life_is_pleach Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Hello all together, how can I differentiate NTSC games from Pal games. I mean on current games there is a NTSC or Pal logo on the cover but on the 7800, and i believe on 2600 games too, there is no logo or something like that. So, how could I? Thanks a lot in advance, life_is_pleach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 -edit- Real simple: you purchase game from overseas - it rolls on your tele and the colors look funny. You purchase game domestically, it works and looks as you thought it always would. Very few exceptions to this rule. And besides, 9 times out of 10, the game is already opened and the seller would know what format it is. Some 7800 PAL games have a sticker that reads 'P' on the back and of course, you have a few PAL only exclusives such as My Golf, Ghostbusters II, Pick N Pile, etc. My Golf though has been converted to NTSC and you can purchase it in cartridge form over at atari2600.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Laird Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Real simple: you purchase game from overseas - it's PAL. You purchase game domestically, it's NTSC. Not if he is in UK/Europe/Australia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Not if he is in UK/Europe/Australia You're right! If people would start filling out their damn profile info, this sort of mixup, errr... scratch that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
life_is_pleach Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 Sorry but it has nothing do with that. For example: I bought today three sealed 7800 games. On two of them is a small text that it is for NTSC. On the third game there is nothing like that and front, back and sides from the cover looks exactly like the others. So is it a Pal game or NTSC game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 If it came with two NTSC games then it is likely to be NTSC a swell. The real test is if it plays on your system. An NTSC 7800 will not play PAL 7800 games. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
life_is_pleach Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 Maybe but I bought them today on a small retro convention in Germany and I won't open them up in the moment to gamble. And I read here in the Forum that some guys could play Pal games on their NTSC consoles. So there is no way to figure out the difference between an NTSC or Pal game when it is sealed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 OK, so are you from Germany? You most likely have a PAL 7800 then. If you are talking about that back of the box where it says for NTSC TVs you can ignore that. All of the early 7800 games said that even when they were PAL versions of the game. Apparently Atari was too cheap at the time to print more boxes that didn't say that. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
life_is_pleach Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 (edited) O.K. thats good to know. Unfortunately my 7800 is a US model. I hope that I can find an cheap boxed Pal version of the 7800 console. Thanks a lot for your help. But otherwise there is no way to find out when a game is sealed? Edited January 23, 2011 by life_is_pleach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 If there is a French manual shrinkwrapped to the back then it is PAL. Many PAL games do not have it either though. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
life_is_pleach Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 No, no french manual but I saw one with it but didn't bought it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 As Mitch said, even if the box says NTSC, the game inside could be PAL. Atari DID NOT print new boxes for the PAL market, all the boxes are the same regardless of whether the game was sold in the US or Europe. So the only way to actually tell most of the time is to open the box and test the cartridge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
life_is_pleach Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 O.K. Thanks a lot. Question answered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johannesmutlu Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 That’s my problem too, i bought some atari 7800 games from ebay assuming they are ntsc ,because on the game cart it says “nintendo of america” however i discovered that some games were stated as pal on the list but that the cartride still say’s “nintendo of america” but to me that’s incorrect,why could it not say “nintendo of europe” to clearly indicate that it is pal based? btw why did atari added a region detection chip in the first place? They didn’t do that with their previous consoles, now while am waiting for my purchased games and the ntsc 7800 system,it might be now a hit or miss situation and hoping for the best Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 Sure, you can never thrust, that your game is NTSC or PAL.... I own both systems, so I have no problems to play the games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juansolo Posted April 4, 2022 Share Posted April 4, 2022 From a UK perspective I'd say that most of the games are PAL that you'll end up buying. However, the chances of you picking up a random NTSC one are higher than you'd think. Maybe one in 15-20 might end up randomly being NTSC. As has been mentioned, you can't trust the boxes, but if the cart has a P sticker on the back, it's PAL (though not all PAL games have the sticker or it falls off...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 I bought a bunch of sealed ones from Germany via a Forum and they turned out to be NTSC (BW only, some garbled stuff at the bottom). The seller said he didn't know. I used the boxes and bought loose PAL carts to go with them and sold on the NTSC carts (declared as such). It's probably easier to sell surplus PAL carts to Europe than the other way round as that stuff is more readily available in the US anyway. I thought US bases all over Europe in the 80s might have been a source of NTSC 7800 stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smith Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 This non-standard way of identifying PAL releases is what makes me think twice about investing in the rarer games like Planet Smashers and Midnight Mutants. Really wish Atari had done a better job with this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johannesmutlu Posted April 14, 2022 Share Posted April 14, 2022 On 1/23/2011 at 12:35 AM, life_is_pleach said: Hello all together, how can I differentiate NTSC games from Pal games. I mean on current games there is a NTSC or Pal logo on the cover but on the 7800, and i believe on 2600 games too, there is no logo or something like that. So, how could I? Thanks a lot in advance, life_is_pleach I ran into a mysterious issue,while i can play atari 2600 popeye on my ntsc atari 7800 with the expansion port,BUT if i put atari 2600 sky skipper in my atari 7800 i don’t get response out of it,whether i change those switches ,hit select or pause i just somehow get no response out of it,i searched on google and youtube but no luck,so i wonder am i missing something or do i something wrong,could it be that i own a pal version of sky skipper being unplayible on a ntsc atari 7800 or could it be that those atari 7800 systems and revisions just don’t work with sky skipper??? i heard that some atari 2600 games do have issues on atari 7800 systems wich also differ per system, so as of now i can only speculate and lastly i bought by accident both the pal versions of donkeykong jr and ms pac man as a result i cannot play them on my ntsc atari 7800 wich is very frustrating so now am forced to rebuy those games in ntsc form,if only atari just labled those games as pal & ntsc, or us and eu,that would,ve make things more clear,why atari why all this confusion along with a hit & miss? ouch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_79 Posted April 15, 2022 Share Posted April 15, 2022 13 hours ago, johannesmutlu said: why atari why all this confusion Because that wasn't an issue in the '80s. No internet and no easy way to buy things from all over the world. People bought consoles and games from local stores, which sold them in the format in use in that country. Not to mention the technical issues in powering and displaying the signal from a console with a different TV standard. This is much easier now, with multistandard TVs, converters and video mods that are documented and/or sold online. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johannesmutlu Posted April 19, 2022 Share Posted April 19, 2022 On 4/15/2022 at 11:40 AM, alex_79 said: Because that wasn't an issue in the '80s. No internet and no easy way to buy things from all over the world. People bought consoles and games from local stores, which sold them in the format in use in that country. Not to mention the technical issues in powering and displaying the signal from a console with a different TV standard. This is much easier now, with multistandard TVs, converters and video mods that are documented and/or sold online. Hey i,ve solved the issue i got atari 2600 with sky skipper running on my atari 7800,after hitting select/reset,you have to hold down BOTH action buttons and hold up to make the helicopter fly(before that i only did hold only down 1 action buttong whether left or richt but not both) so yes despite both action buttons are actually the same buttons but for what i dod readed is that some games could indeed use 2 action buttons with each it’s own function (as if you tell one of those buttons to work in a different mode rather then in default mode) Reminds of the atari lynx wich contains 4 main action buttons for wich 2 are the same from each other in wich the other two serves as left or right hand player,BUT i was thinking maybe those extra buttons can be programmed individually as well from those other two buttons to work in another mode sothat those 4 main action buttons on the lynx can have each their own fucntion rather then serving for left or right players,but i don’t know yet if that’s indead possible or not. BTW i would be not surprised if sega stole that concept from nintendo for their choplifter game,didn’t they? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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