Do you import?

Have you ever imported a game from another country? I know many people import games that they really want to play, but aren't released in their nation.

I myself haven't imported any, but I have played one or two imports. A local rental place used to have a few, years ago.

Not really... I did buy a Japan version of Breath of Fire once, but that's the only game from another country that I have ever bought.

Never have and I probably won't ever do it. Too much of a hassle and I haven't found anything I really wanted to play that wasn't released in the US anyway.

Yeah, I think it's a big hassle, too. I've heard stories about people having to file off parts of consoles or carts, open up consoles to add chips to them, and things like that. I'm not very technically inclined so I would be afraid of running my system.

The only games I imported was Guilty Gear #reload. I plan on importing Guilty Gear Accent Core when it releases in Japan.

P.S., the other method you could use if you wished to import is buying a Japanese console if you had the extra money and didn't want to do the technical work.

I never thought of importing a console.

I thought the Japanese consoles wouldn't work in the US, though? I mean, don't they have different TV formats and power voltage requirements? Maybe that was just the European stuff...

Well, I've known people who've imported consoles, and it doesn't seem to be an issue, at least on the TV format. As far as I know, the power cable is the same, though the ports for the A/V cable and the power cable are the same shape as the U.S. versions, so even if they were different, I imagine they would be swapped with American components with no trouble.

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I thought the Japanese consoles wouldn't work in the US, though? I mean, don't they have different TV formats and power voltage requirements? Maybe that was just the European stuff...

I believe Japan uses the same TV format as the US. You probably are thinking of Europe, they use a different TV format and electric voltage than the US. Europe uses PAL for TVs, the US uses NTSC.

Thoul wrote:

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I thought the Japanese consoles wouldn't work in the US, though? I mean, don't they have different TV formats and power voltage requirements? Maybe that was just the European stuff...

I believe Japan uses the same TV format as the US. You probably are thinking of Europe, they use a different TV format and electric voltage than the US. Europe uses PAL for TVs, the US uses NTSC.

It is still possible to get around, of course, to play NTSC games requires a chip in the respective console, this will play the game but there will be no colour during gameplay, the addition of a special scart lead can fix this. Mine has a switch with options AV and RGB, the latter being far more defined as well as giving colour the the NTSC games.

That is only when using a Pal console.. I don't know how different it'd be using an NTSC console here.

Yep. I have imported games that I do play. It is the reading part that drives me a little crazy, because I understand a little bit of hirigana but thankfully my boyfriend knows his katakana pretty well to play Japanese RPG games.