Bad news for anyone importing the Japanese version of the title...

For anyone importing a Japanese copy of the upcoming Mario Kart Wii, be warned that major importer site Play-Asia is warning customers that J-NTSC copies of the title are not compatible with any versions of Datel's Freeloader software.

The software, which is used to get around region locks in Wii games, has obviously been blocked by Nintendo in an effort to curb importing. On the plus side however, it isn't exactly long to wait until the PAL version of the title is released in Europe in a matter of days.

We'll keep you updated if we hear more on this.