Nintendo of America president Reginald Fils-Aime talked with Reuters today. Not an uncommon occurrence, except for the fact that this interview was conducted in Reuters' virtual bureau in Second Life. Complete with a cute li'l (cross-eyed) Reggie avatar.

Besides a few fluffy questions on virtual worlds and Miis and that sort of thing, there's this interesting exchange:

AR: We’ve got a question from Howie Lament: ‘Why is Nintendo keeping the region lock system on the Wii console? People have to jump through hoops to play the games they love.’ RFA: The region system is focused on us having great games in the

U.S. for the way the TVs are set up, versus PAL, the way that European

TVs are set up, so quite frankly we needed to do this this way to manage the technology.

Good question, Howie. Notice how he skirts the issue of whether Japanese games – which are NTSC, same as ours – might be playable on US systems. There's no technology management necessary there, much like the Nintendo DS. Plus, the furor over region locking seems to come entirely from Europe, specifically the UK, who gets the shit end of the stick when American games are brought over there prior to the official release.

If Japanese Wii games play on an American system I will be the happiest boy in the world. Only two days left until we find out.

WHOOPS JUST KIDDING: Matt says Play-Asia has their Japanese console and software, and it is locked up tighter'n Fort Knox. Dear mod community: time to get crackin'.

Nintendo's Fils-Aime On Wii and Second Life [Reuters]