Nintendo have long been the only major games company to region-lock their consoles, but that could, finally, be changing.
Speaking to investors, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has, for the first time, said that removing region-locking could also be beneficial to themselves, the company, rather than just the consumer.
“The game business has a history of taking a very long time with localisation among other things,” Iwata said, “such as having to deal with various issues of marketing in each particular country, or games that have made use of licensed content that did not apply globally.
“Region-locking has existed due to circumstances on the sellers’ side rather than for the sake of the customers. In the history of game consoles, that is the current situation.
“As for what should be done going forward, if unlocked for the benefit of the customers, there may also be a benefit for us.”
Nintendo have been making strides in attempting to open themselves up globally – for instance, region-locking stops the importing of foreign software. To remove that, would open things up considerably. As it stands, the Wii U remains the only console with a region-lock on it out of the current generation.
Originally published November 5, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
