View source for Editorial: Why Nintendo needs to go region free

{{Article|
type=editorial |
picture=End region locking.png |
caption=Joshawott explains why region free is a good idea |
weekday=Saturday |
day=13 |
month=7 |
year=2013 |
time=12:07:45 |
discusstype=bmgf |
discusslink=153231 |
sourcetype=exclusive |
sourcename=Joshawott |
sourcelink= |
user=Ryu Shoji |
userlink=User:Ryu Shoji |
tagline=Over 22,000 people support petition to persuade Nintendo to region free |
blurb=Video Game Forum Section Head Joshawott explains why he believes in a region free gaming future, which led to him starting the petition for the End Region Locking campaign. }}
{{CategorizeIn|Nintendo|7|13}}

Historically, Nintendo have implemented region locking practices into every home console they have ever produced, meaning that consoles can only play games from the same region. This practice however, was absent from Nintendo's handheld consoles until the release of the Nintendo DSi and has continued to the Nintendo 3DS.

Last month, Microsoft [http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update confirmed] that they were removing the controversial {{wp|Digital rights management|DRM}} policies that had plagued the {{wp|Xbox One}} console since its announcement, including the region locking. This, coupled with Sony previously revealing that their upcoming {{wp|PlayStation 4}} lacks any region locking, has left Nintendo as the only one of the "big three" with a region locked console. This led to a campaign being started to persuade Nintendo to drop these practices on the {{bp|Nintendo 3DS|3DS}} and {{bp|Wii U}}, which I made the official petition for. The petition has since been featured on gaming sites across the world and has attracted over 22,000 supporters (at time of writing)—which is equal to over half the population of {{wp|Liechtenstein}}!