Datel working on Wii FreeLoader

Nintendo UK's Rob Lowe recently confirmed that the Wii console has been region-locked, making it impossible for consumers to play imported games on their system. He stated that the reasons for this were varied, including to protect against piracy, and because "very, very few" people play import games.

Nintendo's previous hardware release, the Nintendo DS Lite, was made region-free and many had expected the Wii to follow the same principle. The Mario factory by turns confirmed and denied a region-lock for the Wii, before finally deciding to lock it.

However, import gamers may have some hope--Datel has revealed that it is currently working on a version of its popular FreeLoader series for the Wii. FreeLoader enables games from any region to be played without the need to physically mod consoles.

Datel, previously called Datel Electronics, is best known for products, including GameShark and Action Replay, that allow gamers to use cheat codes or transfer files between PCs and consoles.

The company also confirmed that its FreeLoader GameCube product would work to make all GameCube games playable on the Wii.