Comment on [deleted]
NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I suspect the region locking will disappear again.
Trump’s tariffs and favoritism to Japanese buyers I think were the two reasons motivating the change in the first instance.
While the second reason will exist and remain important as long as supplies of semiconductors are constrained by the AI bubble, the first reason was invalidated, struck down by the US Supreme Court. There are cost and efficiency benefits for Nintendo only retaining one SKU, so I think there’s pressure to revert to region-free.
BreakerSwitch@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Bro they make an entirely different model in Europe so the batteries can be less replaceable everywhere else. Nintendo has supported region locking for ages and it can be done on a software level without a new SKU. I don’t see any reason they’d be doing away with it.
NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Thanks for explaining your disagreement in words. (Less thankful for the downvote, I guess.)
Region-locking is not just about implementing a lock. It’s about maintaining separate product lines worldwide when otherwise they don’t need to. That creates real-world costs alone, but the other cost is the uncertainty whether projected sales and supply will meet. That means that if a game or region-locked system sells well in one market and not in another, they can’t repurpose those unsold units either at all or without more expensive re-packaging (if even possible).
Every industry tends to remove artificial market constraints when they can. Car manufacturers can’t easily re-sell units across borders because of differing regulations and hardware requirements, but within the US, they will typically target only the most restrictive jurisdiction (e.g., California) and make all cars meet those standards.
For that reason, don’t be surprised if modifications to the EU SKU to replace the battery filter down to other SKUs.