Nintendo has confirmed that the Wii U will be region locked and that games that are purchased outside of the United States, can't be played on consoles that are purchased in the United States. Nintendo Europe has confirmed earlier reports that appeared in the Japanese magazine 'Famitsu'. According to the magazine there is a region lock on the games which means they can't be played in a different region.
This is especially very disappointing for fans of Japanese games. Most of those games are not sold outside of Japan and therefore can only be imported but due the region restriction they won't play on consoles sold outside of Japan.
It's not the first time Nintendo uses a region code protection. Also the Wii and Nintendo 3DS had a region lock. Nintendo's competitors Microsoft and Sony also use region locks on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 but game studios often don't use the feature and release region free games.
