Any one know if the DS is region free like the all the GameBoy's?
cos I live in England :mellow: and would love a DS for christmas. we dont get it till spring 2005.

I don't believe it has been confirmed to be either region-free or region-locked, so for now no one knows.

What would really affect Nintendo's descision? The GBA is region free and aside from a very small amount of importing their sales havn't been affected at all. Region coding is only really used to delay release dates and things (can you believe Australia doesn't get the LotR trilogy pack until August!).

Oh I hope there's no regional lockout. I've always enjoyed going and buying games overseas :D

Whilst this is true, since the release of the GBA, Nintendo of Europe at least has developed an anti-importing stance, so I wouldn't be suprised if their was a region lock on the DS.

With Nintendo's crackdown on imports for the GameCube (notably a lock to lock the Freeloader, and the law suits that followed shops selling imports) I wouldn't be surprised if the DS was region locked. With the DS being on a par with consoles in terms of gameplay (hopefully), it doesn't look good.

Yikes a region lockout on the DS that would be bad, the SP isnt locked out so I dont see why the DS should be locked out either.

I imagine, although this is all speculation, that Nintendo are going to market the DS as more of a third generation console than they did the SP. It would also have damaged the company to region lock the SP when the original GBA wasn't, before the crackdown in imports.

I just found this FAQ on Liksang:

Will the DS be region-free ? (US-JPN games working on EU console)

"I think nintendo will do the same with the DS, like GBA is region free, they will make the DS region free. And I have read that Nintendo has confirmed the free region. )"

Looks promising so far.

(Nintendo DS FAQs)
http://www.lik-sang.com/faq.php?browse=1&p...52&#answer10568

Liksang is not a credible news source... of course they're going to say it'll likely be region-free. They're an import business after all...

heh, look at the third FAQ on lik-sang's site



Wow, I didn't know the DS could play GC disks!

i never knew DS played discs at all! And it does say it wont be able to play GC discs

It can't play GS discs, just discs of a similar size.

They're not even disks people. They're cartridges, only extremely thin ones.

(IMG:http://pocketmedia.ign.com/pocket/image/article/517/517932/sexy-hands-on-nintendo-ds-images-.jpg)

This post has been edited by Sim on Jun 21 2004, 08:14 AM

I'm as good at speculation as the next person, so I'll say sure, I think it'll be region free! You can quote me on that. :D

Well I guess I quoted you, lol :lol:, does any one know if there will be a charger for the ds, like the sp, Ithink there will, but I just wanna' make sure.

Of course there will be, otherwise we won't be able to charge it ^^;;

If it takes disposable batteries you wouldn't have to recharge it, now would you?

Battery & Power Management: The battery is rechargeable and the unit features a low-energy-consumption design. The DS also has Power Management functions of Sleep mode and Standby mode. In Sleep mode, players can stop and resume game play whenever they like. If the user receives a message from a friend or user nearby, DS activates itself from Standby mode.

© Nintendo

Getting back to disposable batteries would be like making a step backwards, IMO :o