Nintendo is "optimistic" it will drop region locking on its consoles, starting with its yet-to-be-revealed NX platform.
CEO and president Satoru Iwata has announced his intention to drop region locking, beginning with its next system.
"Removing region-locking from current game machines presents various issues, so we don't consider that to be very realistic," Iwata commented during an investor Q&A recently, as translated by NeoGAF.
"However, regarding NX, given the customer feedback and proposals from the market, while nothing has been decided yet, we're currently investigating internally what problems there would be in realising it. You can think of that as the current situation. I understand your desire, so I'd like to look at it optimistically going forward."
Iwata has previously discussed the issue of region locking, saying in November 2014 that doing so would be beneficial to both consumers and Nintendo. The company has always implemented region locking features on its consoles to prevent software imports from other regions.
While Game Boy and DS systems offers region free play, all Nintendo's handheld sicne the DSi have featured region locks.
The Xbox One was originally supposed to feature region locking but Microsoft removed the restriction following a backlash against its policies, meaning the Wii U is the only current-gen console with region locking.
Nintendo is due to reveal the NX in 2016 but there's no word yet on when the system will be available.