Will Australian bought PS3 work in the US?

[Raniburger]

Hi all,

My brother has recently packed up & moved over to the US from Australia, and has been having trouble getting his PS3 to work correctly.

After purchasing a power converter, I would have expected that everything else should work fine. However he has been having trouble with the display, and sent me the following meesage:

"finally got the ps3 powered up only to find that the picture was black and white, fuzzy and running up and down the screen. I called Sony and they said that my ps3 is not compatible with US tv's. Looks like Im going to have to get another one..."

Sounds like a PAL/NTSC issue to me, but I thought that the PS3 could output in both formats, and surely most TVs can handle both these days...

Is this a settings issue with his:

a) PS3
b) TV
c) Cabling

I would have thought that he could find some way to make it work, so that he doesn't have to buy a whole new system..?

Any help much appreciated...

Cheers guys.

[guns1inger]

PS3's are resolutely region locked and format limited. I suspect that it will only output PAL, at best PAL60 (pseudo-PAL). His choices are get a new PS3, or get a multi-format TV. I assume he is playing games he bought over here before leaving for the US, if so, they will be PAL and will only output as PAL.

I don't know if PS3's can be modded yet, and if that will remove the restrictions. However playing a PAL game on an NTSC TV won't be a happy experience. Changing the TV would be his best option.

[Raniburger]

Hi again. Thanks for that - it's pretty much along the same lines that I was thinking.

So if he can set his TV to PAL somehow then everything should be OK? That said, most TVs over here can handle NTSC... Does it not work in reverse over in the US?

[guns1inger]

No so much. Over here you can usually take it as a given that a TV will play both formats. In the US you still have to ask the question and look for a multi-format set. They are certainly much more common that a few years back, but they are not the norm.

[Raniburger]

Righto... Thanks for the help as always