One of the greatest things Nintendo has done was allowing the DS to be unlocked for regions. This allowed gamers around the world to share their favorite games from all cultures and countries with just a click of the “buy” button at an online store.
The DSi loses this great freedom by locking it down to a region. “Nintendo DS software is region free so you can play any DS software on DSi from any region. You can also browse the internet on your DSi wherever you are in the world and exchange your photos with friends from around the world,” says Nintendo (CVG).
Much like the US Entertainment Industries need to lock down everything and contribute to global piracy, Nintendo follows suit with their hand-helds, tis a sad day indeed. Of course Nintendo reasons it all away by yelling parental controls and making it easier for regions to access their own content.
“DSi is region locked because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region. Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit.”
Specifically tailored for each region is a nice way of saying that each region has to pay the penalty of not being “first” (second, or third) to get some cool new features. Although Nintendo could put emphasis on the region the gamer lives in with complete access out of those bounds if they wanted, they’ve chosen to use this as a crutch to lock users out of content.
Users will get their content, of course. It just means more home brews, software hacks, hardware hacks and workarounds for the system. If that’s what Nintendo is trying to inspire, then they’ve done their job right.
However, wouldn’t it be great if they could just come out and say “we don’t want certain people accessing specific content until we say you can.”
@Gamergate: Oh what a cluster-duck. Companies need to stay out of politics and people need to keep their personal lives out of the media and business world. Why are these people failing to learn these lessons? Not to mention the whole mob mentality of jumping on a bandwagon that they have no business getting involved in the first place. No wonder I’m an escapist. I had thought that the name Gamergate was a company until I read this story and not a continuation of the Watergate “meme”. I agree with Paul you shouldn’t add –gate to the end of every scandal. It makes it hard to differentiate from real things that have gate in it’s name like Brandenburg Gate or Golden Gate.
@Capcon: I know they are in the business to make money but I’ve always hated this mentality. The idea that if it doesn’t make 2 million it isn’t worth bothering with his a terrible thing, there have been games that did better over their life time then when they initially launched. Some games take time to build up their popularity and this need for them to be block buster sellers doesn’t guarantee quality. There are many AAA games that have sold millions and I have NO intention of ever buying or playing. This is the mentality that killed the original Sierra games and with them coming back I don’t want to go through all that again.
@Mario Clones: There was a similar joke in Sierra’s Leisure Suit Larry, where if your character died and you restarted they showed a cut scene of a new Larry being made and put back in place. So that’s an interesting game concept to imagine your characters going through.
@QotW: My favorite Saturday morning cartoon would have to be the Dungeons and Dragons. I loved Superfriends and Amazing Spider-man (who was teamed up with Iceman and Firesta). I had to use a site (http://www.inthe80s.com/saturdays.shtml and http://www.inthe90s.com/saturdays.shtml) to remember what cartoons were on Saturday morning as opposed to Weekday afternoon or morning. So I can’t seem to find when I watched Silverhawks, Thundercats or GI Joe, which I thought were in the morning. There are just so many to list but those that are very memoriable were Gummi Bears, Garfield, Kissyfur, and Smurfs. I have to agree with Jonah I do remember watching Smurfs mostly to get to whatever was after it and I didn’t stick to just one channel. It was a very warm and fuzzy nostalgic memory of a tradition that it is a shame has seemed to come to an end. I was like Jonah as well as after watching the cartoons I would be ready to go out and play.
The third Question of the week is that I play the Nintendo 3DS, I love all the RPG games and the old nostalgic games that I can play on it. I’m very into the Professor Layton games so that’s another one for Pawel.
GamersGate is the online store.
@EAs eternal struggle against its own credibility
When Battlefield 4 came out I was lucky enough to be at university and did not buy it at launch. I pre-ordered Battlefield 3 and spent the first day trying to get into a game, so I am glad I missed their second fiasco. DICE needs to stop rushing their games out the door. Especially considering that the Battlefield series have a terrible single player component which cannot compensate for lack of multiplayer (unlike Call of Duty).
@Thr Cute Terrors of Nintendo
According to the original Mario manual, Bowser turned all citizens of mushroom Kingdom into blocks. Basically, Mario rescues the princess as an accomplished mass murderer. In fact, Nintendo is full of creepy things which would make the Western audience cringe in fear. Dead Pokemon, Silent Hill-like Zelda dungeons and getting Zelda’s “Ultimate Reward” right in the dungeon she was kept in. Their early games are as good for kids as GTA.
@QOTW
The 3DS is still my favourite. I don’t play small iPhone games. I have KOTOR on the iPhone but it gets continuously interrupted by various notifications and calls, which makes me loose my progress.