The LAST Wii game released

[Tempest]

13 years is pretty impressive, that's 2600 numbers.

[+cmart604]

On 6/18/2017 at 4:15 PM, Rev said:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Just-Dance-2018-Nintendo-Wii/55885490

 

Looks like Just Dance 2018 is coming to Wii this October.

 

Who is picking up this winner just to have the last Wii game? ?

Fake news.

[Asaki]

...weird, I figured the bump would be for Shakedown Hawaii (but only in PAL-land, I believe?).

[Mikebloke]

On 6/28/2020 at 9:02 PM, Asaki said:

...weird, I figured the bump would be for Shakedown Hawaii (but only in PAL-land, I believe?).

Yes, this is due to region locking through pal/ntsc standards. Wii u version will play on both though. Still amusing the idea that we'll see another official wii game. 

[Atariboy]

The Wii version also has a NTSC mode so that European players can enjoy it in 60hz mode. Nintendo isn't willing though to lift region locking on the Wii to allow it to be playable in North America.

 

I'm sure that will apply to the Wii U release as well. I'd be shocked if it was region free when no Wii U disc ever before has been. If Nintendo of America wasn't even willing to accommodate them with allowing a print run of a Wii game, it's hard to picture them bending their Wii U standards with what appears likely to be the final Wii U physical release anywhere. 

 

The entire point of the Wii U release is to give North America something since NOA wasn't willing to do a print run on a Wii title. So I doubt any consideration was put into lobbying NOA to lift region locking to allow it to be playable in overseas Wii U consoles when it sounds like it took some convincing and a lot of back & forth just to get them to go along with certifying and printing one final Wii U release. 

Edited July 5, 2020 by Atariboy

[Asaki]

13 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Yes, this is due to region locking through pal/ntsc standards. Wii u version will play on both though. Still amusing the idea that we'll see another official wii game. 

It's not due to region locking, NoA just didn't want to go through the trouble of getting an NA release printed.

Pretty sure WiiU still has region locking, just that they're releasing that version in both regions.

[Atariboy]

I can't find any reference to the Wii U version being slated for release in both regions. The developer/publisher only mentions North America.

 

That said, while I'm inclined to believe that it's a North American exclusive just as the Wii version is a European exclusive, I haven't seen it explicitly said that Europe isn't also going to get a physical version of the Wii U version. 

 

I'm rather skeptical though, if for no other reason that interested buyers can still enjoy the Wii version on their Wii U. But maybe they think that the collector's market which no doubt a huge chunk of their potential customers in 2020, would be willing to double dip on both versions.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Atariboy

[Asaki]

Yeah, I just re-read the article, it actually doesn't mention if the WiiU version is coming to PAL land or not...but I would assume that it is??

 

Quote

Although we've still seen some Wii releases over the past few years, seeing one more wasn't a given. Indeed, despite my best efforts, it just wasn't in cards anymore, at least, not for North America. However, rather than giving up, I decided to reach out to Nintendo of Europe as well, and to my surprise, they said yes, and allowed it to squeeze through before that door closed too. Words truly can't express how appreciative I am, and I can't thank them enough for all the heavy lifting they did on their end to make it a reality. It's meant the world to me, and these Wii discs specifically hold an immense place in my heart.

As incredibly as it all worked out, unfortunately, Wii discs aren't region-free, and I didn't want North American players to be left out. Although I continued talks with NOA, floating around a Plan B, Plan C... Plan Z, sadly, every idea hit a wall. The clock was ticking, and after exhausting all other options, I decided to pivot to the next best thing: the Wii U. After all, the Wii U still supported Wii Remotes, Wii Classic Controllers, and even 4:3! So, I rushed against time to port Shakedown: Hawaii to Wii U as well, and get it through certification before that door could close too. To give it the best chance of getting greenlit under such a tight timeframe, I had to work fast. I needed to present it to Nintendo as close to tied-in-a-bow and ready-to-release as possible... and as soon as possible. Needless to say, it all worked out too. Even with the tight schedule, I couldn't be happier with the final result, and was still able to give it some nice Wii U finishing touches.

I want to thank everyone at Nintendo for all the support, and everyone there who helped make these possible. To the lotcheck teams, thank you, thank you!

[Swami]

10 hours ago, Atariboy said:

I can't find any reference to the Wii U version being slated for release in both regions. The developer/publisher only mentions North America.

 

That said, while I'm inclined to believe that it's a North American exclusive just as the Wii version is a European exclusive, I haven't seen it explicitly said that Europe isn't also going to get a physical version of the Wii U version. 

 

I'm rather skeptical though, if for no other reason that interested buyers can still enjoy the Wii version on their Wii U. But maybe they think that the collector's market which no doubt a huge chunk of their potential customers in 2020, would be willing to double dip on both versions.

The "release" section in Wikipedia says the Wii U version will be released worldwide as give two references if anyone is ambitious enough to read them. Announced a couple weeks ago, I'm curious if the Wii and Wii U versions will be released in 2021. Not sure how reliable the Wii U version will be with the excerpt above focusing on "rushed" to get it out. Hopefully not the E.T. of Wii U games (E.T. had a 1 month deadline while most 2600 games had 4 months. Speilberg wanted a Pac-man clone, LOL.)

