If this is true then Nintendo just lost themselves a customer. I was willing to forgive the fact it had poor asthetics comapred to DSLite/DSi/DSi XL, that it was more expensive (both hardware and software), that the touchscreen had been unessacarily shrunk from DSi and that even in 2011 they still don't have several GB of flash memory and even that the battery life made it borderline unusable. But this is one thing to many. There are countless games that do not get released in Europe, or have to wait anything from 6 months to several years. If this turns out to be true then that's 1 less 3DS sale and one less Nintendo customer for good.

Disappointing, but not unexpected.

Will suck though in that if 3DS releases in late March, i'll buy it and take the thing straight off to Japan with me

:/

Well, it's not like we've been getting positive 3DS news lately, so it's not that surprising for me.

I never had any problems because of region locking... what is the big deal? Some games with japanese language can't be played? Then again, I don't get why there should be a region lock either. :P

My theory is that it's for better tracking of games on a marketing stand point. Japanese games stay in Japan somewhere along those lines. Meaning they are closer to accurate in determining their market share.

But what about games which were released in English, just not in Europe?

The likes of Tales of the Abyss, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Tactics Ogre, Earthbound, Dragon Quest/Warrior VII all spring to mind.  Being region free would make importing so much cheaper and convenient, but it wouldn't be a problem if all games get released everywhere.

This sucks.

Easy to say when you live in Canada so you can get anything that was released in english anyway.

I don't support nintendo in this. One of the things that awed me the most about PS3 was its complete region-free system. Xbox 360 is semi region locked, so its OK, nintendo wii is completely region locked.

I intended on buying many games for it in Canada!!! There goes some lack of purpose of going to downtown Toronto!