Gaming Everyone wants the 3ds to be region free

[The Catboy]

I honestly don't care about region locks. I never import and the only time I do is for collecting reasons and thus they aren't for play.
I can see why others want it, which is why I would never vote against removing it, but if they don't remove it, it really doesn't effect me personally.

 

[PercentSevenC]

Honestly, I would have no use for a Gateway if the 3DS were region-free. I would gladly buy all my imported Japanese games, I only balk at having to spend an additional >$200 for Japanese console when the one I have is the exact same hardware and works perfectly well. All the reasons Nintendo gives to justify the region lock are flimsy at best, and just make them look silly when everyone else is giving up on region locks.

And yeah, in the past Japanese games were expensive compared to the US, but that's not really the case anymore.

 

[tbgtbg]

Region free is only the first step. To really make it useful you need to be able to run patched roms, so then you can get fan translations. At least for my needs anyway. If they put out something like a new Fire Pro, that I'd play translated or not (but still prefer a patch).

 

[Kazekai]

Not for everything though. If it was, I'm sure weird Japanese sexual games would make it to the states more often. Least sensitive about violence, I can see that though.

Unfortunately yeah. Americans are prudes about sex but violence isn't considered offensive which is stupid. We have the worst double-standards about that kind of thing. And it isn't like there's no market for weird Japanese sex games, although a lot of them are arcade games and those aren't as popular here.

 

[Skelletonike]

Unfortunately yeah. Americans are prudes about sex but violence isn't considered offensive which is stupid. We have the worst double-standards about that kind of thing. And it isn't like there's no market for weird Japanese sex games, although a lot of them are arcade games and those aren't as popular here.

It's not just because of that though, for example, I love the the Love Plus games, they're also a pretty popular dating sim in Japan, however in Europe and the US a dating sim would be considered a game for losers that 'can't get laid', when it couldn't be any further from the truth (well, in some cases). z.z

 

[GHANMI]

It's not just because of that though, for example, I love the the Love Plus games, they're also a pretty popular dating sim in Japan, however in Europe and the US a dating sim would be considered a game for losers that 'can't get laid', when it couldn't be any further from the truth (well, in some cases). z.z

I heard Konami did make a westernized dating sim around 2007 in English to test the waters for a potential Love Plus / Tokimeki Memorial export, just when Chunsoft was experimenting with the visual novel genre in the West with Lux-Pain. However it seems they didn't see it profitable enough and... the rest is history.
Anime games, when they are exported at all, tend to perform better in Europe than in the US, so...
Namco licensed games, SRW, and most puzzle games tend to not be exported at all.

 

[Skelletonike]

I heard Konami did make a westernized dating sim around 2007 in English to test the waters for a potential Love Plus / Tokimeki Memorial export, just when Chunsoft was experimenting with the visual novel genre in the West with Lux-Pain. However it seems they didn't see it profitable enough and... the rest is history.
Anime games, when they are exported at all, tend to perform better in Europe than in the US, so...
Namco licensed games, SRW, and most puzzle games tend to not be exported at all.

Well, I remember playing a western dating sim, which didn't feel like a dating sim at all. z.z
Lux-Pain is a great game, I have the game and I love it, but the localisation was a disgrace to the game, some stuff don't even make sense on the localisation.

As for anime games, most of them have been released in Europe (for games like One Piece and the like), so I'm content with it, especially since it's been confirmed One Piece Romance Dawn will be localised in a few months. <3
Usually it's the other way around, take Atlus for example, they seem to have a thing against Europe, so Bandai might do the same with some titles in the US (which shouldn't stop companies like XSeed, Nisamerica and the like to bring the game themselves to the states).

Lastly, SRW games are a different thing, they can't be localised due to the messed up licensing, although they could very well bring the OG games, but even so the market would be too little for their taste. xP

 

[GHANMI]

A lot of anime games didn't make the jump, even though are good in their own merits
Some are being developed by IntiCrates, good platformers like Don Bita, Doraemon DS, Gon 3DS.
For the PSP you have the HxH 2011 and FMA:B by former Capcom staff, which are good...
Konami also did a good job with Fairy Tail and Death Note
All anime cross-overs (minus Tatsunoko vs Capcom) don't get exported at all
Some failed "multimedia projects" don't get their respective game overseas, or cause its overseas release to be delayed indefinitely, even though they are actually decent, like Gyrozetter, Hero Bank, Gaist Crusher, Danball Senki (for now)

Of course no visual novels on consoles gets localized, and 90% of them on handhelds don't even get any small degree of attention (hello Time Travelers)...
And there was even a game controlled with speech by Capcom, but that's Japan-only of course.

It's sad to see that this reality is what's justifying resorting to modding to get to enjoy these games at all.

 

[Skelletonike]

A lot of anime games didn't make the jump, even though are good in their own merits
Some are being developed by IntiCrates, good platformers like Don Bita, Doraemon DS, Gon 3DS.
For the PSP you have the HxH 2011 and FMA:B by former Capcom staff, which are good...
Konami also did a good job with Fairy Tail and Death Note
All anime cross-overs (minus Tatsunoko vs Capcom) don't get exported at all
Some failed "multimedia projects" don't get their respective game overseas, or cause its overseas release to be delayed indefinitely, even though they are actually decent, like Gyrozetter, Hero Bank, Gaist Crusher, Danball Senki (for now)

Of course no visual novels on consoles gets localized, and 90% of them on handhelds don't even get any small degree of attention (hello Time Travelers)...
And there was even a game controlled with speech by Capcom, but that's Japan-only of course.

It's sad to see that this reality is what's justifying resorting to modding to get to enjoy these games at all.

