Playing Import (EU) games on a US PS2?

astroboy

So I've recently gotten into SingStar for the PS2, and my friends and I are having loads of fun with it. But I've found the tracklists somewhat "meh", for both Rocks and Pop. Sure, there are some good ones, but there are also some duds.

But I've seen the tracklists for the European versions, and they're more to my liking, specifically the 80s compilation.

So can I play European games on a US PS2? If so, how?

Please help me get my SingStar on.

(Here's one gaming instance where the Europeans have a leg up on us Americans.)

BigDes

I imagine you'd have to go the way of a EU gamer trying to play US games and get your PS2 chipped, which may or may not be illegal over there, I know it is here. Other than that, I think if you own a PStwo you can get a flip top case replacement for the console and use that somehow.

astroboy

I've heard that I can use a swap disk/flip top to play Japanese imports, and think the same thing could be used for European games, but does the fact that Europe uses PAL affect that at all? Or is that simply hardware based, and since I'm using NTSC hardware I should be fine, even though the disc is meant for Europe?

I'm kinda confused.

RainbowDespair

Personally, if you don't mind the extra expense, I'd just purchase a system in the region you want to import. You don't have to worry about compatability issues and you don't have to bother with fancy procedures to get things work.

astroboy

Okay, so I'm pretty sure a flip top case and Swap Magic disc will work to let me play European imports on a US PS2. But now I've encountered another problem:

Amazon.uk does not ship software to the US.

What are some reputable UK online retailers that WILL ship to the US (and have SingStar 80s)?

Help!

MarvellousM

I don't know much about this sort of thing, but the PAL format might be an issue for you. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will post about it, but I'd hold off buying them for now.

brynstar

Yes, the PAL format is an entirely different video standard than the NTSC format. Meaning, if you try and play PAL format video on an NTSC monitor, it won't work, and vice versa. Essentially, PAL uses different framerates, refresh rates, and resolutions than NTSC. Importing games from Japan usually isn't a problem because they use the NTSC video standard just like the US. So I'd look into this a bit more before doing it, as MarvellousM mentioned.

I could get into all the technical details but that's boring. I don't have any personal experience with the video output capabilities of US consoles when it comes to playing back PAL video material, but my best guess is that it's going to look funny. You might need to buy a PAL console and PAL TV for this to work.

mntorankusu

You'll need to have a television that supports PAL, or use a hack of some sort to force the PS2 to output NTSC-- you can do that with the Xploder HDTV player, but I'm pretty sure that can't be used in conjunction with imports unless your PS2 is hardware modded.

Sometimes, PAL video will just show up black and white, or with the colors messed up on NTSC TVs (depending on the TV, since a lot of HDTVs will recognize that it's not NTSC and say "unsupported format" or something like that).

astroboy

mntorankusu wrote: »

You'll need to have a television that supports PAL, or use a hack of some sort to force the PS2 to output NTSC-- you can do that with the Xploder HDTV player, but I'm pretty sure that can't be used in conjunction with imports unless your PS2 is hardware modded.

So a US (NTSC) PS2 running Euoropean (PAL) software won't output NTSC?

This is so confusing.

BigJoeM

It depends the 2 EU games i have (Super DBZ and Taito Legends 2) come with 60hz modes which can display properly on an NTSC set.

I don't know any NTSC games that come with a 50hz mode for pal gamers

Edit: Apparently 60hz works for PAL too don't know why more games aren't 60hz

mntorankusu

astroboy wrote: »

mntorankusu wrote: »

You'll need to have a television that supports PAL, or use a hack of some sort to force the PS2 to output NTSC-- you can do that with the Xploder HDTV player, but I'm pretty sure that can't be used in conjunction with imports unless your PS2 is hardware modded.

So a US (NTSC) PS2 running Euoropean (PAL) software won't output NTSC?

This is so confusing.

Sorry. The output format is determined by the software, not the hardware.

astroboy

Boy, do you Europeans have to go thru this much trouble to play US or Japanese games? If so, I feel really sorry for you.

(Hopefully SingStar 80s works like Super DBZ and Taito Legends 2 do for BigJoeM. I'm crossing my fingers.)