Help us end region locking on Nintendo consoles!

Joshawott

Joshawott

Monsieur Monster
AUKN Staff
Hello Everyone!
As you are aware, both Sony and Microsoft's next gaming consoles have moved on from the plague of region locking. This leaves Nintendo as the only company that supports the backwards policy of region locking - both the 3DS and Wii U are region locked. Fans from across the interwebs have joined together in a campaign to help end this ridiculous practice.

I have started a petition which has so far managed to gain over 5,400 signatures. Fans have also taken to the Miiverse on Nintendo's Wii U system and have made the top ranking posts on numerous communities, all posts speaking out against this practice.

To support this campaign, Please sign the petition, tweet to @Nintendo, @NintendoAmerica, @NintendoEurope, @NintendoUK, @NintendoES, and @NintendoFrance with the hashtags #EndRegionLocking and #NintendoRegionFree. Post on their Facebook pages and post in Miiverse! Make your concerns known!
 
Signed! GAF's successful #PS4NoDRM campaign has really got me encouraged that we can do something about this as well! I'll try and upvote posts on Miiverse too.
 
Signed and Tweeted. I don't give a crap about the Wii U at this stage, but the whole region lock thing is the one big block between me and a 3ds.

EDIT: Ironically I just bought the Monster Hunter 3ds XL with Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem Awakening, Kingdom Hearts 3D and a free copy of Mario Bros 2. Hopefully it'll turn up in time to claim Dark Moon/Pokemon for free too.
 
Thanks for the support guys! Just an update - it's now reached a whopping 9,000 signatures!

That's right,
 
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What do Change petitions do? I've never understood how it works so I never sign any of them (except that jokey one about getting FREE! an anime).

R
 
Rui said:
What do Change petitions do? I've never understood how it works so I never sign any of them (except that jokey one about getting FREE! an anime).

R
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Basically, it's a way of people being able to concentrate on one place to show their support for something. That's all it is really - just like going around the street with a pen and paper petition, just with a larger reach due to being online and no annoying neighbours saying "Look, it's 3 in the morning and you're not even dressed, why are you on my lawn?".
 
If memory serves, i think the Timesplitters team where actually using it to try and petition crytek to launch both a HD collection and timesplitters 4 finally after so many years. Not sure how many signatures it got, but they do use it. how effective it's been? hard to say, but they are still getting signatures. They had a set amount to hit to get the HD collection to be consider anyways, not sure how far away they are now.
 
We reached 100,000 signatures today. IGN published an article and asked Nintendo for comment:

"Nintendo declined to comment on the End Region Locking petition."

I might actually mail the signature list to Satoru Iwata...anyone know how much that would cost?
 
It's now received coverage on major sites like IGN. The petition has almost 15,000 signatures now.

Nintendo released a response saying that the reason why Nintendo have region locks is due to parental controls, which is absolute nonsense. They can easily do either of:
1) Make it so that games without a local rating can only be played if the parental control settings on the console allow for games of the highest rating setting in that region.
2) Allow users to set parental control levels for multiple gaming regions, with the rating system of the console’s region taking priority when multiple ratings for a title exist.
3) Introduce a universal internal rating system, like Sony does with its levels that range from 1-11, with the range covering the various worldwide limitations.
 
I'm sorry but this is pointless. There is no way Nintendo is going to just remove region locking since I guess they would only do something like that if their systems were struggling so badly. I don't see any financial reason for Nintendo to do such a thing...plus petitions never work anyway.
 
And yet, the Wii U console is the only console so far to launch with an 18+ rated game. Nintendo have previously said that they also plan to win back hardcore gamers with the Wii U.

It's not just about importing games from Japan (and even then, what about someone who can read Japanese who doesn't want to buy another 3DS just to play a few games?). It's also about games that make it to America but not Europe and vice versa. It's about people who travel a lot wanting the security that a game they buy wherever can work on their system.

