Help on Nintendo's eShop Region Blocking

On 09/18/2015 at 02:24 PM by Alex-C25

I've said so in some blogs, but if you don't know or haven't read, Nintendo doesn't have their eShop on Colombia. Now, I know there's the license issues and maybe Nintendo doesn't have the coverage that something like Valve with Steam has, but considering that the original Wii's Virtual Console has been on Colombia since probably the beginning or so, it's a bit odd. Not helping matters for Nintendo is the fact that last year Sony finally put their PSN shop on Colombia.

I've been actually thinking in changing the country of my 3DS and Wii U to the United States or any other country with Eshop support, not just for the digital titles, but the DLC in some games like Smash Bros, Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon. I was about to do that with the Wii U, but I got a warning advice that doing so would delete the Nintendo Network account. I've read a bit and it only deletes the Nintendo Network account so I would start from scratch, but the only thing I wonder is: does it delete and/or affect all the saved stuff from my games? Does it also affect services already installed like Netflix?

Just wanted to ask you guys if you know anything and could help me here.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

09/18/2015 at 06:20 PM

I wish I could help, Alex! I haven't the slightest clue though.

Alex-C25

10/04/2015 at 02:21 AM

Since then, I think I discovered that changing the region may delete everything. I'm gonna try to ask somewhere else to confirm that.

Super Step Contributing Writer

09/18/2015 at 10:48 PM

My guess is if your online saves are tied to your account as well as your Netflix history, you'd lose your game saves and maybe some Netflix preferences you have saved, but you could just use a different email to get a new account.

Then again, I assume your Wii U itself or its IP address might have something to do with your registration, which would make things a lot more tricky.

I'd say until you know what would happen, it might not be worth it. But like Snee, I really have no idea what would happen.

10/04/2015 at 02:23 AM

I think the first paragraph might be true (sans email) after asking somewhere. I'm gonna try to ask somewhere else.

PixlBit