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.”
Hi guys.
Thanks for the episode. It was intersting and funny as always π To your question of the week: I Played Portal the first time last year. Of course i completed it very fast, but this was a PC game i played about 10 years after its release π
For Console games, it must be some of the first 6 Mega Man Games … i donΒ΄t remember which ones i played as a kid, but of course not all of them. So i decided to play through the first 6 Mega Man games last year π
I like to play all the old games, i missed in my youth, but as you know: now (as an adult) you got the money to buy games, but you dont have the time anymore to play all of them π
Jonah: Archon is a really great game! I loved it as a kid, even i did not understood it at all π (I am born in 1980, so i was 4 years old, when Archon was released, and i got my first C-64 when i was 8).
So thanks again guys and keep gaming π