 One of the big things that happened this generation with Nintendo Switch is that they went region free for really the first time in Nintendo's history. And to understand what that really means, it's just you can buy video games in any territory and play it on any Switch. That's really the big deal about being region free. Or you could buy a Switch, say import it from Japan, but be able to play games that you buy here in the United States on it, right? Same difference, just opposite results. So that's generally what region free is. And it looks like Nintendo might be cracking down a little bit on the region free-ness of things in certain examples, because one way that many fans, including myself, have been taking advantage of the region free-ness of the Switch is by creating accounts in other countries in order to purchase games and or play demos from those countries. Now this has mattered a lot in some cases, because there are some games that have released in countries like Japan that haven't released here in the United States. But again, Nintendo appears to be cracking down on this a little bit. And is this something we're gonna see them expand upon? I don't know, but that's not all we have to talk about today, because we also have an update coming from Nintendo's president himself about how Nintendo approaches new technologies. And when he's talking about new technology, it's always important we pay attention to it as we are entering a transition phase into Nintendo's next platform. And maybe we can get some insight into the mindset behind releasing new platforms by paying close attention to what Nintendo's new president, who's launching new hardware for really the first time, has to say about some semi-related things. But before we dive into that, I just want to remind you we're on our road to 150,000 subscribers. So I appreciate if you drop a like, subscribe to the channel, and you know what? Why don't you go ahead and slap that bell icon and get notified of all of our future content. All right, so the first piece we have here, we see we're on the official Nintendo Reddit because some people were doing some firsthand stuff here. We'll get into the official documents in a moment. But Argentina, Nintendo eShop has blocked foreign cards. So today from 12 p.m. GMT minus four, Nintendo eShop from Argentina blocks any transaction made with credit or debit cards that have not been issued in that country. Anyone who tries to use a foreign card in the Argentine eShop will receive error 9001-2470. Now, Nintendo also updated the error article on its support page to reflect this. This might be due to the strong devaluation suffered by the Argentine peso last Monday after the primary elections held on Sunday the 13th. It's sad for those who buy games in the Argentina eShop because most games in that shop were insanely cheap. And we can see an image of the error here. We'll click on it, see error 9,000-124. I obviously can't read any of this, but more than that, we actually have the page fully translated from Nintendo that's been updated. Now, here we are on that support page and you see error code 9001-2470. And as we scroll down, this applies to the Nintendo Switch family. So this is all the Switch models. Payment may be restricted to credit card issues in the same country as your Nintendo account. For example, a credit card issued in Mexico will not work if your Nintendo account is set to Argentina. Possible solutions, use a different credit card, try adding funds with an alternate method, adding funds using Nintendo eShop cards or a PayPal account. They're sort of giving you potential workarounds. The option to use PayPal is only available to the Nintendo account owners in the US, Canada and Mexico ages 18 and older. Mexico and Brazil, you can use alternative payment methods. So what's interesting about this, of course, is that this is the clear indication that Nintendo has obviously shut things down. That is just what they're doing and it really shouldn't be surprising that they went this route. In the end, Nintendo is worried about the bottom line and with the peso dropping massively in Argentina, what's been occurring since Monday is that people took notice. And so there were people purchasing games, digital games in Argentina all over the world. People from Japan, the United States, Australia, UK, parts of Europe, obviously Mexico, everyone was buying games from there because you could get games super cheap. You know how Tears of the Kingdom is 70 bucks? Not if you bought it in Argentina, you could get it for as low as like $30. Talk about a $40 discount. That's what we're talking about with the peso just diving there is that their money became, were so little that you could just use a foreign credit card and end up getting all of this stuff for dirt cheap. So I do think this is a bit of a one-off situation where Nintendo just wants to protect their bottom line. By the way, they're not preventing people from Argentina from getting that discount. So if you live in Argentina and you have an Argentina bank account and credit card, you're fine. You still get to get those quote unquote cheaper prices, but of course, obviously you're dealing with a money crisis probably in that of yourself. But it's just about those on the outside of the country maybe not being able to do it, although there might be some PayPal workarounds. I don't think that this indicates Nintendo is suddenly gonna get rid of region free. And by the way, region free just implies that you can buy a video game in any country and play it on your Switch. It doesn't mean that you could online go and buy it from that country. That is something Nintendo's been allowing us to do, but isn't necessarily something that is part of being region free. All that really matters is that you can buy games in any country, buy a Switch in any country and everything just works together. And that is still true. So I don't think Nintendo is taking away region free, but it is something to pay attention to. In case Nintendo starts cracking down more on this because people are always some digital buyers, especially are always looking for what country has the cheapest games. And if Nintendo starts to lock it down where we can only buy from our local country, that will be a bigger story. And as we're transitioning into that new hardware, we do need to just pay close attention if Nintendo changes the rules with the new hardware and suddenly you can only buy digitally locally. And you know what, if that's what they do, I don't think it impacts most consumers. I think most of us just