Iwata responds to region locking questions

[MDMAlliance]

Teeqoz said:

MDMAlliance said:

Teeqoz said:

HylianSwordsman said:

Again, what is his reasoning then? Just random acts of stupidity and/or evil? Clearly they took a risk with the DS, thought they could do even better financially with region locking the 3DS, and now they see the difference and are considering going back. This is an investor Q&A, after all. It's all about the financial motivations. Saying that he's lying about region locking for financial reasons in an investor meeting is pointless. It's not crap, you just don't like region locking. But then you don't like Nintendo either, so it's not like you really care, you just want an excuse to call Nintendo evil/stupid. It doesn't matter why they didn't care with the DS, what matters is that they decided they did care, and between it being financially motivated to benefit the seller, the obvious reason for all region locking (unless you think it benefits the buyer?), and being a random act with no reasoning behind it, I'm inclined to believe it's financially motivated to benefit the seller, because that makes more sense than acting randomly. It's a basic principle of economics, that people and corporations do what they think is in their best interest at the time. So saying that because they made one decision at one time and a different decision later means the later decision is crap is illogical. The simpler, more logical conclusion is that they changed their minds about that policy based on new reasoning about what would be in their best interest. Now they gave their reasons for it, and I really don't know what more you want from them. I wish it wasn't region locked either, but that doesn't mean I'm going to claim they're lying about their reasons for region locking when they fully admit the financial motivations behind the decision.

From where do you base your claim that I don't like Nintendo? Do you think I have anything against them? Based on what?

Of course they took a risk with the 3DS making it region-locked, and yes it was a stupid decision. Both the DS and the GBA were region free. So was the PSP (except for the PSP's UMDs, but the games were region free.) and then they got a bad idea about region-locking possibly making them money.

 

The first four and a half lines of the answer are pure bullshit. The only thing that isn't is that it's for the sellers sake and not the customer. And ofcourse you choose to look at the only thing that isn't crap instead of the statement as a whole, which is crap.

Like most people who say something is a stupid decision, it's stupid because you don't like it.  I know that's your reasoning because you don't even explain why it's stupid beyond "X and Y is region free" and "I don't like the reasons they gave."  

Pretty much every system has a form of region lock on it, whether they leave it up to the publisher, put it on the hardware, or put it on the software.  The motivation for keeping more strict forms of region lock have a lot to do with how people work around it and how some people abuse the system.  Region lock sounds like a dumb idea until you find out that there are actual legal reasons why it's put into place.  Nintendo doesn't WANT to region lock systems for the sake of region locking them.  Like every other company, Nintendo is interested in making profits.  Given what happened with the DS with flashcarts, I imagine that has a good bit to do with their reversion to their strict region lock.  

How the f*** can you know my reasoning? It's not just that I don't like the decision. I'm saying it was a stupid decision based on what we know now. I might not have said that 4 years ago, but based on what we know now it was not smart.

 

Their reasons for why (besides the general "it's for the sellers"):

1) localization takes a long time. 

Exactly, which is why you shouldn't force people to wait potentially several years to play a game if their okay with playing it in Japanese (or whatever). This might even cost sales, because in the period beetween release and localization all hype might be dead.

2) Marketing deals.

Marketing deals existed during DS era as well, and it both MS and Sony can have regionspecific marketing deals, yet somehow they can have region-free consoles. That proves that it's not a legal problem.

3) "All kinds of circumstances"

Those circumstances are also present with their competetion, and were also present during the DS/PSP era. Again, if their competetion can bypass those circumstances, why can't Nintendo?

 

You know my reasoning? Please, don't be such an arrogant a****** and think that you know what others think.

 

So your reasoning is more like you don't even understand the issues, then?  Fueled by your not liking it.  
The reasons he gave were parts of the reasons why it's because of the sellers side.  If you reread the translation there, it's pretty clear that a long localization process is part of the reason why it's not good for the sellers.  It's a small part of the reason, but it is a reason nonetheless (some games are impacted more than others on this).  

And also, your example of Sony and Microsoft with region-free consoles is lacking.  They still have forms of region lock, it's just not tied to their consoles.  Nintendo is giving the reason why things have to be region locked in the first place, not why they decided to lock the console itself.

The final point on there does apply to all competition, but it really comes down to each individual companies weighing of benefits and costs.  Nintendo was heading that direction with the DS, but I'm sure you should know by now that a lot of hacking of the system went down, and a lot of pirating and in general the flashcarts caused problems as well.  Nintendo decided that the region free model didn't help, and that the benefits did not outweigh the costs in the particular instance.  

The fact you read it the way you did still tells me your reasoning is based off of you not liking it.  Especially the way you worded the portion about localization.  It is correct that doing what the consumer likes is sometimes a good way to improve business, but the consumer can also be unreasonable.

And the fact you use the word "stupid" also shows your reasoning.  You may have other reasons, but the sole driver for it is still that you simply don't like it.  Saying certain systems are region free and that's why it makes no sense shows that you don't know how these things work.