Has importing gone 'mainstream' with the GameCube?

[vic_viper]

you could pay ?100 for street fighter 2 on super famicom or wait a few months and pay ?39 for the pal version

If you waited for a 2nd hand copy maybe. SF2 PAL was ?65.00 when it was released in the UK.

[Papercut]

you could pay ?100 for street fighter 2 on super famicom or wait a few months and pay ?39 for the pal version

If you waited for a 2nd hand copy maybe. SF2 PAL was ?65.00 when it was released in the UK.

It took a good while longer to arrive that 'a few months' too.

[Saurian]

I remember when the JPN copy came out - my house was like a youth club! People I didnt even know turning up for challenges!

[Mayhem]

That was fun those days... a mate of mine blagged a copy off a mate of his the day before it hit the Japanese shops. Calls me up, begs me to drag my SNES around to his place (as he didn't actually have one!) so we could play. 10 hours, and one knackered thumb, I leave

[Shoju]

It's strange that Game sell the Action Replay which plays imports.

[Oh! My Car!]

very strange.....

[Shoju]

Do they for some reason not realise this.

When I was at an import shop last week a worker from Game came by to get GC Soulcalibur 2 and a freeloader. They didn't have any so he was trying to find out when they would have them in or where else he could get one. He obviously didn't realise that his own store has Action Replay that plays imports which takes business away from them and NOE .

[Papercut]

Its like HMV selling the Freeloader and the PS2 DVD Region X. I don't understand that at all.

[tamago]

I bought an ntsc gamecube and only bother buying imported games. The price hike isn't as nasty as it used to be.

[Kerraig UK]

Does any other console have such an amazing set of tricks like the GameCube?

Well on my xbox i can play old arcade games, every DDR mix, N64, GBA and amiga games. As well as having a media player and storing games on the harddrive. I'd say thats quite an amazing set of tricks.

As for the importing scene. I think it says more about Nintendo europes incompetence than it does the casual buyer. me and my friends have had a saying since the days of the snes "never buy pal". back in those days imports were just as prolific. Sure we didn't have the internet, but we did have shekhana games in tottenham court road, Cex and the covent garden general store.

Also, I'd completed Zelda NTSC before the Pal copy was even released so the difference was most definately noticeable.

[Halo]

May I say that the Dreamcast was the first console where importing games became mainstream and affordable. DC-X was sold at HMV and the like and DC games were shockingly easy to import.

There are also plenty of Jap/US DC games out there in comparison to Gamecube, Megadrive, Super Famicom or even the Playstation.

[Max M]

May I say that the Dreamcast was the first console where importing games became mainstream and affordable. DC-X was sold at HMV and the like and DC games were shockingly easy to import.

Shame it was also shockingly easy to pirate...

[Shoju]

Does any other console have such an amazing set of tricks like the GameCube?

Well on my xbox i can play old arcade games, every DDR mix, N64, GBA and amiga games. As well as having a media player and storing games on the harddrive. I'd say thats quite an amazing set of tricks.

As for the importing scene. I think it says more about Nintendo europes incompetence than it does the casual buyer. me and my friends have had a saying since the days of the snes "never buy pal". back in those days imports were just as prolific. Sure we didn't have the internet, but we did have shekhana games in tottenham court road, Cex and the covent garden general store.

Also, I'd completed Zelda NTSC before the Pal copy was even released so the difference was most definately noticeable.

What's different between NTSC Zelda and Pal Zelda. I know some of the annoying tasks were reduced from the Japanese version (a good thing) but what else?

[Max M]

Yeah, I didn't know they were different either? o_O

[Kerraig UK]

I meant the time difference. Earlier in the thread someone was saying that it was a day and date international release, which it most definately wasn't.