No, I'm not talking about this:
.
There has been a new development in the world of Wii, so I thought i'd touch upon an oft speculated subject.....Piracy on consoles and Region Coding (da da daaaaaaaaaaah).
Region Coding, What, Why and How?
The roots of region coding started on Video Games consoles as a kind of "extension" of the idea that different regions in the world have different standards on their Telly screens (it obviously wasn't classed as such then).
So consoles which would use the European PAL and SECAM formats would go to the EU. Their video outputs were slaved to 50Hz interlaced 576 lines.
Consoles in Japan used NTSC......as did American consoles with NTSC using 60Hz interlaced 480 lines.
Along with the idea of "focusing" various region's consoles to their specific video settings/requirements came the idea that this meant that companies could also limit / determine content that would appear on those region's consoles.
So what was developed for Japan, would now not necessarily get released in the US or UK.
US releases would usually (early on in console history this would be "almost always") be released MUCH earlier in North America than in Europe.
Now the excuse was that, along with streamlining the console to display for specific regions (and thus reduce the cost otherwise associated with having to cram ALL the different video codecs/chips in there), games could be translated correctly and renamed (e.g. Super Mario Bros 3 wasn't called that in Japan). More importantly,
content could be modified too.
So even though a game may be the same as one from a different region, there was no guarantee it would be
identical.
So this is all in the past.....what about now?
Well, the advent of DVD introduced most of the general public to the idea of region coding.
DVD region codes were a "simplified" way of saying "NTSC output, 480i output, for North American markets"........now you just had to say "Region 1".
The problem was, that with the advent of crisp, clear images on DVD, people's demand for a better range of displays sky rocketed. Not only this, but people very quickly circumvented the region coding to allow them to watch earlier US releases.
Why could they do this?....simple, most displays became (in effect) "multi-region".
The oft-cited excuse that region coding was "for our benefit" because otherwise our Tellie's wouldn't display them was no longer valid.
Not only that, but most Games and DVD's that made it to our shores never went through any resemblance of a translation either
.
Notice the recent Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 title for the Wii:
Medal of Hono
Ur: Heroes 2.
Now, I have nothing against different countries' spelling's......but I
do object to using the excuse of "translation" as a reason for delaying games by up to 6 months if, when they do arrive, they haven't been translated
.
So "Translation" is also no longer a valid excuse to delay the release of games to the UK.
The other favourite excuse used by games companies to persist with region coding is that different manufacturing areas incur different costs, so each individual region has a slightly different price.
This is also untrue. With modern manufacturing and shipping processes, it doesn't matter
where a console is made nowadays....they're shipped worldwide. Your 360 may have been made in China....it may have been made in Canada....either way it will be shipped to and sold in Europe.
It's unlikely to have been made in the UK so it's not as if region coding has in any way affected worldwide shipping and manufacturing processes.
Aah, yes (I hear you say), but what about taxes. Well let's take a look at the PS3 (yes, it's region free, but the price disparities apply to the other consoles and it's just to make a point).
Manufactured for $806 initially but sold to the US for $600 initially. Price in the UK should therefore have been £300 (the base US price) with
at most 17.5% VAT added......£353.
Did they do this?....NO! They instead decided to fleece the UK by whacking on a whopping £425 price tag.....that's a massive $850 for what the US was paying $600 for.
Again, I know the PS3 is region free, but only for games (not the blu ray side) and the point I'm trying to make is that we ALWAYS pay over the odds for UK region specific hardware and software (look at the WiiFit pricing schedule)......price hikes that CANNOT be justified by blathering on about "taxes" (a favourite excuse of companies).
......and this provides a clue as to what region coding is REALLY about imo.
It's all about CONTROL.
CONTROL over content.
CONTROL over release dates.
CONTROL over prices.
CONTROL over what the companies deem fit to spoon feed us / exclude from us.
(Now I sound like Morpheus
).
So what about my original point of the "new development"?
The new development is that they've finally done it
CodeJunkies has finally made
Freeloader for the Wii.
What is it? I had one for my US gamecube. It basically allowed me to play UK region games on my GC as well as "native" region 1 games.
Similarly, Freeloader Wii will allow those of us with a PAL Wii to play Wii games from all over the world.....thus negating the need for region coding completely.
I mean, we have already negated the need for different video standards by most of us having screens that will display almost anything.
Plus 480p is a "universal" setting on the Wii in that all Wii's have the option. In future Nintendo consoles, HD will reduce the need even further by being 720p and 1080i/p.......PAL and NTSC will no longer be an issue.
The discs are also made for each region so if you have a PAL Wii, get the PAL Freeloader to make the console "universal" and if you have a US import Wii, get the NTSC Freeloader to make it "universal"....etc etc.
The best thing of all is that Freeloader works by simply telling the drive to ignore the region flag of the disc. The disc still has to be "legitimate" to work.
.....and the tie in with piracy is...?
Well, after seeing all their lame excuses topple by the wayside, companies have one final trump up their sleeve to try and con us into believing that region coding is NOT about control....it's for our own benefit....
...Piracy.
Yes folks, the final excuse they have is that region coding prevents piracy.
Not only would I say that this is utter codswollop, I would go further and say that the truth is diametrically opposed.
Let me put it this way, I know of many many people who have or would like to chip their Wii's.
Believe it or not, the reason is NOT for piracy.....it's for:
- being able to play backups as they don't want their children scratching their precious £40 discs (in the UK, you are allowed to own one backup of any media you physically own - e.g. 1 copy of a CD for use in the car's autochanger etc).
- being able to play games from different regions.
Now yes, there will be people who dabble in piracy (downloading games you do not own - bad!), but this is a minority considering how many Wii's have been sold.
For the people who would have considered a chip, the beauty about Freeloader is that it doesn't need any fiddling with the internals (and thus maintains your warranty) and effectively negates the biggest reason for them wanting to chip in the first place (playing other regions......Freeloader will
not allow you to play pirated games or backups
).
So in actual fact, I firmly believe that the best way to combat piracy (at least as a starter) is to simply scrap region coding. This in itself will reduce the demand for software or hardware that circumvents it (and which can in turn lead down the path to other "abilities" such as piracy).
Summary:
Region coding is indeed nothing to do with piracy in the first place.
The fact that Freeloader will circumvent the region coding but still not allow piracy proves that piracy and region coding are completely separate issues.
To illustrate this, my prediction is that Freeloader will cause a huge dent in sales of Wii chips.......because people are more interested in playing early release US games and Japan only games than in other more nefarious misdeeds.
Of course, when this happens, this will also add weight to my argument that "regions" are actually only about companies desperately trying to hold onto as much control as they can......and fleece us in the process
.
Region Coding and Piracy.
. Foo, what should happen (theoretically in a free market economy) is that as people start to import more, UK distributors will "get the message" and lower prices to more sensible levels accordingly.
