Humble Bundle apologises over lack of region free eShop promo
Earlier this week when the first ever Nintendo eShop Humble Bundle hit there was quite a bit of a furore, at least on this side of the Pacific. While it was a Nintendo of America initiative we all found frustrating to find that it was essentially region locked.
As we all know the Wii U and the eShop are all entirely region locked, not only that but many of the games haven’t been classified both here in Australia, New Zealand and Europe (not to mention the rest of the world). This meant that only those in the Americas could participate. A problem with Nintendo and it’s region locking stance? Sure – but there’s also the problem of classification.
In the end both a Nintendo America staffer and Humble Bundle have apologised;
We recently launched the Humble Nindie Bundle, a digital bundle for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U systems. For many of you, the bundle is region-locked, and we apologize if the games are unavailable in your country.
One of the reasons we launched the first Humble Bundle was to bring indie games to more people. We agree that region-locking is not ideal. But without it, we may not have had this opportunity to promote these great indie games on dedicated video game platforms.
Our goal is to make games as universally accessible as can be. That’s why, while we strive to sell DRM-free games when possible, we also explore services like Steam, Origin, uPlay, and now the Nintendo eShop. These services allow us to offer more games at pay-what-you-want prices while raising more money for charity and reaching more gamers.
Your feedback helps us craft our bundles, so we thank you for your input and your continued support! We will continue to strive to be as inclusive as possible to all platforms, regions, and players in the future.
The Humble Bundle has still raised nearly $400,00 and that’s the most important thing – it is helping charity in the end. It would just be great if the whole world could help contribute.
Would you have bought the bundle if it worked on our Wii U and 3DS consoles?
I almost bought this… luckily it warned me first. I noticed these same games seem to be 50% off on Australian eShop right now but it’s still $5-10 a game. No deal.
thankfully I have an american 3ds, so I was still able to get the deal.
it was cheaper to get 3 of those games through the bundle and give the others away on twitter.
i dont ever see these bundles coming to our consoles for the reason that we have hardly any games released here on our shops
From the Humble list so far, we currently don’t have Moon Chronicles or Woah Dave.
I was stoked when I first read about it, until I got to the region-locking. I would have definitely bought it otherwise.
I can’t say that I was too upset, though. These things aren’t always possible.