Hi, I have a question for you guys. Generally, people in the United States play Japanese SFC carts on a North American SNES. Is that safe for the carts? And does that not make the game run at the wrong speed? When I play Japanese carts, I've always used a power converter along with my Japanese SFC console, because the power is slightly different in Japan. Am I right to be using a power converter with my Super Famicom? Or does it not matter? And if I played a Japanese cart in a US SNES, would the game speed be the same as if I was playing it the way I normally do with the power converter? I would imagine that since the power is different, the game would run at a different speed. And most importantly, will playing a Japanese cart on a US SNES damage the cart at all? Sorry for the redundancy of these questions.
The power converter has nothing to do with the speed the games run at, that's determined by whether the console and game are made to run at a refresh rate of 50 Hz (PAL) or 60 Hz (NTSC). Since the SFC and US SNES are both NTSC, there won't be a speed difference.
SNES, Nintendo 64, and Sega 32X, share NTSC region settings between US/Japan/Korea. For merely gaming it isn't usually worth buying Japanese of those in the US. The basic method for playing Super Famicom games on US SNES is just physical. File down those tabs and they stay hidden virtually all the time. Whenever the door flap is closed, or a game inserted, that can't even be seen.
You don't really need a power converter to use a SFC in the US. There is a slight difference in power output (~110V vs. ~120V), but the difference is not significant enough to cause damage. From what I've read, really the only devices that you need to be careful with when importing (from Japan) are those with any kind of heating element. Devices like videogame consoles are fine.
