Playing Japanese games on European N64

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

How easy is this? I have two Nintendo 64s but I'm not brave enough to open my system.



And for instance this seems to be for a North American system, NOT an European one.

Just asking if anyone here knows how to do this. I don't even have Japanese N64 games, but I might order some one day.

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

You can't just play US or Japanese games on a European N64. The US and Japan N64 are made to work with the NTSC TV standard while those in Europe either use SECAM (France) or PAL (pretty much everywhere else). The same is true for the games. So an NTSC game will only work on an NTSC console (which is why you can usually play US games on a Japanese system and vice versa) - but NTSC games won't work on a PAL console unless it was modified. =/

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

OK, thanks for your input, AVMA, but I thought having a new table television would work. As far as Nintendo imports are concerned, I only have the experience on SNES games so far. I have this 'Fire' adapter which you can place on the European SNES, then you insert both PAL and JAP game there and then you can play the JAP game. I have a new Sony table television and the SNES games do work. I thought there would be a device similar to the Fire adapter for Nintendo 64 but if not, then thanks anyway.

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

There actually was a game converter. Maybe you can still find one of those around somewhere.

http://www.nesworld.com/n64universalconverter.php

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

'Here's another adapter, or converter if you wish, which will allow you to play American N64 games on a European N64 console, or vice versa. The adapter has room for two games, one obviously the American game you'd like to play which goes into the slot marked "Playing Game Pak" and then a European game in the "Booting Game Pak" slot.

What it does it that it grabs the lockout chip info from the European game to be able to boot (start) the American game. If your TV is a 100Hz you won't have any problems with most games, but if you're using an older TV you may experience som flickering as the video signal is NTSC. Super Mario 64 is capable of running in PAL mode, with slightly garbled sound, Clayfighter 63 1/3 (Sculptor's Cut) runs flawlessly on a PAL console with PAL output and then there are games like Mario Party 3 which just gives a black screen, Finally there are games like Star Wars Episode 1 Racer which has a video detection routine which disallows the game to be run on PAL console.'

Interesting! I did a quick search and I think I already found that one from Ebay, but first I have to make sure if I really have use for it. As I said, I (fortunately!) haven't got imported games in my hands yet.