Episode 518: Mattel Vs Atari Again

It’s seems like old times as there’s a new IntelliVision console coming out to compete with the Atari VCS. The funny part, of course, is that the new IntelliVision will feature Atari 2600 games on it published by Atari. I guess we’re all friends now. This week’s Gaming Flashback is Dead Space.

As for the news:

  • Intellivision Amico console coming in 2020
  • Jade Raymond leaves Electronic Arts
  • Splash Damage ends development of its team-based shooter Dirty Bomb
  • Fortnite‘s Save the World Mode won’t be going free-to-play in 2018

The Question of the Week is: “Which cancelled game would you wish have been completed: Starcraft Ghost, Fallout 3 (Van Buren), Warcraft Adventures, Scalebound, Fez 2, Prey 2, The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, Full Throttle 2, or something else?”

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DSi Will Be Region-Locked, Sad Face…DSi Will Be Region-Locked, Sad Face…

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.”