Nintendo investigating removal of region locking, but not until its next console

Nintendo is looking into removing region locking on its future game consoles, company president Satoru Iwata said during a recent investor question and answer session following the company's latest earnings report.

"Removing region-locking from current game machines presents various issues, so we don't consider that to be very realistic," he said (translation by Cheesemeister on NeoGaf) when asked for an update on Nintendo's take on locking copies of games to only work in certain parts of the world. "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 realizing 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."

Earlier this year, Nintendo announced that it was working on its next console, code-named the NX.

Nintendo announced last week that for the first time in four years it was profitable. More than three-quarters of the company's sales came from outside of Japan, according to the company.