Wii online content will be region-encoded?

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Dogasu

Dogasu

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From IGN:

IGN said:
Speaking exclusively with IGN at Nintendo's European Wii press event in London, Yarnton confirmed that Wii games and online content will be region-encoded, meaning European gamers won't be able to play titles from the US and Japan and vice-versa.
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So I guess this rules out international battles in Pokemon Revolution, huh?
 
-_-.......

Does this mean I can't trade my Japanese Pokemon on DP to an English PBR?

DAMN!
 
You could probably maybe get around it by trading them to an English version of the DS game and THEN uploading it into the Wii game.

Then again, I don't know if that'd work. Does anyone know if you can trade pokemon from the English version of one of the GBA games to a Japanese copy of Colosseum?
 
No, you can't do Japanese GBA to English Colloseum.

Yeah, forgot I will have DP in English before I get PBR...lol.

I hope IGN is wrong............
 
I hope they're wrong too. I don't see how they'd make a backwards step as such. Maybe he meant its able to identify itself as where its from.
 
Eh, it's likely talking about Virtual Console stuff - as opposed to Online FUNCTIONS - which would be pretty fucking stupid to limit to regions only considering the basic nature of it. Thw Wii WFC is meant to be more or less exactly the same as the WFC used on the DS so there shouldn't be any problems at all, for example, battling someone in Battle Revolution in another region.
 
Maybe its only for Europe.. like the PSP and its strange regon-lock rules.
 
You can't do Japanese GBA game to English Colloseum, but you CAN do Japanese GBA game to English GBA game to English Colloseum.

I believe the issue with this regions would most likely be restricted to the channels though, not the gaming. Though virtual console titles may also be region specific. No Japanese Fire Emblem for me. ;_;
 
This seems to contradict what NOA's Perrin Kaplan said to Wired.com:

Will the Wii be region-free? Yes. Like the Nintendo DS, the Wii will be able to play games from other regions, such as Japan, without any restriction. Kaplan implied there might be a region lock that publishers would be able to flip on, but it doesn't sound like the first-party titles from Nintendo will be restricted.
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David Yarnton (Nintendo UK Boss) > Both of them:

Also rules out DVD playback module

Nintendo UK has admitted that the Wii console is region-locked after all, despite comments from Nintendo of America to the contrary.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in London this afternoon, a spokesperson admitted, "We are region-locked," and said the US arm of the company had made a mistake in saying otherwise.

Earlier we reported on a piece by Wired News, which spoke to Nintendo vice president of marketing Perrin Kaplan during yesterday's showcase event in New York, during which they were told that Nintendo would not impose regional restrictions on game software.

That situation would have been comparable to that of Xbox 360, where some games are region-free but others are not, and gamers are generally left to find out for themselves whether an import is viable.

Nintendo also admitted yesterday that it had ruled out the idea of including DVD playback functionality, contradicting earlier announcements.

"Because the price of DVD players has dropped so much and they have become so commonplace, Nintendo saw no need to create extra hardware options that would drive up the cost for consumers," a representative for the company told GameSpot.

Previously Nintendo had said it would release an attachment for the Wii console that enabled DVD playback.

Games on the system will be sold on single- or double-layered 12-centimetre optical discs, while it will also be compatible with 8-centimetre GameCube disc
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So...this only applies to 3rd Party Games....

Good, so PBR is safe, right?
 
PBR will be safe, but who knows if I, with my Japanese version of Diamond, will be able to play with an English version of PBR. Probably not.

If I find out within the next 2 weeks that I'm going to Japan this year, I'll hold off and get a Wii there. Otherwise...I'll just buy a Wii here, and another one when I eventually move.
 
I'll never understand region coding. I mean hell, the company gets the same money no matter what language the people buy it in...Heck, they'll probably get *more* money, since not every game is released in every country.
 
There's some very good reasons for region coding...from a business perspective, which would take too long to explain to someone without a business education background. From the consumer's perspective however, it sucks. A smart company could potentially exploit that with region free products, but few companies have attempted to thusfar.
 
The reason is profits, plain and simple. By taking advantage of disparities in cost of living and purchasing power, you can price products higher in one region than another.

For example, a DS Lite in Australia is A$199 ~ US$150, whereas in Britain it is £99 ~ US$186, and in Europe, it is €150 ~ US$190. (Note, however, the DS doesn't actually have any region locking, but you get the idea.)

Similar reasoning is used for DVDs, though in that particular case, regional release dates and censorship also come into play.

Record companies also do similar things for audio CDs... however, CDs don't have region locking, so all they can do is print "FOR SALE IN ... ONLY" and hope people do not ignore it.
 
On another note...can we find another abbreviation for Pokemon Battle Revolution? Because every time I see PBR, I keep thinking Pabst Blue Ribbon.
 
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Sure, let's do as the Japanese do and call it BatoRevo.
 
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