this restriction?

A4: Iwata: The game business has a history of taking a very long time with localization among other things, such as having to deal with various issues of marketing in each particular country, or games that have made use of licensed content that did not apply globally, and had all kinds of circumstances, so to say, that region-locking has existed due to circumstances on the sellers' side rather than for the sake of the customers. In the history of game consoles, that is the current situation. As for what should be done going forward, if unlocked for the benefit of the customers, there may also be a benefit for us. Conversely, unlocking would require various problems to be solved, so while I can't say today whether or not we intend to unlock, we realize that it is one thing that we must consider looking to the future.

Of course, the guy mentions that he translated a Japanese Nintendo Page talking about it.
Source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=922801

Opinions ? Do you think Nintendo has heard their customers about region-locking and they might do something in the future ?

 

[Artisan]

I'm thinking they will only promote region unlocking as long as they know they are getting money from it. If perhaps they get enough money from DLC they will consider unlocking the system or having consumers pay in order to unlock the system. Nintendo's problem would then be to prevent people from hacking the system on their own as well as maybe legal issues. So most likely if they have solutions to these things it would be on new systems to get people to buy them or it would be in a way the public might not like it.

 

[D4rkDragon]

I'm thinking they will only promote region unlocking as long as they know they are getting money from it. If perhaps they get enough money from DLC they will consider unlocking the system or having consumers pay in order to unlock the system. Nintendo's problem would then be to prevent people from hacking the system on their own as well as maybe legal issues. So most likely if they have solutions to these things it would be on new systems to get people to buy them or it would be in a way the public might not like it.

If they do it in a way people won't like it, then I guess I won't have any choice. I'll be mad.
And more, why would they make people pay for region-unlocking ? They would already earn so much money from people who'll import 3DSes/WiiUs and games !

In any case, I want my region-freeness on my 3DS.

 

[Gyrho]

I need region locking out of the way more than ever,i bought my 3ds XL solely because i wanted to play Pokemon X/Y,but i didn't know it was region locked so i bought i limited edition pikachu system and a blue Pokemon X/Y for my brother.Still not bad but here is the problem all the games are imported from america and the console is European and internet is very bad here and i just cant wait for 2-3 for Pokemon x to finish downloading.(-.-)from e shop. E shop charges too much money too

 

[18]

The current system doesn't make any sense to me. I emailed them years ago asking them if the 3DS really was region-locked, and they said that all their consoles are region-locked to ... have better estimations of sales figures within a region. What the heck, right? They're losing a lot of potential money just to know how much Americans or Europeans or Japanese love what game. The entire world loves Mario. Everyone's Mario.

If they would unlock it, their games would sell better and they'd make even more money off franchises that used to be unknown outside Japan before region-unlocking being localized.

 

[Glazty]

I emailed them years ago asking them if the 3DS really was region-locked, and they said that all their consoles are region-locked to ... have better estimations of sales figures within a region.

That's actually not true.
Nintendo gets more money by putting a region lock to all of their games and the consoles.
That's the sad truth.

 

[Fawn]

if there was no region-lock i'd be hella happy.

more games for me, everybody happy

 

[Magik]

By region unlocking, people buy more games which means more money. Then again, so does region locking so at this point it's pretty much asking yourself which do we want more?

 

[numage]

I really hope they will unlock it. I'd love to play a Japanese region game without having to buy more 3DS/2DS!
It is also very hard to buy a game when you are in different country (like me, I have a NA region but I now live in Europe).
I know a few people who own a couple of 3DS for the sake of playing different region game, and this is how Nintendo could make more money.

 

[MLGirby]

Oboy dragon quest Terry's wonder land here I come!