[Mikebloke]

13 hours ago, Asaki said:

It's not due to region locking, NoA just didn't want to go through the trouble of getting an NA release printed.

Pretty sure WiiU still has region locking, just that they're releasing that version in both regions.

Atariboy probably answered this better than i did, but from my understanding of the article I read the wii does have region locking in the sense of TV standards, Nintendo has always been behind the technology standards bar the SNES, so when the Wii came out and it was still holding onto 90's TV types, no HDMI option, no universal standards etc; it complicates things for publishing. NoA decided not to help in this case, but the European section did, hence PAL locked disks but not NTSC locked ones. Wii U finally upgraded to true HD standards, and so the PAL/NTSC setup wasn't relevant. It doesn't matter who publishes the Wii U ones as far as I'm aware because it'd play on all regions anyway.

[Atariboy]

Neither one of those citations on Wikipedia says anything past North America for the Wii U release. It's possible a run is planned for Europe, but nothing has been said about one. We'll have to wait until the August preorders get a bit closer I suppose for further details, but right now only North America is confirmed for the Wii U.

 

And no, the Wii U has never been a region free system and it's 99.9% certain that this policy isn't suddenly going to be lifted for the final physical Wii U release. On the Wii U, North American software is locked to North American systems and always has been since the 2012 launch, Japanese games are locked to Japanese systems, and European games are locked to European systems. So any Europeans planning to import and actually play the Wii U North American release will have to hack their system to lift region locking protection.

 

And Wii as well has full fledged region locking. It's not programming for PAL tv standards that prevents a PAL release from working on a North American Wii or vice versa. In fact many PAL Wii games, if not the vast majority, can even be set to run at 60hz NTSC to give European gamers a better experience. Unlike over here with PAL support, many European CRT's fully supported our tv standards. And I bet you'd have your work cut out for you to find a European HDTV that can't handle 480i/480p at 60hz with NTSC color timing, if one ever even existed. 

 

That hard region lock is also why you can't play Japanese Wii releases on a stock North American Wii, despite their NTSC video standards being almost identical to our own (And fully compatible with our televisions). A North American Wii system correctly identifies a Japanese disc as a Japanese disc, and won't even try to run it because of the region locking protections coded into the Wii operating system. 

 

The Switch is the first Nintendo console to actually be region free out of the box. It also marks a return to the tradition of region free gaming on Nintendo handheld systems, which sadly had disappeared in recent years. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Atariboy

[Asaki]

7 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

...the wii does have region locking in the sense of TV standards... Wii U finally upgraded to true HD standards, and so the PAL/NTSC setup wasn't relevant. It doesn't matter who publishes the Wii U ones as far as I'm aware because it'd play on all regions anyway.

Like Atariboy said, that's not how region locking works; otherwise platforms like the 3DS, which don't have NTSC or PAL, would be region-free.

The NES can be made region-free by snipping one pin on a chip, the other consoles you have to trim some plastic tabs out of the cartridge slots. Most PAL games work fine on NTSC (and vice versa), they just play at the wrong speed. Some newer games started to add import and/or copy protection in the cart itself.

[Swami]

IIRC, region locking is to prevent foreign bootlegs from being sold, causing a loss for the domestic console/game producer, such as NoA vs Japanese/ European regions. I have a couple of those NTSC/PAL signal converters, but it won’t let me play games from other regions on an NTSC console, except the old 70s/80s consoles. 

[Atariboy]

The upcoming Wii U release of Shakedown Hawaii is confirmed as North America only and is region locked, as expected.

 

https://www.vblank.com/20200814_sh_wiiu.php

 

The only surprise news for those hoping a European release was going to be confirmed or that somehow they got Nintendo to lift their region locking mandate for the last Wii U disc release, is that a PS3 digital release is also coming. It will also be cross-buy with PS4 and Vita, so if you bought it on one of those platforms previously, you'll already own it.

 

I wonder what the last physical PS3 release was (Or for that matter, what the last digital release was)? I assume Sony isn't doing physical print runs anymore, or these guys probably would've done it.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Atariboy

[Punisher5.0]

On 8/16/2020 at 6:01 PM, Atariboy said:

The upcoming Wii U release of Shakedown Hawaii is confirmed as North America only and is region locked, as expected.

 

https://www.vblank.com/20200814_sh_wiiu.php

 

The only surprise news for those hoping a European release was going to be confirmed or that somehow they got Nintendo to lift their region locking mandate for the last Wii U disc release, is that a PS3 digital release is also coming. It will also be cross-buy with PS4 and Vita, so if you bought it on one of those platforms previously, you'll already own it.

 

I wonder what the last physical PS3 release was (Or for that matter, what the last digital release was)? I assume Sony isn't doing physical print runs anymore, or these guys probably would've done it.

My guess for last PS3 physical release would be Oddworld Stranger's Wrath