Buying American Xbox 360

Shades799

Hey, I'm looking to buy an Xbox 360 for Christmas. The problem is the main game I'll want to play on it is NCAA Football 2011 which for some reason is region coded.

Anyway, I have a few questions that I'm hoping you can help me with:

1) Does anyone know of a place I could buy the Xbox from the US and have it delivered to Ireland

2) What sort of price would I be looking at?

3) Apart from getting a transformer to handle the different voltage, is there any thing else I need to be concerned about, I presume the Xbox connects with an HDMI cable so there should be no other connection worries? True?

4) Will I get nailed by customs considering this is not a good that I can purchase in the EU because I need it to play a game that is not available in the EU?

5) And a General question, what is the purpose of the memory on the Xbox? I thought all the games were played off a disc so barring the Xbox is just used as some sort of external memory device is there anything else that would make me want to splash out on extra memory?

Thanks for any help provided, much appreciated!

joker@

Different standard of video (ntsc),custom taxes always has to be paid ,in my opinion flashing dvd drive will help you.But Its not palce to talk about it.

Gooch2k4

99% of TVs now would handle NTSC, so thats not what you should worry about,

Id check out www.play-asia.com

as for the connections, you may need to source a EU power supply, as i dont know if you can get the plugs on their own (the power supply itself would be able to handle our voltages)

Not too sure about customs though, ive only ever imported games

As for storage, the 250GB model means you can install games on it, which means things load quicker and the console itself is quieter since no disc is spinning

Shades799

Gooch2k4 wrote: »

99% of TVs now would handle NTSC, so thats not what you should worry about,

Id check out www.play-asia.com

I tried this out and unfortunatly the games I want to play are US only.

Seems like theres a bit more to this than just the power so, I'll have a looksie at flashing the drive and what that entails.

What about the PS3? Would that have simular issues in bringing over from the states?

joker@

Yes.

TouchingVirus

There are two main things you need worry about if you import a US xbox 360 console.

1) Power. The US is 110v @ 60Hz - Europe is 220v @ 50Hz. Luckily the console runs on DC power and uses an external power brick to change the AC into DC. So provided you pick up a UK/Ireland 220V power brick for your console, power will not be an issue. You can get them from Microsoft for €25 or so but there might be third-party or second hand ones too. This is only valid for the old model 360, the new slim has an internal AC-DC power supply so you'd need a transformer for that.

2) Video output - the US is using NTSC video output (60Hz) while one again we're using 50Hz. As Gooch said, most modern TVs can handle it. Even if your TV cannot handle it, there is an alternative in the VGA cable which can hook up to most flatscreen TVs and computer monitors - it won't really matter if it's PAL or NTSC then


Of course there are the games too. The console is region locked to the US and will only play NTSC games or RF (Region Free games). If you're not bothered with playing online, my advice would be to pick up a JTAG 360 which is a modded console. One of the mods is to make the console itself region free so it'll play any game

From what I read the PS3 version of this game is coming out region free though.

Gooch2k4

TouchingVirus wrote: »

There are two main things you need worry about if you import a US xbox 360 console.

1) Power. The US is 110v @ 60Hz - Europe is 220v @ 50Hz. Luckily the console runs on DC power and uses an external power brick to change the AC into DC. So provided you pick up a UK/Ireland 220V power brick for your console, power will not be an issue. You can get them from Microsoft for €25 or so but there might be third-party or second hand ones too. This is only valid for the old model 360, the new slim has an internal AC-DC power supply so you'd need a transformer for that.

2) Video output - the US is using NTSC video output (60Hz) while one again we're using 50Hz. As Gooch said, most modern TVs can handle it. Even if your TV cannot handle it, there is an alternative in the VGA cable which can hook up to most flatscreen TVs and computer monitors - it won't really matter if it's PAL or NTSC then


Of course there are the games too. The console is region locked to the US and will only play NTSC games or RF (Region Free games). If you're not bothered with playing online, my advice would be to pick up a JTAG 360 which is a modded console. One of the mods is to make the console itself region free so it'll play any game

From what I read the PS3 version of this game is coming out region free though.

Buuuut you dont want to be playing online with a Jtag xbox, you probably will end up getting banned

Gooch2k4

Shades799 wrote: »

I tried this out and unfortunatly the games I want to play are US only.

Seems like theres a bit more to this than just the power so, I'll have a looksie at flashing the drive and what that entails.

What about the PS3? Would that have simular issues in bringing over from the states?

sorry but i dont understand

Shades799

TouchingVirus wrote: »

From what I read the PS3 version of this game is coming out region free though.

Cheers for the advice, all good stuff. Where do you see that NCAA Football 11 is going to be region free though? I looked at that play asia site and it said it was region blocked?

I was only going to go for the Xbox over the PS3 becuase of the Kinect. If the PS3 plays NCAA Football region free then that's my man!

TouchingVirus

Gooch2k4 wrote: »

Buuuut you dont want to be playing online with a Jtag xbox, you probably will end up getting banned

Please read my post fully next time

TouchingVirus wrote: »

If you're not bothered with playing online, my advice would be to pick up a JTAG 360 which is a modded console. One of the mods is to make the console itself region free so it'll play any game

OP: Whoops it was NCAA 10 that was RF on PS3

Gooch2k4

i did you didnt explain why about the playing online

TouchingVirus

Gooch2k4 wrote: »

i did you didnt explain why about the playing online

It should have been obvious

Gooch2k4

TouchingVirus wrote: »

It should have been obvious

I didnt think so!

bobbaggio

I lived in america for years and had an xbox 360 there, I recently moved home and am getting my xbox sent over to me by a friend, will i be able to but american games online and get them sent to ireland??? I have a power adapter and a brand new T.V so I will be able to figure that out, just worried bout ordering new games

Shades799

Folks,

Just to clear up my side of this. I received NCAA Football 12 from videogamesplus.ca one week after it shipped (I pre-ordered it from a month back) and I tried it on my mates Irish PS3.

It works perfectly with my Phillips HDTV on 1080p HD.

The sound doesn't work through my Elonex HDTV, I think this issue is with the telly though as the PS3 sounds come through perfectly on the main menu but when I start the game, the screen flickers to 720p and the sound stops working. However this happens on all the games on the PS3 on my Elonex TV so it's something I need to look at myself.

So the overall message is, NCAA Football 12 plays perfectly on an Irish PS3 that can play Irish PS3 games when shipped from the videogamesplus.ca site. (I presume this is the case for all games but I'm not willing to say definitely lest I be sued!)

I did have to setup an American EA, EA Sports and PSN account using a friends address in the States but it was hassle free really.

Thanks for all the advice

TheMooseInNam

Shades,

Don't be posting in the Xbox Forum about your PS3 game and your PS3 experiences.

I'm closing this thread because it has no place on the Xbox Forum.

TheMooseInNam