SEGA Mega Drive Asian PAL - Some are shady jobs!

Hi gamers!

Today, I jumped on YouTube to check my status of my videos which most of us do. Anyway as I was looking through my subscriptions I noticed a restoration video of the MegaDrive. Through out the video TheDamoMonster was restoring the MegaDrive to it's original NTSC-J state, he explained the story behind the Asian PAL systems. What would of happened back in the day is people from Hong Kong would order a Japanese MegaDrive and convert it to PAL and then sell them as PAL versions with just a few cut traces and a modulator. By the looks of the mod it was horrible, everything was lose, and just crappy cut in the case with a cable sticking out, you can learn more about the restoration in Damo's video here.

After watching the video, I checked my MegaDrive (when I bought this I was told it could play PAL, NTSC-J and NTSC-U in laymen's terms it was region free). Flipped over the system and saw on the sticker "PAL-I", there are no modifications from what I can see and nothing lose like as mentioned in Damo's video. Many gamers are confused when they see a Japanese MegaDrive, there are actually to versions (no I'm talking about the Megadrive 2 and 3) one was ONLY sold in Japan and there was also a model that was sold in Japan, Taiwan and Philippines. The model that had labelled "For sale in Japan, Taiwan and Philippines" is the Asian PAL-I system, and vice versa.

A very easy way to find the difference is either on the box or at the bottom of the system where the sticker is located.

'Sold only in Japan' model/box art

'Sold only in Japan, Taiwan and Philippines' model/box art

 Thanks for reading, this is HeXiGON signing out.