Most of those tittles you mentioned aren't very popular over here, also, a lot of the games that were released after 2011 on the PSP didn't get localised because it wouldn't make sense for them to bring games to a 'dead' system, the reason why the original Romance Dawn and Digimon ReDigitize weren't brought to the west.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Whenever a game is released earlier in USA or not at all in Europe, I wish the 3DS was region free.
Other than that, it's not a huge deal for me to not be able to play games that are in Japanese, the exception to this is when Pokemon games are released half a year sooner in JP.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Whenever a game is released earlier in USA or not at all in Europe, I wish the 3DS was region free.
Other than that, it's not a huge deal for me to not be able to play games that are in Japanese, the exception to this is when Pokemon games are released half a year sooner in JP.

I'm ok if i need to wait a lil bit but a no release is not good at all.
I'm still waiting for Rune Factory 4 and there's still no release date for it,at least the preorder on HMANB is good so i hope we get RF4 soon.
And one of the reasons that i got 3DS is Rune Factory 4 and region lock sucks cause i want to try games like Hatsune Miku Mirai 2 and i want that Bamco releases Digimon Re Digitize.
Ohh and the other reason why i hate region lock is the price, Europeans and Australian gamers have the most expensive games(45 Euro for Pokemon X)

 

[Skelletonike]

I'm ok if i need to wait a lil bit but a no release is not good at all.
I'm still waiting for Rune Factory 4 and there's still no release date for it,at least the preorder on HMANB is good so i hope we get RF4 soon.
And one of the reasons that i got 3DS is Rune Factory 4 and region lock sucks cause i want to try games like Hatsune Miku Mirai 2 and i want that Bamco releases Digimon Re Digitize.
Ohh and the other reason why i hate region lock is the price, Europeans and Australian gamers have the most expensive games(45 Euro for Pokemon X)

Zen United confirmed earlier today that Rune Factory 4 will be released in Europe, the game hasn't even been released on the US yet.

 

[Kazekai]

Zen United confirmed earlier today that Rune Factory 4 will be released in Europe, the game hasn't even been released on the US yet.

I hope we still get it.

Really sucks that visual novels don't do well over here, I blame the local industry in the US. I think, personally, America makes the lowest quality games outside indie games and a few other exceptions, but I guess a lot of why games from Japan don't get ported over here such as visual novel games (which I would love to play on handhelds) is because for some strange reason, reading is incredibly niche and being sucked into a story is considered girly (in a bad way) or something, at least that's the impression I always get when I make the horrible mistake of engaging any large number of "gamers" on a mainstream news site's comments. :V

One thing about region-free stuff though: I would still probably pirate games from other regions even if their system is region-free because of my experience with the DS. Even though it's region-free, finding cheap games only available in Europe and Japan is impossible. I'm not paying $40 for The Last Window just because some ponce didn't release it in my country (even though we got Hotel Dusk for some strange reason which was the prequel.) You can call me a cheap jerk for this, but I'm not made of money. I supply my gaming habit on Steam sales and waiting for price-drops, unless I really want the game in which case I set money aside for it months before it releases. I'm not paying full-price for a damn import that's been released for years and is on a dead system just like I'm not paying $180 for Skies of Arcadia just because some tosser thinks it's classic enough to sell for that. That's absurd.

But I guess that's the fault of dumb people and not really a problem with official channels.

Also, I'm not sure about this, but maybe the reason Atlus ports a lot of things to the US and not Europe is because we are primarily English-speakers and translating to two or three languages is a lot easier than 15-20.

 

[omgpwn666]

Region locking doesn't affect me.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Zen United confirmed earlier today that Rune Factory 4 will be released in Europe, the game hasn't even been released on the US yet.

Dude...... if you just knew...... *tears*

U made my day!!!!!

 

[The Milkman]

I dont.

 

[Ericthegreat]

Jump Ultimate stars was worth it. Believe it or not I actually imported it and played it on the DS. (Was before I had a flash cart.)

 

[Skelletonike]

I hope we still get it.

Also, I'm not sure about this, but maybe the reason Atlus ports a lot of things to the US and not Europe is because we are primarily English-speakers and translating to two or three languages is a lot easier than 15-20.

That's not the reason, since lots of games get localised over here only in English, people in European countries, can for the most part read English, look at Pokemon and most Nintendo games, for the most part Pokemon and Zelda games don't get translated in that many languages, and it still sells tons in non-speaking countries.

 

[Kazekai]

That's not the reason, since lots of games get localised over here only in English, people in European countries, can for the most part read English, look at Pokemon and most Nintendo games, for the most part Pokemon and Zelda games don't get translated in that many languages, and it still sells tons in non-speaking countries.

I know that English is widely-spoken, but I didn't know big-deal games like Zelda didn't translate to local languages. I guess it saves on money.

Maybe it has something to do with each country having different cultures and therefore different things they find offensive and going through all those approval processes is an expensive headache. I'm just basing that off what a couple people have told me though. I used to think America was irrationally prudish and sensitive until I learned a tiny bit about the UK.

 

[Skelletonike]

I know that English is widely-spoken, but I didn't know big-deal games like Zelda didn't translate to local languages. I guess it saves on money.

Maybe it has something to do with each country having different cultures and therefore different things they find offensive and going through all those approval processes is an expensive headache. I'm just basing that off what a couple people have told me though. I used to think America was irrationally prudish and sensitive until I learned a tiny bit about the UK.

In terms of content, the majority of the European countries are pretty liberal about it, there are more conservative countries like the UK and maybe Germany (can't recall for sure), you speak from what you hear about Europe and I speak from what I head about the US, for example, gay marriage and games/books with content that might offend the Church or other religions, are often more criticized in the US or simply made a bigger deal out of it than what it is.

Also, I think I read something about some states in the US being more restrict than others, it's just like different countries having different content restrictions. xP