Wii U Still Has Region Locking

[Zombie_Moogle]

Vitriol aside, I've never understood region locking
If someone wants to by your product, why stop them?

Region locking is there to stop consumers buying games from other regions where the games are priced cheaper, and so means profit margins for the company are higher as they can charge higher in certain regions like Australia without the risk of gamers importing to save money.

That makes sense in theory, but a few logical questions come to mind:

1) Anyone with a business will tell you that a 1% profit is still better than 0%, so if someone wants to buy it, it doesn't make much sense to stop them

2) This would only apply to games that have been released in all regions. If someone wants a game from another region that wasn't released where they live, why wouldn't a company want to sell it to them? It took an unbelievable amount of bitching & moaning for Nintendo to allow american Wii owners the privilege of playing The Last Story. Why?

3) Considering price inflation & exchange rate differences from country to country, are games cheaper in other countries?

 

[Weaver]

It's mainly a Japanese thing. I don't know if you guys are aware, but games are fucking expensive in Japan. They, at a base, pay about Australian prices for games. Think 110-150 USD for a single game.

What happens, then, is if a game releases in NA and has language options (or they know English), the cost of ordering t from NA and shipping it is less than buying it new in Japan. Region locks prevent this. The same thing was happening with Anime recently.

Anime fans like Japanese language options, but unlike the Japanese, refuse to pay $400 for a 12 episode TV show, so people in Japan were importing it from the US for a fraction of the cost. This is why shows come out like 2 years later here now.

 

[Olrod]

What exactly does Nintendo expect to happen when somebody wants a game that they just wont sell in their region?

PIRACY.

That's what happens. Don't go whining that pirates are doing their thing when you just wont LET them play the games they want, legally.