Nintendo NX May End Region Locking, But Won't Be At E3

During an Investor Q&A, (translated by NeoGAF) Nintendo revealed that they are seriously considering removing region locking for their next console, known currently as the Nintendo NX.

Region locking is a huge frustration for Nintendo fans, with only one recent example being the unavailability of the regular-sized New Nintendo 3DS and all its faceplates in North America, with importing not being an option unless you want to buy all your games from Europe. This is also frustrating for people who travel, people who want to purchase games not available in their region, or those who want games at their initial release without having to wait for localization (come on, Xenoblade Chronicles X and Bravely Second!). Iwata stated that they were aware of these frustrations, but were unable to do anything about removing region locking on current game systems.

"Removing region-locking from current game machines presents various issues, so we don’t consider that to be very realistic. However, regarding NX, given the customer feedback and proposals from the market, while nothing has been decided yet, we’re currently investigating internally what problems there would be in realizing it. You can think of that as the current situation. I understand your desire, so I’d like to look at it optimistically going forward."

While it’s not a direct confirmation of the removal of region locking, it demonstrates that they’re aware of the problem, and we can probably anticipate that they’ll remove it as they try to stay competitive with the other major consoles moving into the next gen.

If you were looking for any other news about the NX coming soon, though, you’re out of luck. From Kotaku‘s translation of the same Q&A, neither the NX nor Nintendo’s promised mobile games will be present at E3 this year. From Iwata again:

"Incidentally, we’re getting various questions for this year’s E3, like ‘Won’t there be a NX announcement?’, ‘Will there be a presentation on smart devices?’, or ‘Will there be more on the quality of life platform?’ However, since we understand that E3 is an event for dedicated video game machines, we do not intend to discuss the smart devices as well as quality of life."

He also stated earlier in the Q&A that they would not be talking about the NX until 2016. This may be bad news if you were really looking forward to these announcements, but for Nintendo, this is great. It means their E3 presentation will focus purely on games. We’re still anticipating Star Fox this year, and Xenoblade Chronicles X for the west, but Nintendo hopefully has more up their sleeves that we haven’t heard about yet. With the Wii U releasing much earlier than its competitors and not doing nearly as well, Nintendo can feel free to take their time with the next generation.

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Nintendo NX May End Region Locking, But Won’t Be At E3

By Rebekah Valentine | May 11, 2015

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