The Nintendo Wii U will be region locked

While this is sad news, it’s not at all surprising.  Nintendo UK has confirmed with Eurogamer that the Nintendo Wii U will in fact be region locked.  Region locking is programming on a device to prevent you from playing media designed for another country.  For example, a Wii U created specifically for the United States won’t be able to play games that were created specifically for Japan.  This is fairly common for video games, DVDs, and Blu-rays.

For you Wii U players, this basically means we aren’t going to be able to play those wacky Japanese games they don’t get ported to the US.  While the Wii U being region locked didn’t strike me as a surprise, I’ll admit, there was still part of me that hoped it wouldn’t be.

Oh well.

[Eurogamer]