Invisible Crane said:
I'm sorry but this is pointless. There is no way Nintendo is going to just remove region locking since I guess they would only do something like that if their systems were struggling so badly. I don't see any financial reason for Nintendo to do such a thing...plus petitions never work anyway.
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*coughWiiUcough*

Also, they never work? Nintendo have proven time and time again that they listen to what fans are saying on Miiverse - we got 60hz Virtual Console games in Europe because people complained on Miiverse, we got a Virtual Console release of Earthbound confirmed because fans took to Miiverse (and yes, Nintendo outright stated that the fans demanding it was the only reason for them).
 
Oh there's no illusion there, the Wii U is definitely doing that bad. It's tracking below Gamecube levels at the moment. I think estimated Wii U games sales in the UK were about 90,000 total for the entire month of May?

I absolutely think it's worth speaking out for region free here. While the petition itself might not directly cause Nintendo to do an about-face, I'd rather speak out and get rebuffed by Nintendo than say nothing and leave things as is. While Nintendo of Europe have stepped it up big time lately, third parties might not do the same thing. We'll still always get situations like Atlus treating Europe like crap, or the whole situation with Operation Rainfall. I think it's important to let companies know what we want, whether we have any chance of changing things or not.
 
Ath said:
Oh there's no illusion there, the Wii U is definitely doing that bad. It's tracking below Gamecube levels at the moment. I think estimated Wii U games sales in the UK were about 90,000 total for the entire month of May?

I absolutely think it's worth speaking out for region free here. While the petition itself might not directly cause Nintendo to do an about-face, I'd rather speak out and get rebuffed by Nintendo than say nothing and leave things as is. While Nintendo of Europe have stepped it up big time lately, third parties might not do the same thing. We'll still always get situations like Atlus treating Europe like crap, or the whole situation with Operation Rainfall. I think it's important to let companies know what we want, whether we have any chance of changing things or not.
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Oh don't get me started on Operation Rainfall. All it was to me was just a bunch of crybaby gamers in the US bitching and moaning over a few games that at the time were not planned for a US release...uh excuse me US market you think you had it bad. What about us UK gamers who missed out on way more than you did
 
Why shouldn't people show a company there's demand for an English version of their products? Besides, if Josh got his way UK gamers would be able to play US games anyway. I don't understand why you're so against this.
 
To put it bluntly: If Nintendo don't change their policy, you wouldn't lose anything. If they do change it, you can gain from it.

Lawrence said:
You actually think the WiiU is doing that bad? You remember that the Xbox and Gamecube had little momentum behind them in the initial twelve months for their release (compared to the PS2).

Besides, Nintendo are still shipping Wii units, it's unlikely that the WiiU will reach the same heights that the Wii did. And keep in mind, the 3DS wasn't exactly selling by the bucket load to begin with either, its only now that there is a wider range of software available, that the system is really coming into its own. If the majority of worthwhile titles aren't going to be out on the WiiU til the end of this year or the start of next, do you think they are expecting to shift units now?
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I absolutely adore the Wii U, but it is struggling and even Nintendo have admitted it. Third party support is practically non-existent, with the only multi-platform games coming out for the system on the same day as other systems being Watch_Dogs, Batman: Arkham Origins and Rayman Legends (which was originally an exclusive). Even Call of Duty: Ghosts is in doubt and is constantly confirmed then unconfirmed.

Nintendo have a strong line-up of first party content between now and Christmas specifically to build up the install base to bring the third party developers back. This Christmas is really make or break for the Wii U. I do hope they can turn it around as I love the console, but it isn't looking great so far.
 
Lawrence said:
To be honest, is COD really that big a deal? I mean, the kind of people who play it are probably not going to buy a WiiU anyway.
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It's a huge seller and it's been whored out on every platform - even the Wii. So not coming to the Wii U would be huge. It's like how you know the Vita is a load of fail when Skylanders isn't coming to it.
 
Lawrence said:
and the consumer gets gypped by the DLC which, really should be on the disk.
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Can I just say how sick and tired I am of people constantly saying it. You do know the fact that not everything made for a game can be made in time right?. Even MP maps?
 
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