According to an email from Nintendo’s Japanese support, the Nintendo 3DS is region coded, which means that players cannot play games from different regions on the system. As Nintendo support explains, if one plays a Korean 3DS game on a Japanese 3DS (or vice versa), it won’t work.
This should come as too much of a shock as the Nintendo DSi and the DSi XL have region codes.
While the DS and DS Lite were indeed a heyday for importers, the open nature of the systems made them ripe for piracy.
Kotaku is following up with Nintendo to confirm whether or not the 3DS is actually region locked.
[3DS]「닌텐도 3DS」 국가코드 있습니다. NDS 루리웹 [Ruliweb via NeoGAF][Pic]
zyx
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 9:14 AMIf it’s region locked, then i won’t be buying it. Such a backward decision by Nintendo.
Fenixius
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 11:41 AMBackwards? Nintendo -invented- region locking.
I agree that it is a ridiculous practice, mercenary capitalism at it’s finest, but it’s perfectly in-character for Nintendo.
Powalen
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 9:35 AMI might have to end up buying a 3DS overseas.
This, and the initial lack of games are stopping me from buying one on launch day, as I planned. :/
OniLink99999
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 12:16 PMActually, this is usually how piracy is encouraged in the first place. What’s absolutely terrible about this is that it’s so hard to know which region to buy from. Were there any great DS games that America got that weren’t released in a PAL region? I know that we’ve got screwed over on the Wii quite a few times (the Metroid Prime Trilogy box was crappy and cheap over here, we had to wait something like 8 months to get Super Paper Mario, and most recently the absolutely moronic push back of Kirby’s Epic Yarn), but America has been stuffed around once or twice as well (New Play Control Pikmin 2 was never released there).
HOW DO WE KNOW?!