Expert: Octane - 12/17/2009

Question
Hello,

thank you for answering my other questions so quickly, the info was great. i have some more if you dont mind. by the way u said u were an aussie, where is oz are u from ?

i have been reading that certain consoles games and things are compatible with other consoles, would you be able to provide a full list of this ? that way instead of buying every single console i can buy consoles that i like with games that may work with other consoles if you get my understanding. i hope i worded that ok hahahaha.

living in australia all the consoles and games are PAL, do you think its worthwhile sticking with PAL or buying the NTSC kind as they seem to be more widely available on ebay and auction places ?

you seem to know alot about the final fantasy games, are you a fan ? if so heres a question.
from you list you gave in your last answers to me it seems that all the final fantasy games were realeased on a playsation 1, 2 or 3 console at some time or another, since i am a big fan of final fantasy and playstations would u think its best to get all the games on playsation and not the original consoles they were released on or is this too hard to accomplish ? or wouldnt work for another reason you know of ?

thanks again for your time, talk soon  

Answer
Gday Again Jason,

Originally from the Victoria area.  Grew up around Bendigo and Shepparton then moved to Melbourne.

Game Compatibility.

Microsoft
Xbox 360 will play Xbox Games.  (NB it will not play all Xbox games and you need a Hard drive model and not the Arcade Edition)

Sony
PS1 (Original Model with Parallel port in the back) will play some Gameboy Games via a weird adaptor on the back I believe called a Gameboy Booster
PS2 will play PS1 Games
PS3 will play PS1 & PS2 Games (Not all of them and it has to be an early 60GB model.  The New Slims are not backward compatible)

Sega
Mega Drive will play Master System Games via a thing called the Master System Converter/Power Base Converter. *Official Sega Product*
Game Gear will also play Master System Games Via a converter. *Official Sega Product*

Nintendo
SNES will play Early Gameboy and some Gameboy Color via the Super Gameboy converter. *Official Nintendo Product*
SNES will play NES games via a Super Tristar (Quite Rare)
N64 will play some Gameboy games via the Transfer Pack system (Mainly Pokemon) *Official Nintendo Product*
N64 will play most Gameboy & Gameboy color (Via a third party Cartridge) either a GameBooster or GB Hunter.
N64 will play SNES and NES games via a Tristar 64 (again quite rare)
Gamecube will play all Gameboy, gameboy Color and GBA games via a Gameboy player *Official Nintendo Product*
DS will play Gameboy, Gameboy Collor and GBA Games.
Wii will play all Gamecube games.

Atari
Atari 5200 will play Atari 2600 games.

Yobo
Clone system maker make several systems that play NES, SNES and Megadrives (or Combinations) in the one unit.

PC
Depending on the capabilities of your PC you can play just about any System that is Disk Based on a PC via an Emulation Program.  (Sega CD, Saturn, PS1, PS2, Xbox, Dreamcast, Gamecube)  Although some you need a fairly powerful machine.

PAL Vs NTSC
The good thing is most of your standard Australian TV and duel signal so they will handle PAL and NTSC signals fine.  So getting NTSC videogame equipment should not be a problem.  The big problem is game compatibility.  IE you will need converter, system modification, boot disks to play PAL on NTSC machines or Vice Versa.  Now most consoles can be moded or chipped or have a boot disk so it probably does not matter which system you get.  I will say about the only machine that you might consider a NTSC model is a SNES, simply because the shell casing has to be really heavily modified to get a NTSC cartridge to fit.  Although there are converter cartridges available.  Again it really personal preference on if you one one or both regional consoles and depending on what games you play the most.  (again it comes down to if you have a converter cartridge/boo disk/mod chip or not.)  I know I personally own a Australian and US SNES (Which I use for Testing) and I own a PAL, JAP %26 US Gamecube (Simply because I wanted to figure out how to wire in a switch to switch between modes and I though if I had all 3 I might be able to figure it out.)  I own a Japanese Saturn (Because most of my games and Japanese) and everything else is a US console.

Final Fantasy was originally a Nintendo Exclusive for the first six odd installments but Square did not like the Development of the N64 and felt there game was capable of much more and jumped to Sony due to the use of CD media which was capable of holding much more data that Cartridge.  Eventually all the Final Fantasy where remade or re-released in some format.  Sticking with all the Plantations versions is fine it really depends on what or how you collect.  I know some of the original Black Labled Final Fantasy on PS1 go for high dollars.  If you find a final Fantasy Cheap for another console you probably will not pass it up because it cheap and Final Fantasy.  I know I have multiple copies of the exact same game for different systems.  (Hell I have Ms Pac Man for about every system even though I have a Ms Pac Man Arcade Machine sitting in my lounge room)

Hope this helps you further.

Octane