Nintendo Wii Fanboy

We've never really had a reason to dislike Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing and corporate affairs. Sure, she got a little drunk at E3 (seriously, watch that video, it's awesome), but who wasn't? But now...she's crossed the line. We reported yesterday that the Wii would be region-free for first-party titles, and left up to the publisher for third-party ventures. However, a UK Nintendo rep flatly denied her claims, and the official line from a U.S. rep was this:

"We've heard conflicting reports from lots of folks out there, but can tell you that Wii will be region encoded, as will first-party software."

How dare you, Kaplan? We trusted you; put our ability to play quirky Japanese Wii games in your hands! You failed us, you fibbing...fibber! A curse upon your soul!

According to this article at IGN, Nintendo of America VP confirmed that all first-party games for the Wii will be region-free. This feature is traditionally reserved for Nintendo's handheld systems, while owners of their consoles had to illegally modify their hardware or use a special booting solution for import games. Third-parties have the option to make their titles region-free or not, but this is certainly excellent news for import fans.

Also revealed by Kaplan was that one's Virtual Console games are tied to one's account, not allowing transfer. There is, however, a system in place to recover your account if your Wii is suddenly eaten, destroyed, or stolen by PS3 fanboys.

Stay tuned with Wii Fanboy as we deliver more news than you can shake a stick at! No, more news at which...you could shake...no, that's not right either...whatever.

[Update 1: Just kidding. (sigh)]