3DS Impressions

[Rökkan]

Systems Region locked

Might I ask why it would matter if a hand held is region locked?

Hearing about it [importing games] frequently, and putting aside the wider selection of titles and localization issues, I hardly see the point of it.

oh boy i'm gonna buy Jump Ultimate Stars from playasia.com because it is a good game and has all of my favorite animes in it!!! I am fluent in japanese so there is no language barrier for me!!

oh boy it has finally arrived oh WELP MY AMERICAN DS WON'T ACCEPT THIS NIPPONESE CARTRIDGE I JUST LOST FIFTY BUCKS


i wonder WHY does region lock STILL EXIST. It serves zero purpose, specially in such a globalized world. Zero. It's only there just to alienate gamers who want to play some good games that don't get american/european versions or whatever because they're not popular enough or wouldn't "appeal to those audiences". Either that or to incentive players to pirate their fucking consoles.

I'm gonna go ahead and say this: even if it doesn't have a purpose, I'd rather buy a game in my own country then waste the time and money to import something here.

Simple as that. As much of a pain as it is it have it, It would probably be even more useless to get a game from another country for several reasons. You'd most likely end up wasting time to learn another language, or wasting more money because of import taxes, etc.

Also I think that you're forgetting that every audience has a different taste. If you think about it as a publisher you have to understand that you have to be sure people will take an interest in that said game before you import it. Hell I'm pretty sure the Big N didn't bother to release the tingle game because they feared no one would like it. Plus there's a little more to selling a game then trying to get cash or come up with excuses to "stop" piracy.

I dunno if you wrote this thinking of just you, but you seem to just ignore or assume a lot of stuff up:

Because Jump Ultimate Stars and many other DS games are all available on the US or even on other countries.

Because every country has games at reasonable prices that would make buying games in another country be a waste of money.

Because every person only knows one language ever and if they try to learn another one it's just to play a game that is not available for his/her own country.

And your third paragraph doesn't even make sense. I wasn't saying that there is no reason why certain companies wouldn't release games in certain regions at all.

Unless buying from another country gives a loss more significant than people pirating their consoles, I really don't see why region locks should exist.


edit: nvm, tak already cleared this up