Importing a Japanese Playstation 1
 

I have a few Japanese Playstation 1 games that I would love to play, or at least have the ability to... I'm not interested in modding a system, and I can't I seem to find one online for sale, but I was wondering if anyone in Japan was willing to purchase a used Japanese PSOne and ship it to me -- they have to be cheap these days.


I would surely pay for the purchase, shipping, and for the labor and time ;)

PSone's stopped being produced long time ago and as a result you can't find them in stores. Your only hope is to buy it from someone.

So, in all of Japan, there isn't a used video game store?

Actually PAL is the standard for Europe. You would also need a PAL TV.
The US and Japan are NTSC standard.

I wouldn't waist your money getting a console of this age....
Just run the games in an emulator EPSXE (http://www.epsxe.com/). Any modern PC can run any PS1 game independent of the country.

However if you have your mindset on the console experience, I would just MOD your current console.
You can still purchance external mod chips that don't require the pleasures of the soldering iron

Link to purchase new external mod chips PM'd to you. Plug and play!

I didn't mean PAL then, apparently. All I know is that my Japanese PSOne games don't work in my U.S. PSOne or 2.


I have played the games via emulator, but I kind of want the Japanese playstation to authenticate my collection.

Used console:
Yahoo!
would be your best bet. Good luck there though... not many willing to ship internationally.

A Japanese PS2 would be the better bet as its laser and calibration are probably still doable and you could play Japanese region DVDs and play your ps1 games.

The PS1 Japanese is really no different than the PS1 US aside from a region setting in the BIOS. The mod chip just flips this for you.

Your other chance is just to buy from an international friendly import shop
Buy Video Games for Consoles and PC - From Japan, Korea and other Regions - Play-Asia.com

Sometimes the actual console is better like you say.

Interesting that the PS2, a 10 year old console, out sold the Xbox 360 this year in Japan.

I bought my PlayStation in Japan and then modded it to play American games. It couldn't be any easier.

You could also try CraigsList or Ebay

Thanks for the input, guys.

... but unfortunately I want to say "Hey, look at my Japanese Playstation!"


Well, I am going to Japan next year -- are there used specialty video-game shops that anyone knows of? I'm guessing Akihabara ;)

You should have no trouble finding a used PS1 in Akihabara.

Japan and the US are both NTSC, but have different region codes.

Thanks, MMM.


Maybe the thread title should be changed to "Importing a Japanese Playstation 1" ;)