Region Lock and USB Storage Details

By Shawn White / Thursday, 14 September 2006

Speaking with Wired news, Nintendo of America's Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications Perrin Kaplan confirmed first-party Wii titles will be region-free. For third-party games, region locking will depend on the desires of individual publishers. Traditionally, Nintendo home consoles have not been region-free, with Wii (and before it, DS) marking a departure from the norm. Kaplan did not state how Nintendo's region-free policy will affect Nintendo GameCube titles (such as those imported), which are supposedly fully compatible with Wii. Kaplan also touched briefly on Virtual Console, saying that all downloaded games are tied to a user's individual account, and in the case of sever damage to one's system, all purchased Virtual Console titles should still be playable on a new machine. Finally, on the topic of Wii's compatability with USB harddrives, Kaplan noted data storage would initially be limited to flash memory. While she admitted Nintendo could conceivably produce a compatible USB harddrive for Wii, the company has no plans at the moment. Whether or not players will be able to utilize personal USB harddrives is unknown at this time. The Wiire will have more Wii goodness as it's provided.