Topic: End Region Locking on Nintendo Consoles! Miiverse and Twitter Warriors Assemble!

[Jericho]

Hot off the heels of the immensely successful #PS4noDRM campaign spearheaded at NeoGAF and referenced directly by high ranking SCE officials, a new campaign has started after the confirmation that Microsoft's Xbox One would now be coming to all regions with no regional locks. The target? Nintendo. As it stands, Nintendo is now the only console maker that still mandates this old practice whether by precedent or by willful choice. As such, gamers have already begun to make their voices heard much like the aforementioned anti-DRM campaign asking for Nintendo to comply with this one request -- the removal of region locks and regional locked content on their eShops, Wii U console and 3DS handheld console.

With that being said, I've decided to spread the word because this is yet another good thing and worth the exposure. Participation in this is simple as always. For those of you with a Twitter account, use the hash tags #EndRegionLocking and #NintendoRegionFree, and follow @EndRegionLock.

Tweet at:
@Nintendo
@NintendoAmerica
@NintendoEurope
@NintendoUK
@NintendoES

With a short (respectful and well written) message supporting your stance on a region-free Nintendo software market (or just the two previously mentioned hash tags). For those of you who want another additional method to raise awareness and are in possession of a Wii U, take to Miiverse now and use your eloquence or your artistic ability to present the "End Region Locking" message to your fellows on Miiverse. I suggest using high traffic places like the Smash 4 Miiverse page or the Nintendo e3 Miiverse thread. There you will find many other messages in this vein and can "Yeah!" them for maximum visibility.

For the driven here, you can feel free to repost this in other net communities or forums you frequent and drum up the interest in this from whoever wants to participate. There is NO such thing as a bad turnout here, only cold feet which is the bane of these things. Simply tweeting it out or Miiversing it up is already enough to show that you are in strong support of this. Let's do this RPM.

I hope no one minds me sticking this.

[Police Girl]

While I would love for Nintendo to remove Region Locking... I just don't see it happening. Nintendo's too stubborn, the GBA and DS being region free was an anomaly for them seeing as the DSi-enhanced DS software was once again Region-Locked.

That being said, I would love for it to happen so I could use the Japanese eShop to get some of those games they've been holding back from us.

[Mirby]

I RT'd you as soon as I saw you post it.

[Protoman Blues]

Yeah I can get behind this!

[ViperAcidZX]

I second this though its not like I have many people on my Twitter to spread the word far enough to make a difference...

[Jericho]

Have you guys been keeping up with the GAF thread or checking out Miiverse? Seems like this is gaining some serious traction now.

[Sakura Leic]

I would be behind this if I had a Twitter account, I wish there was a Facebook campaign as well.

[Jericho]

I would be behind this if I had a Twitter account, I wish there was a Facebook campaign as well.

Some people were actually using the #NintendoRegionFree and #EndRegionLocking tags on the Nintendo facebook page in the comments section. While there's no centralized effort there, it's always the thought that counts.

[Police Girl]

NOA says no. Excuse being that without Region locks their Parental Controls don't work.

Some guy on Something Awful debunked this (Albeit with an Australian 3DS, as those can play European 3DS Games.)

So it seems like the main reason they want to region lock the 3DS is due to their Parental Controls system. How they can't handle games from different regions if the system is unrestricted. The hilarious thing about this is that they already do handle games from different regions.

I tested this out with my Australian bought 3DS (identical to European 3DS systems) and tested with a variety of European and Australian games.

We have different ratings systems, Europe uses PEGI and Australia uses the ACB. A rough equivalence of two ratings systems are (there are exceptions):

PEGI --- ACB
3 --- G
7 --- PG
12 --- M
16 --- MA15
18 --- R18

So I set my 3DS to Australia, and restricted my rating to MA15 (the highest the 3DS allows for some reason). All of the European games worked (even Resident Evil Revelations), except for Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor Overclocked. SMTDSO was not released in Australia and therefore has no local rating. Also, Shantae Risky's Revenge didn't work, as that was not rated locally either (the DSiWare shop stores ratings info). All DS games worked.

Next thing I did was set the restriction to G, the lowest. My European Animal Crossing worked, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D did, as did any other game that was rated G by the ACB. Anything that was rated higher than G, even if it was a European version of the game, didn't work. The same to games that were not rated locally.

I set the system to PG to see how it handled games which were rated differently in regions. My Australian version of Kid Icarus Uprising was rated PG, but it was rated PEGI 12 in Europe. Of course it launched fine when restricted to PG. I set the system to Europe, and PEGI 7. The game didn't work, as it was rated PEGI 12.

So the things I found out:
- Games store information on multiple ratings systems and use that for Parental Controls
- For imported games, it will take the ratings information for your local ratings board if it is available and use that for parental control use (assuming your 3DS is set to your local region).
- If there is no local ratings information, it will block the game on all ratings levels.
- DS games have no restrictions.
- DSiWare games do have restrictions, and if the game has not been rated in your region it will be blocked.

So Nintendo is just blowing smoke or making up excuses that aren't really there. And it makes even less sense seeing that if you would need Parental controls anyway why would you import games at all.

[Rin]

Nintendo, as usual, prove how much ahead they are above everyone else.

[Protoman Blues]

The only reason Microsoft did is because they had absolutely no [tornado fang]ing choice in the matter after their PR nightmare, coupled with the fact that they're competing directly against Sony. Nintendo is not, therefore it has no need to.

Not saying I agree with it, cause Region Locking is dumb. Just telling it like it is.

[Police Girl]

And of course, the fact of the matter is that with Region Locking if they get people who can't live without some game that isn't coming over stateside they are absolutely free to buy a Japanese 3DS, Nintendo doesn't care, its more money. They're a business, that's what they live for.

[xemiroth]

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[xemiroth]

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