Last weekend I happened to be at Eastland shopping centre in Ringwood. I don’t go there very often as it’s not that close to where I live. As I always do when I’m in Eastland, I went to GameTraders to see what new and/or cool games are out. Yes, JB Hi-Fi have a big sign telling you that they have the lowest prices on the biggest range of games, but it’s a lie – GameTraders is where it’s at. JB don’t have really old second-hand games, imported games, unusual games or games for ancient consoles. JB aren’t cheap, either.
I resisted for a while. I managed to walk past Whack-a Mole and, surprisingly, Mario Kart DS. But the picture on the box for Lost in Blue caught my eye, and the blurb made it sound so interesting! And then I’ve heard so many good things about Lost Magic that I decided to get that, too. And then it really hit me. I had just bought two more grey imports.
Now grey imports for the DS work just fine. There doesn’t appear to be any region coding on the console. You to select any supported UI language and writing language for the built-in software. Games from any region play fine. (Makers of other electronic gizmos, are you listening? Why does my phone only allow input in English, Vietnamese and Philippino, Nokia?) But why do I have to get grey imports? Why aren’t the games released here in the first place?
None of the imported games I’ve bought are offensive or obscene. None of them were refused classification in Australia. All of them support English in-game. They were all games that caught my eye that I wanted to get. Surely I’m not an exception. Australian gamers couldn’t have such narrow tastes as Nintendo seems to think. It really feels like hardly any really interesting games are released here.
Maybe the reason the DS isn’t as popular here as it could be is the lack of software that’s officially available. Come on guys! Throw us a bone!
