I live in Canada and have purchased a 3DS and Wii U system, which, while they are great, I, along with numerous others, find it very annoying that the two systems are locked to the land you live on. Region locked.
To explain my personal situation, one example would be that I've lived in Japan previously for a short while, where I brought my DS and could freely purchase games while over there, and play them and have fun! With the 3DS and Wii U, this experience is impossible for me. I'm thinking to myself "Does Nintendo as a company not want my money? I can't buy games from anywhere else other that North America!" This is incredibly aggravating as I do travel a lot!
I also like to learn languages and one good resource for that is games! As such, I demand to be able to buy Japanese, and other language titles for my systems! I can do this easily on other manufacturer's consoles! In fact, the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One are region free! What's Nintendo's excuse?
Many, many people are put into many situations that would greatly benefit from region free consoles and games, it's impossible to list every example! Look at Miiverse and all the complaining on there about region free gaming!
If a game is translated into English and releases in only one territory (Ex. Xenoblade), should other territories be denied playing such a title because of where they were born!? Inexcusable!
For the DS, if it was region locked, people wouldn't have imported Ouendan! We would have never gotten Elite Beat Agents! This can never happen again with region locking!
Why am I able to view games from other regions and chat with those people through Miiverse when the console itself won't allow me to play those games?
What if I don't know that there is region locking and buy a 3DS in Japan, come back to NA, then find I can't play games I buy here on it? Does that not sound horrible?
How many consumers are NOT buying a Nintendo console because of region locking vs those that have bought multiple of one just to be able to play games from all regions? It's very lopsided, I believe! I firmly think that there are more lost sales because of it.
Piracy? Going region free only gives one less reason to pirate or hack/mod your console.
So, what's Nintendo's current stance on region locking? I'm not allowed to buy games for my console when I travel, games I find interesting, I can't support developers I like who only can afford to release in one territory, and I truly think that sucks.