Writer, TF Finatic, Recohoster, and Game dev. Wasnt able to post here as much as I liked, but I'll miss it and all of yall. Till we meet again, friends!
Nintendo: "Sorry, you're not in Japan, so we can't sell you this digital only download of a Japanese title."
Me: signs up for a Japanese account
Nintendo: "Oh good, you're Japanese! Wouldn't want to sell Yumeiro Yuram to some filthy American. Here, just input your Paypal account and we'll be good to go"
Me: inputs Paypal
Nintendo: "Eww gross this is a Paypal account owned by an American. We don't want-"
Me: throttles Nintendo JUST LET ME GIVE YOU MONEY, WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS SO DIFFICULT
I have to imagine this comes down to ESRB ratings: if they allowed people to buy games from different regions, they'd have to (or at least feel like they'd have to) submit those games to the ESRB lest little Billy download Sōshokukei Danshi no Iinari Nyūin Seikatsu: A Passive Boy at the Huntress Clinic because it didn't have an M rating for the parental controls to catch. And since submitting non-English games to the ESRB is a major pain in the ass, most publishers would rather not bother with it.
Alternatively, they don't want to deal with exchange rates, although I can't imagine that being enough of a headache as to region lock different storefronts.
It's also partially a music licensing issue as every where in the world has their own record labels with different international licenses, with some not caring and going "money is money" and others requiring strict sales contracts
For the first one, like I get it, but kids won't have access to paypals unless their parents are very bad at being parents (parents are always bad at being parents so yeah I guess)
And for the second, I dunno, I've bought lots of stuff from JP storefronts with my American-ass Paypal account and Surugaya and Yahoo Auction Japan don't give a shit lol I think Nintendo are just cheapskate snobs.
Nintendo has well established that they don't want people to actually play games.
If you decide to go for physical instead, play-asia.com works well in my experience, and they have the physical release.
I love when there's an english translation available but they just don't release it outside of SE Asia digitally because ???
Looking at you SE, sell me Dragon Quest Heroes 1&2 on Switch!!!
Ugggh, yeah, it's annoying. I recently went to refill my Japanese eshop credit and found out my usual shop was out, so I had to go somewhere else. (For what it's worth: Offgamers had a good price and have all the denominations in stock.)
