Is the Nintendo 3DS region locked?

14 January 2011

Posted by:Josh

Nintendo 3DS is region-locked
Wondering if the 3DS is region-free? Wonder no more!

Sadly, it looks like the Nintendo 3DS will NOT be region-free, but instead it will be region-locked, meaning you will not be able to play games from other countries that have a different “region number” than your country does.

Although this hasn’t been confirmed for 3DS systems in the West, it was confirmed in an e-mail from Nintendo of Japan’s costumer support, which (translated by NeoGAF user farnham) read:

“The Region Codes are installed in each game and the 3DS itself. If the codes don’t match, you can’t play.”

So this means that American gamers cannot import games from Japan and play it on their system or whatnot. A bummer for importers for sure. However this isn’t a total surprise, as both the DSi and DSi XL were also region-locked.

Categories: News, PC News, Videos

Fahd

I do import games sometimes but most the time I don’t really need to because in the Middle East they import US games to Middle East but for Europeans region the Middle East are the same region games as the Europe mostly Middle East countries are EU region. but my favorite is EU region.
http://www.videogamesblogger.com Josh

@ Fahd: Glad to hear that it doesn’t look like it will negatively impact you then Fahd! I still wish Nintendo would leave the 3DS region free, but oh well.