by Tweeg » Mon Oct 25, '10, 1:51 pm
I've directly imported Saturn and Naomi games from Japan and Dreamcast games from both Japan and Europe. And I've bought previously imported titles for GB, Genesis, NGPC, SMS, and TG-16. Still some DS and PSP games I wouldn't mind getting my hands on that I've yet to pursue obtaining.
At present though, my importing interests lie in pursuit of expanding my PSO collection.
And for those who still may not know, Japan power standards are 110v AC 60hz, which is only -5v difference from US power standards, which is within safe use tolerance for electrical devices. NTSC Is also the same TV standard used in Japan.
SNES games are region free, but the US and PAL systems have two plastic tabs in the cartridge slot near the connection pins that will prevent JP carts from fittin inside unless you use pliers to break them out.
N64 Are also region free, but the have an odd physical shape that prevents them from being directly inserted into a non-JP region N64. Imports can be easily played by using a GameShark, or similar device, as a pass-thru adaptor to get around the cartridge slot shape issue.
SMS, GG, NGPC, GB, GBC, GBA, VB, DS, and PSP are all region free game systems capable of playing games from all other regions.
Most Genesis/Mega Drive came cartridges are region free and can be played on any Genesis/Mega Drive game system without the use of an import adaptor. Only a few games released about midway in the systems lifetime have a region lock installed.
Saturn imports can be played by installing a mod chip, or installing a region switch, or the easiest way, using an import boot cartridge that fits in the memory cart slot.
Dreamcast imports can be played either by using a boot disc (readily available and easy) or by installing a mod chip (overly complicated).
Turbo-Grafx 16 is physically identical to its Japanese counterpart, the PC Engine, but sadly they changed the pinouts in the cartridge slot to discourage importing. It's honestly more trouble than it's worth to try and hunt down one of the super extremely rare import adaptors. If you want to play import PC Engine games just import a PC Engine/PC Engine Duo game system as well to save yourself a major headache.