Imports?

[Sauron]

I had this friend who wants to know if anyone knows importing games from Japan? Backups he called it? The game is called FFX-2....comes out tomorrow. And he wanted to know if he could get it while its over there instead of having to wait months before it comes over here. IE, people over here have it ordered, copy it, and then sell it...

[sam21]

I'm pretty sure "backups" are not legal

[catk102]

If you are referring to the Final Fantasy series from sqaresoft on playstation2 then in my opinion it depends,I think even on the games it goes by the countrycode of the playstation but if he has a mod chip he would be able to play it but if its just an off the shelf PS2 with no mods I'm fairly sure it won't work,as far as the copying goes it is doable but not easy and I leave it at that for the moment and the selling is definitly illegal

[Demosthenes]

Not sure if that would work though. This is all guesswork, but I believe Japan uses the PAL scheme and the good ole US of A uses the NTSC scheme which uses a higher frequency but fewer lines. I do not think the two are compatible. I am not sure why the programming on the disc is relative to the hardware scheme used to display it (that is a good question), but I do believe that to be the case. My guess is to prevent the said things from happening, but I am no market analyst. So, unless it is an NTSC game, I think you are up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle.

Respectfully,

Demosthenes

[Sauron]

I have no idea. I always get myself into situations where I look totally stupid. Or someone makes me look stupid I will ask my friend, and find out.

[Force Flow]

The thing I just thought of when I read this was: "All your base are belong to us."

[Spyda]

it would be extremely easy to copy the game, and to make it work on a different region PS2, although i highly doubt the legallity of it

[grasshopperbe]

Demosthenes, i checked on my li'l tvtuner card. pal is used in western europe.
(amongst belgium, where i live)
As far as i get it, japan also uses ntsc
but its different from american.
theres also secam. this is used in france and northern africa if i remember right.

i played an alpha version in semi japanese of gran turismo 2 on ps 1
a few years back. and it only worked when i used a different NTSC SCART cable( my normal one is PAL).
it worked on a PAL cable, but it was in black an white.

backups are only legal when you make 1 copy and use it yourself and get rid of it when you sell the original.
( like a windows disc)
to play copy discs on ps2 youll need such a modchip.( It comes with a 'region selector cd for foreign games or something )
its not really easy to place them and youll lose your guarantee off course.
there are also 'bad' chips on the market so know what youre doing would be my advice.

[Spyda]

PAL is european, and i think australian, NTSC is american and japanese. although they all use different formats of each.
ie PAL UK and PAL AUS