Nintendo Wii or gamecube Game compatability UK->NZ ??

[JulesB]

Was going to buy a Wii in UK for my son to keep him busy while we pack and then use in NZ. But Nintendo tell me the games are country coded and therefore won't work on a uk model.
Has anybody actually tried one.??
They say its the same for the Gamecube as well.
Thanks,
Jules (moving to Tauranga in September ....)

[Questor]

I'm not sure who you spoke to, but they were talking out of their proverbial backsides!
Both the UK and NZ are PAL systems, and all PAL games will work on all PAL consoles, both 'Cube and Wii (and xbox and PS as well as it happens) I have games from here and the UK and all work fine on my UK cube and NZ Wii

HTH
Jon

[IanW99]

As said by Questor, from what I can see, there are only 3 regions for the Wii (same as GameCube)

U = North America NTSC(U)
J = Japanese NTSC(J)
E = Europe PAL

So the answer is all PAL units are region compatible with all PAL games.

We have also tried UK GameCube on a NZ Wii without any problems (seems to confirm the above).

Ian

[Questor]

Out of interest, where have you found a Wii in stock in the UK?
From what I understand from friends back there, they're as rare as Rocking Horse doo-doo at the minute!

[nickydwuk]

Out of interest, where have you found a Wii in stock in the UK?
From what I understand from friends back there, they're as rare as Rocking Horse doo-doo at the minute!

Got my son one from 'www.game.co.uk' but Argos had them in recently as well.

[Croft]

Out of interest, where have you found a Wii in stock in the UK?
From what I understand from friends back there, they're as rare as Rocking Horse doo-doo at the minute!

Still a rare commodity, purely through quite staggering sales. Try this site here:

http://www.wiipreorder.co.uk/

They seem to be quite up to the mark with Wii stocks. Don't get caught out by some retailers offering bundles - target price is a touch under £180.

We'd have never bought a games console before, but this one really is fun!

Also, I understand there's a 4th region for the Wii:

How do you read the version?

* Go to the Wii settings and it's in the top right corner
* The letter is your region and has to do with the region locking:
o U: USA
o E: Europe
o J: Japan
o A: Australia


(from http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Wii_Updates)

I don't know how that affects compatibility, but it sounds as though what you've been told may be correct.

[Croft]

OK, according to this Region Locking is in force on the Wii (despite previous reports which stated it would be optional). However, some people with way too much time on their hands have managed to figure out a way of circumventing this with Gamecube discs, but the method hasn't been tested with Wii discs yet. Full details here.