Will UK PlayStation2 games work in the US?

July 15, 2008 12:29 PM

Does anyone know if PS2 games from the UK will work on a US console, or do they release region-specific games like they do DVDs?

My kids love the Singstar game and I noticed today that there are quite a few Singstar disks that have been released in the UK but not here. I'd love to get a couple, but I suspect that because of regional licensing issues, they may not play here.

Hive brain? Any experience?

posted by elfgirl to Technology (5 answers total)

You're correct, PS2 games are region-locked. Depending on which PS2 you have, there are various ways around it thought.
posted by Oktober at 12:33 PM on July 15, 2008

Regions aside, the UK uses the PAL video format, while the US uses NTSC. Here's some detail.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 12:37 PM on July 15, 2008

Swap Magic is great for playing PS2 games from other regions.
(And that's all it's great for.)
(Nothing else.)
(Shhbittorrentshh.)

You can expect a small amount of screen-weirdness unless she has a PAL-compatible TV. But for SingStar it shouldn't be a problem.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:29 PM on July 15, 2008

I have used Swap Magic with my US console to play games from Australia (i.e. PAL games, including one SingStar game), and it works great. But I have had problems with SingStar Bollywood from the UK. It just won't start. When the original disc didn't work, I tried other sources (shhbittorrentshh) and had exactly the same problem. So there may be an issue with that particular title with Swap Magic.
posted by ocha-no-mizu at 2:08 PM on July 15, 2008

Response by poster: Helpful! Thanks, guys.
posted by elfgirl at 3:32 AM on July 24, 2008