Importing or purchasing consoles or console games from international retailers is a great way for gamers to undercut local price escalations. Today the strong Rand and a lack of consistently applied import taxes mean that one can purchase a Playstation 3, Xbox 360 or a Wii for considerably less than local retail prices.<\/p>\n
Despite this there are a number of technical considerations to take into account buying a console or game from outside of South Africa.
Below is an explanation of what to consider when looking to import.<\/p>\n
Playstation 3<\/strong><\/p>\n The Playstation 3 is arguably the most flexible of the current generation consoles when it comes to region coding.<\/p>\n Playstation 3 games are region free. This means that a game purchased in any country will play on a console purchased anywhere in the world. This is with the exception of the initially released 20GB and 60GB models which feature the PS2 emulating Emotion chip.<\/p>\n With regards to DVD and Blu Ray playback the PS3 is bound to the region in which it was purchased. There is no legal way in which to subvert this without rendering the product warranty void. Blu Ray disks are divided into three regions, namely A1 (The Americas), B2 (Africa, Europe, Southwest Asia, Australia) and C3 (Asia, Russia).<\/p>\n Another important factor to consider is the distinction between NTSC and PAL standard video formats. PAL is supported locally while NTSC is the standard in a number of first world territories such as the Americas and Japan. NTSC configured devices which run on 480i are not able to handle the extra 96 lines of imaging that PAL (576i) utilises.<\/p>\n All PS3 titles do however support the 720p video format so those users who own a HD Ready or Full HD television need not be concerned.<\/p>\n Xbox 360<\/strong><\/p>\n The Xbox 360 is region locked for game titles, some online content and DVD playback.<\/p>\n According to Microsoft support, if a buyer purchases “an Xbox 360 console in North America, [they] cannot play game discs that are sold in Europe or in Asia on that console. An Xbox 360 console that is sold in Europe can only play game discs that are sold in Europe. And an Xbox 360 console that is sold in Asia can only play game discs that are sold in Asia.”<\/p>\n This means that a consumer who buys an Xbox 360 in the USA and brings it back to South Africa will be restricted to using games released in the USA. Although there is a method to modify the Xbox 360 to accept all regions, this renders the warranty void and will also result in the user being banned from the Xbox Live service. South African’s can safely purchase games from the UK and Europe as this is where our consoles and games are imported from. Xbox 360 games released in the USA however will not work on Xbox 360s bought in SA.<\/p>\n Wii<\/strong><\/p>\n The Wii console is perhaps the most regulated of all the consoles with regard to region.<\/p>\n The console is completely region locked with regards to titles; this means that titles from other territories will not work on a Wii bought locally. What to consider when importing or purchasing a console or game overseas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Although the Wii does not feature standard DVD playback functionality the console is locked to PAL and NTSC regions. This is because it does not support high definition video formats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"