buy our games locally, whether it's physically or digitally, but for those that try to take advantage of those discounts, it will be a bit of a bummer, but it doesn't mean that it's not region free. All right, just to be clear, even if they took away our ability to buy games in other countries from our Switch, it doesn't mean our Switch isn't region free. The whole point was that if you're in that country, you could still buy a game. I don't think Nintendo's gonna take this away, but it is what it is. We need to move on to our next story, because you see here we're over on Nintendo everything, and you see Nintendo's boss on companies approach to new tech. So Shintaro Furukawa did a interview in Japan and we got some interesting information here. So Nintendo President Shintaro Furukawa has weighed in on how the company approaches new technology in an interview with NHK translated by Nintendo everything, so that's why we're here. They're the ones that did the translation. Furukawa indicated rather than pursuing tech for the sake of it, it's instead about how they can lead to revolutions in the act of play itself. Also mentioned, Nintendo is pursuing new technology in general, so that's always exciting. So here's the full translation, which was provided by Tetsuma FS and Simon Griffin on behalf of Nintendo everything. So they had two different people look over this translation. Let's see what we got here. While there is no particular technology we are focusing on at the moment. So he's not gonna give us any tease on which technologies they're looking into. We are conducting research on a variety of new technologies. However, I believe the most important thing for our company is not seeking new technologies for novelty's sake. So this is the, hey, let's not just like have a gimmick to have a gimmick. I like that. But rather considering how they can lead to revolutions in the act of play itself. The idea is that if we become convinced that incorporating a certain technology can provide customers with a fresh and surprising experience then we covet its research more strongly making investments when necessary as well. Now we do know Nintendo has been heavily investing in VR. We've seen a number of VR patents. That doesn't mean that VR is gonna become this big thing on Switch 2. Although maybe some point during its life, maybe it will. After all they did to Nintendo Labo on Switch. This is the first time we've really seen the new president of Nintendo come out and talk directly about technology and his approach to doing things. And I like some of what he said. Things like when he says our company is not seeking new technologies for novelty's sake. That really feels like, hey, we're not going to be just throwing a gimmick in with our system just to have it, right? And you gotta understand, the decisions with Switch today, the IR camera, seems a bit gimmicky in hindsight. That was thrown in before his time. He was not running Nintendo at the time. And I think he's saying, hey, it's important that we don't just chuck something into a system just to put it in there, right? Just to have something different. And that's exciting because Nintendo has made a few choices that I don't think has always worked for them and really in the end sort of felt like they did it just to be different. And it wasn't necessarily a smart choice. As an example, Wii U GamePad or 3D, the 3DS. There were some choices Nintendo made that I don't think ultimately was to their benefit. And you could argue, despite it not hurting sales, the IR camera now having to be on all those Joy-Con that's just an extra part. It makes the Joy-Con more expensive and it's really not used by enough games to justify it being there. So what this does tell me is Nintendo Switch 2 doesn't necessarily have to have a new gimmick. I think all of us have been sort of being like, look, this is Nintendo. Of course, there's gonna be some new gimmick. Maybe it'll be a scroll wheel like they had in a patent back in the day on one of the shoulder buttons or maybe they'll add cameras to it or what we are learning here is that Nintendo doesn't really wanna add anything unless it revolutionizes the way that we play games. Now, Wii Motion Controls, as an example, revolutionized the way that we play games. And you could argue Nintendo Switch in a maybe not as revolutionary way, but at least in a convenience way, revolutionized how we approach mobile and home console. At least revolutionized how they approach mobile and home console gaming by putting it in one system. But if you look at the controllers, we're still playing with mostly traditional controls with the motion controls still there for the few games that wanna use it. So I wouldn't call it a revolution. It's more of an evolution of things Nintendo has already done in the past. So I like this approach from the new president where he's going, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't just throw a gimmick in. Don't throw some novelty feature in just to have it. Just to say, look at this different feature we have. But rather, if we do something that innovates the way we can play games, that's where we wanna focus. And it does sorta sound like when he says there's no particular technology that they're focusing on at the moment. That really tells me that Nintendo isn't looking for a way to drag us into some new play device over the next generation of hardware. They're not forcing some new way for us to do things. And I think that is very important to consider when talking about the future of Nintendo. And then obviously, there's an idea that we become convinced that incorporating certain technology can provide customer with a fresh and surprising experience. Then they cover that research. And I think that's why you're seeing a lot of research in the VR because they do see the benefits of VR but it doesn't mean they're gonna force it upon us. It could just be an option one day. So I just find this stuff utterly fascinating coming from the current president of Nintendo. Now, that all being said, it is really interesting just being aware of what Nintendo has going on moving forward. I am gonna be paying really close attention to any future interviews that Shintura Furukawa might be doing. After all, there's a whole bunch of meetings coming up with Game Developers Conference, Tokyo Game Show, PAX West. We might be getting a little peek inside Nintendo's mindset when it comes to new hardware and new technologies. But I'm just excited to get moving on into this next generation. And until our next video, I'll see you guys later.