Moving to the US - best option?

[Eps]

Hi all,

I'm moving to the US in about three months. Obviously this means I'll be well-placed for US releases but it creates somewhat of an issue regarding my console collection. I have a PAL Dreamcast, PAL Xbox, PAL Gamecube, plus a fair few games (though I'm a gamer, not a collector, so I wouldn't have any huge shipping nightmares). Also have some portables, but that's just a matter of sorting the appropriate US power supplies, so no problems there.

I have several options for the consoles, and am leaning towards option 1, but would appreciate input from others regarding the feasibilty of it and others...

1. Sell hardware, buy replacement hardware in US, keep games.
Potential issues: Compatibility of PAL games with US hardware and televisions.

2. Sell everything, buy everything back again in US.
Potential issues: Time-consuming and may not be possible to get everything back.

3. Keep everything, import all to US.
Potential issues: TV compatibility, extra stuff to ship.

I'm aware of the methods to get import stuff working from the US over here, but there isn't much information about on how well things work the other way round. As you can tell by my PAL-tastic hardware, I'm more of a player of import games than of import consoles, so I'm a bit of a novice in that department.

Any tips / advice on this issue would be most welcome!

[Lyris]

First of all - PAL GameCube games? No Progressive Scan fun for you then!

Here's my advice. Go to the US and take a PAL device around stores and see what HDTVs will show the picture (a digital camera with AV out set to PAL Mode is good for this). I think that ALL Sharp LCD TVs will show any video system over the AV inputs, so go over there and buy a nice LCD TV that will handle PAL video.

Failing that:

1. Sell the Dreamcast and buy a US one then install the 4 wire mod chip. All of your games will play in NTSC 60hz mode. You will not be able to play a few games that were 50hz only (such as Skies of Arcadia) so buy NTSC copies of those.

2. Do a soft-mod on the Xbox and change the video mode to output NTSC. Very easy. Try and find an American Xbox power supply unit (ie from a broken Xbox) open the Xbox, and swap the power supplies around.

3. Sell the GameCube and games. Region compatibility is a bit weird on this console. And they're dirt-cheap now anyway.

[Eps]

Oh - sorry, forgot to mention: I do have a Super Famicom, a Mega Drive and some other bits, but they're JPN anyway, so they'll be fine.

[Pavey]

RE Number 2.

I have a 110 xbox psu sitting here doing nothing.

[Eps]

Nick, I'll be happy to take that off your hands if I end up converting. After some careful thought, I'm leaning more towards selling up the hardware (and the common software) and repurchasing when I get there -- the lower-in-absolute-terms price of gaming stuff there both new and used means I probably won't lose any money doing that -- but if I do decide to take my Xbox over there, I'll drop you a line.