At the recent Semi-Annual Financial Results Briefing, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata discussed the company’s thoughts on region-locking their next generation of hardware.

In the Q & A session following the briefing, Iwata was asked by an investor whether or not Nintendo is considering unlocking their hardware. This would allow consumers to play games released in all regions, rather than being restricted to games from the region where the hardware was purchased. A script of the exchange is available on Nintendo of Japan’s website, but only in Japanese. However, NeoGAF user Cheesemeister has provided the following unofficial translation:

Q4: At present, your company’s hardware and games make use of region-locking, by which games purchased in one region cannot be played in another region. Are there any plans to unlock this restriction?

A4: Iwata: The game business has a history of taking a very long time with localization among other things, such as having to deal with various issues of marketing in each particular country, or games that have made use of licensed content that did not apply globally, and had all kinds of circumstances, so to say, that region-locking has existed due to circumstances on the sellers’ side rather than for the sake of the customers. In the history of game consoles, that is the current situation. As for what should be done going forward, if unlocked for the benefit of the customers, there may also be a benefit for us. Conversely, unlocking would require various problems to be solved, so while I can’t say today whether or not we intend to unlock, we realize that it is one thing that we must consider looking to the future.

An official translation from Nintendo is likely in the works; we will update this story when it’s available.

My Opinion:

This is good news, though I think it amounts to little. It’s good to hear that Nintendo is open to the possibility that a region-unlocked console would be good for both Nintendo and its fans. This would open up more potential sales for games that don’t get localized for America or Europe, and consumers wouldn’t have to go to the trouble and expense of buying a second console (or modding their own!) just to play foreign games. Unfortunately, this quote is far from confirmation, and I wouldn’t even say that a reversal of the policy is likely at this point. As much as I hate the practice of region-locking anything, this is probably just Nintendo keeping their options open.

Aaron Dobbe is an Associate Writer at MONG specializing in Nintendo but playing a bit of everything else too. Follow him on Facebook and pester him to get a Twitter.