The discovery first surfaced on NeoGAF, where it was found that buying certain games was off-limits regardless of who’s holding the GamePad, and if it’s before Nintendo’s own rather restrictive watershed, that also includes viewing trailers.
Apparently kids don’t surface between 11 at night and 3 in the morning.
“Legal age restriction requirements vary across a number of European countries,” said the platform holder. “Since Nintendo Of Europe is based in Germany, Nintendo eShop is complying with German youth protection regulation which therefore applies to all our European markets.”
“Under German law, content rated 18+ must only be made available at night.”
Of course, should anyone up at that ridiculous time actually buy an 18-rated game online for the full RRP, it can be played at any time, if the parental controls are off.
The restriction applies regardless of any other settings. If you’re the only person in the house, and you’re mid-thirties, you still can’t buy ZombiU until 11pm.
KeRaSh
This REALLY puts me off buying a Wii U. While I never buy any disc based console games digitally, I do buy the occasional PSN-only game. If I have to jump through hoops to buy 18 rated games that are digital only, I’m very inclined to just skip the game entirely.
How come the German PSN store or Steam don’t have such restrictions in place? Steam only asks for you date of birth when you access mature content.
Alex C
Neither Sony nor Valve are based in Germany. NoE are.
hazelam
actually.
“Sony Europe is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation with Corporate Headquarters located at the Sony Center am Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. Its role is to manage and develop the company’s electronics business across Europe.”
http://www.sony-europe.com/article/id/1178278971157
KeRaSh
I’m not convinced that is the reason behind this. If you sell stuff in Germany, you have to comply with German law, no matter where your company is based. Just because you sell stuff from the USA, doesn’t mean you can dodge other countries laws. Therefore other companies must follow suit if there was no way around this.
The Lone Steven
That is a bit of a middle finger to those who bought the Wii U. No-one buys a game at 11pm onwards as most gamers prefer to download it during the day. Plus, some people may want to buy a game on the store after work but can’t and are more likely to get it in Game or another retailer then waiting untill 11pm to do so. Also, i don’t believe that Germany restricted the sale of 18 rated games and other digital medium to 11pm as i’m pretty sure Netflix allows people in germany to view 18 rated film. Plus, MS and Sony would have probably refused to comply as they know that most of their userbase wouldn’t bother using the store at that time.
Also, Steam allows people to buy games at any time of the day in Germany so that’s their reason thrown out of the window. Plus, if what i’ve heard is true about the Wii U’s download speed, it is pretty much a death sentence to Ninty’s EU store as i doubt many people would want to leave it on overnight to download the game. Also, 9pm would have been a semi decent time to allow 18 rated games to be bought.
Alex C
Again, only NoE is based in Germany. So they have to abide by German laws.
LTG Davey
Probably won’t effect me directly as I don’t download digital copies of games, still a daft setting though and one which needs to be changed.
fattyuk
Read about this last week lol
ron_mcphatty
Am I the only one who thinks the Germans are onto something? My girlfriend’s neice and nephews are 8, 6 and 3, its tough to stop them buying stuff online because they’re savvy enough to reset their parents’ passwords and spend away on the Wii and Appstore. Family arguments and silly App bills aside, they’re amazingly bright and so are hundreds of thousands of other kids, so as a protective measure this one sounds brilliant!
Bilbo_bobbins
lol thats just ridiculous, surely changing the German way of doing things would have made sense, rather than do this for everyone in Europe, unless Nintendo know something we don’t….
Dom El
I can see both sides of this – on the one hand limiting access to people who require no such limitations is ridiculous and liable to impact on possible sales. However, as a parent I can see the benefit of reducing access to content which is inappropriate, and as children become increasingly tech-savvy perhaps it’s the case that traditional parental controls are no longer enough.
It’s a shame if it stops anyone from playing ZombiU (assuming their old enough!) as it’s a phenomenal game.
Wardy77-
WHA HA HA that is all.