Using Japanese Systems in the US

I was just wondering about something. I have read that the Japanese electrical system is slightly different from that of the US - Japanese outlets ouput 100V whereas American outlets output 120V. Is this difference significant for the use of videogame systems? I have 5 Japanese systems - a PS2, a PS1, a PC Engine, a Saturn, and a Wondermega - and I've never had any problems using these devices in the US.

Most of them I don't use very often, but I've used the Saturn quite a bit for several years and it still works perfectly (although I replaced the disc unit with that of an American system shortly after I bought it). I'm just wondering if I could be doing some very slow damage to these devices that may cause them to break down in a few years. I want these systems to last as long as possible, so if I'm doing damage to them then I definitely want to change that.

 

Basically you shouldn't have problems as machine that use a transformer will regulate the voltage to what it needs, although the slight increase in voltage will make the voltage regulator work harder and will get fractionally hotter, but in the grand scheme of things it won't make any difference.

Machines that use inbuilt or switch mode PSUs (Playstation, Xbox 360, etc) tend to have a wide voltage range from 90V to 130V so again you won't damage them with the 10 to 20V difference,

 

good to know.

 

Yeah, it's Europe (possibly elsewhere?) that really gets screwed by imports. I think I still have a step-down convertor somewhere for my R7 dreamcast, but haven't played it in ages now.

 

Oh you lucky bastards!
I need an entire army of stepdown convertors for my Japanese consoles. It never happened to me, but especially in the happy days of US&JP imports (PS2 and back) people were often reporting of how they just grilled their console because they accidentally used a german AC cable on their import PS2 instead of their german unit D:
Collateral damage!

 

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