Nintendo talks region-free Wii

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[Wii] Could the new console follow the DS setup?

Thursday 27 July 2006
Nintendo is considering the option of making Wii region-free and therefore allowing Japanese and US versions of Wii games to play on UK consoles.

Nintendo will "share a lot of ways people can play globally, regionally, without boundaries," Perrin Kaplan, vice president of marketing and corporate communications at Nintendo of America, revealed in an online interview, when quizzed about the possibility of a region-free console.

She also admitted that Nintendo could learn a lot from the success of the region-free DS, saying that it showed them what works in the marketplace and then said that Nintendo "intends to keep [its] fans satisfied".

While the answers were intentionally vague, it's interesting that the notion was not dismissed out of hand.

It must be noted that Nintendo handhelds Game Boy and Game Boy Advance were both region-free, while the Nintendo consoles that were out at the same time were not; so the fact that DS is region-free isn't the sign of a new trend. But it does seem that Nintendo is registering that a region-free format can make for a more successful format.