Just as I expected, the Nintendo Wii U is region locked. This shouldn’t come as a surprise since previous Nintendo consoles have been region locked as well.
The news comes from Japanese gaming mag Famitsu which posted the following statement (translated):
What can be played on the Wii U is restricted by a region-lock feature; software not sold in the same region cannot be played.
We just hope Nintendo is fair to all regions this time around, you may remember the Xenoblade and The Last Story controversy where Nintendo of America refused to publish the games. Fans had to rally up and show their support for the games after which the games finally got released (Xenoblade was published by Nintendo while The Last Story was published by X-Seed).
The Nintendo Wii U will be priced at $299 for the standard edition and $399 for the deluxe. Release dates for NA are November 18, European games will have to wait a bit longer till November 30th while Japan gets the Wii U the latest on December 8th.