Wii will not impose regional restrictions - Nintendo
Nintendo will not impose regional restrictions on game software for its Wii hardware platform, the company said yesterday.
Instead it may leave the decision up to third party publishers, according to Wired News' Joel Johnson, who spoke to Nintendo vice president of marketing Perrin Kaplan during yesterday's showcase event in New York.
That situation is comparable in some ways to that of the Xbox 360, where some games are region free but others are not, and gamers are generally left to find out for themselves whether an import is viable.
However Nintendo also admitted yesterday that it had ruled out the idea of including DVD playback functionality, contradicting earlier announcements.
"Because the price of DVD players has dropped so much and they have become so commonplace, Nintendo saw no need to create extra hardware options that would drive up the cost for consumers," a representative for the company told GameSpot.
Previously Nintendo had said it would release an attachment for the Wii console that enabled DVD playback.
Games on the system will be sold on single- or double-layered 12-centimetre optical discs, while it will also be compatible with 8-centimetre GameCube discs.
