Monday 18 September 2006
Nintendo has confirmed that Wii won't be region-free, despite hints from Nintendo of America earlier this year. "Wii will be region encoded, as will first-party software", says Ninty, meaning UK systems won't play US or Japanese games, ending the hopes of impatient importers wanting to take advantage of the US Wii's cheaper price and earlier launch date.
With Nintendo's success with DS we hoped Wii would follow in the handheld's region-free footsteps. After all, the ability to import consoles hasn't hurt the sales of DS - six million of the double-screened gadgets have been shifted in Europe alone, utterly trouncing the poorly performing PSP. However, it looks like us UK gamers will just have to take the mucky end of the stick once again, waiting longer and paying more than the US and Japan.
