What to do...?

[Supergoal]

I have been living in Japan for over 2 years and have bought a stack load of games here for my Gamecube (Q).

I will be moving back to the UK in July and want to bring my games with me, so basicly what I want to ask is...

1.) Should I buy a cheap normal GC machine here to bring back with me, or buy a PAL machine in the UK and use a mod chip or freeloader to run my JP games with?

2.) Connecting a JP GC to a PAL TV via a SCART socket is possible and buying one is easy?

I found a cheapish GC in my local games shop here for ?52 and was wondering should I buy it..

Thanks in advance

[tankplanker]

Firstly, you cannot mod a PAL GC as there exists no chips for this. You can obviously use freeloader to run your JPN games on a PAL cube but not all JPN games will save onto a non JPN cube (or a US one switched for US/JPN) as it doesn't like the UK/US memory card format. Mr Driller and Donkey Konga are two examples of games that do not save.

You best bet is to either bring back your Q (I would go for the Q if you can) or buy a JPN cube. Both should work fine with newish UK sets, but I'd either get a component cable (if you have a TV that supports it) or get a custom RGB Scart cable from Saurian. I'm not 100% on this, but I think the Q and Cube custom RGB Scarts are different (Saurian will know for sure obviously) so make sure you know if you are going to be using a Q or a cube in advance.

[Londonner]

I'd say bring back your Q 8) They're valuable and selling it here would serve as a good back-up option; you can probably flog it for at around ?200+ on eBay UK. As tankplanker says:

1) To begin with, you need to check whether your TV supports NTSC. Then, ideally, if it has component in, buy a Q Component Lead (?20-30). Or, more realistically, if your TV has scart, buy an official Gamecube Q Digital Cable and send it to Saurian for an RGB mod (I believe he sometimes has the Q ones pre-modded in stock, or at least can order them on demand) ?30-45. You also have the option of playing your Q on your PC monitor in beautiful, beautiful progressive scan by having the afforementioned digital cable modified for VGA (places in Japan may sell them pre-modded, or you can most certainly pick them up from Play-Asia or Goldenshop etc.) ?30-45; however, you need to remember that only about 80% of games are progressive scan and the rest are unplayable. Finally, you'd also need a step-down convertor which you can pick up for about ?15 from places like ConsolePlus to ensure you don't blow up your Q

2) You can do exactly the above by buying a standard Jap Gamecube; except the cables are standard GC ones and easier to come by than the Q shaped ones (they are different shapes ). Again, you'd need a step-down converter.

With both options you can of course use the standard composite leads they come with, but you'll get an average picture quality. It may save you having to buy one of the fancy cables above and therefore ?30-45 though, leaving you having to spend only about ?15 for a step-down.

Forget about a PAL Gamecube; you will be disappointed given your experience with Jap gaming. Although, as mentioned already you can pick up a Freeloader for about ?8 and play your Jap games on a UK Cube (with borders, slower, some games incompatible caveats etc.)

If you're in the mood, buy the standard Cube from your local shop and bring it back with the Q. Then sell the Q on eBay; the profit from it will most likely cover the cost of what you paid for the standard Cube plus which ever cable option you go for

[charlesr]

To sum up we all have Jap cubes and run them on our TV's, so you don't need to worry.

[bowser123]

Indeed Charlesr.
Just make sure you get the RGB cable of Saurian though Supergoal, it makes a huge difference compared to the standard AV cables.

[Supergoal]

Thanks, I won't bring my Q back with me as I will be moving back to Japan in a couple of years.

So I will buy a cheap JP GC from my local in Japan and bring that back.

Actually i'm too scared to bring my Q back incase it gets damaged

[Londonner]

Mine doesn't work on my Philips TV as it turned out it's not NTSC ft:

To sum up we all have Jap cubes and run them on our TV's, so you don't need to worry.

[wod]

lol we use the custom rgb cables so no need to worry about ntsc compatability

see http://www.rgbcube.co.uk

[Londonner]

I have a modded RGB cable ... a modded VGA cable ... and official component cable Just didn't work for me (the TV could be screwed as all I get is a rolling black and white picture).

Regardless, I'm more than happy with the VGA!

lol we use the custom rgb cables so no need to worry about ntsc compatability

see http://www.rgbcube.co.uk

[Papercut]

Londonner - sounds like your rgb cable is faulty, or your TV is not switching to RGB mode properly.

The modded RGB cables work flawlessy via RGB scart.