Does anybody knows why we have PAL A & B ???

nikkinikki
in Collector's Corner
I was wondering why Nintendo split the Pal-market in Pal A and Pal B? I mean there only exists PAL and NTSC!?image
Did somone knows somthing about that or got an idea that make sense?

Comments

  • BootGodBootGod
    They must have done it just to have even tighter region control. The only difference is the CIC lockout chip, which prevents the carts from being played in other regions.
  • jajajajajaja
    Yep, it cant be for any other reason than to control the import/export.
  • nikkinikki
    Thought about that too, but can't imagine how does it should work. I mean if they want to split and controle with that the pal market they could make for every country a specific region code - not only 2!? It's not realy important but would be intresting whats the background behind that...
  • XeviousXevious
    What about SECAM? Is it just another PAL standard used in France (?) and East-Europe?

    But SECAM was maybe a pre-NES standard or...?

    Are there any NES boxes marked as SECAM version?



  • BlueMadcapBlueMadcap
    Go look at some SECAM games screenshots, it's a terrible looking pile of garbage..

  • ZzapZzap
    Yeah, I can only imagine that they split them up to control the sales markets. Similar to DVD region coding I guess. Since PAL A is like Australia, UK and Italy, they must have thought there was plenty of geographic distance between them anyway, and didn't need to break it down into more regions
  • DainDain
    The one market that sticks out is the France market. Typically, this market uses SECAM, but for NES games, I was under the impression that the FRA code games work in PAL A and PAL B machines (can any disprove this?). This is why if you use the Advanced Search, you'll see an option for "PAL A/B" in the "TV Format(s)" multi-select box. This option returns FRA region games. AFAIK, there aren't any SECAM NES games (marked as SECAM).



    -Dain
  • nikkinikki
    I just tested a few FRA games in an ITA PAL A conosle but only get a blinking with a short showing up of the intro.
  • daynumdaynum
    FRA games should work fine on a PAL A NES. In fact a lot of games sold in the UK had the FRA code instead of UKV. You may also notice that most PAL games have an A or B on the label to distinguish the region, but FRA games don't (or at least mine don't).
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