North America: actual rarity of PAL consoles for sale in the wild?

Have you ever witnessed in-person within the US, Canada, Mexico, or their territories, a PAL game console available to purchase?
If so let us know!

With our generally low interest in them... It'd be fun to have a more accurate grasp how often they surface and where.
Other details like average price/condition are OK too.

 

In the past 5 years I saw 1 grey PlayStation, 1 PlayStation 2 fat, and 1 Sega Dreamcast.

 

As someone who has for the last decade gone game hunting often, and prior to that on a semi-regular basis since 1996 - I don't think I've ever seen PAL products in the wild.

 

x2

I've come across games from time to time in flee markets.

 

Flee markets? Are those like a flea market, but the items being sold are really horrifying?

I have no idea why someone would import a PAL console to the US, it's VERY RARE that PAL regions got a game that NTSC didn't, and who would choose 50hz over 60hz?

 

Yeah, it doesn't really make sense although there are reasons for owning PAL systems - exclusive RGB capability (GameCube) or a few up to many exclusive titles (Dreamcast had plenty compared to the size of its library).

 

I saw a few when I lived in LA, but not anywhere else...

 

The Gamestop by me had a PAL PS2.. I pointed that out and the manager who bought it got pissed. How do I know it was PAL? Well I went with a friend to replace his system and noticed the one that Gamestop brought out a PAL model.

Otherwise I've seen a few PS3 PAL games here and there.

 

Never ran into any systems but I have found two pal mega drive games,one at the flee market and one at a game store.

Oh and my local game store that carry's imports has 3 pal sega saturn games and a boxed pal dreamcast controller.

 

I used to run into PAL VHS tapes occasionally on military bases when people would have community sales. Occasionally a PAL DVD nowadays but I'm trying really trying to remember if there was ever something gaming related I seen in the wild...but not that I can recall. LOTS of JPN and some Korean stuff though

 

The game store in Chicago I go to usually has a case of import games, and maybe 20% of them are PAL (the rest are Japanese).

 

What store? I live by Chicago

 

Canada here.

No idea on prices for games or systems- I never really see them.

My assumption is that they're hard to come across, but even then they're not pricey because they're not a heavily sought after item.

 

Thats true only exception I can remember was Terranigma on the SNES.

 

That's an awesome story. And I could believe them falling for that too.

I actually was interested in getting a good condition PAL GameCube for the very reason that it has RGB output and would go nicely with my Sony PVM. However it would need to be modded to play my NTSC original software or something I assume. But I never did find a cheap way to get one.

 

Indeed. He didn't go with the system and opted to buy a PS2 slim.

And what game store is this in Chicago? I know Reckless Records has a ton of import games.. I could make a special trip down to Chicago just for that other store.

 

Only two times and both were Shenmue II for the Dreamcast. That is also the only game I can remember people actively importing from Europe. Pretty much everything else are the cast-offs from expats.

 

It's the sort of place Del Boy sold stuff. See the Police, and flee!

Whilst there are far fewer PAL exclusive titles than Japanese exclusives, I don't think that's quite fair. There are PAL exclusive titles, or Japanese games that were released in PAL regions but not North America, for most consoles. However, the majority of consoles can play import games, either natively or with modification.

As an example, there were over 20 titles released in Europe for Saturn that did not see a US release, but I believe there were under 20 titles that were released in the US that did not see a European release.

There are one or two consoles that weren't released in non-PAL regions. I don't think Amstrad ever made an NTSC GX4000, did they?

 

lol, you got me. hahahaha.

Generally the items sold aren't horrifying, the people you meet there are though.

 

ROFL!!! I had an image of the place in my mind

Exactly! Why would you bother with a pal console when NTSC ones can be modded to play pal anyway? And 50hz SuuuuuuUUUUCKS!!!