Some people were planning on importing a 3DS from Japan when it launched. That’s probably not a good idea unless they plan on importing all their games as well. Nintendo has just confirmed that the 3DS will be region locked.
It isn’t that big of a deal to most, but to some the option of being able to import 3DS games from Japan or the USA is going to be missed especially when one considers how small the DS market is in South Africa. As a result, we don’t get half of the games that other countries do so importing was really the only option.
Don’t forget that the DSi and the DSi XL are also region locked so this is not a new move on behalf of Nintendo. The original DS and DS Lite, however, were not region locked at all and this meant that local gamers were able to pick and choose what titles they wanted to import. Now with the 3DS being region locked it means is that the options for import locations has been narrowed to one: Europe.
Of course, this is all assuming we’re even going to get the 3DS in South Africa considering how the DSi never made it here officially; we only got the DSi XL and who wanted that version? The 3DS launches in Europe in March; it’ll be interesting to see whether South Africans can expect to see the handheld appear locally at that time as well.
Source: Eurogamer
Last Updated: January 12, 2011
chadwin
January 12, 2011 at 11:33
this is crap why would they do that? south africans to suffer?
uberutang
January 12, 2011 at 12:44
Just haxor it.