Japan got the best PS1 releases in PS Plus – but is that good for us too?

While game selection hasn’t increased in Japan, PS1 titles are more enjoyable in PS Plus Premium.

After Southeast Asia, Japan will be the first core market to benefit from the new PlayStation Plus. Sony probably doesn’t have to fear renewed criticism from retro fans this time. Thanks to numerous PS3 titles that can be streamed, PS Plus Premium has real added value and the (still small) selection of PS1 classics should also be much more popular because they first reports only contains NTSC versions.

NTSC versions play optimally

In the Southeast Asian countries, the Classic catalog was filled with a mixture of PAL and NTSC versions. PS1 games that have been adapted for the European PAL standard run slower and stutter on modern televisions because they are only output at 50 Hz. The NTSC standard that dominates in Japan and America, on the other hand, uses 60 Hz, as is also the case with HD televisions.

Due to the same output frequency, NTSC versions play pleasantly smoothly on today’s televisions, the distances between rendered images always remain identical. A PAL game, however, fills out a 60 Hz signal very unevenly, making titles with a frame rate of 25 fps look even choppy than on a CRT TV.

The frame times, i.e. the intervals between two displayed frames, would be exactly the same on a tube television, but they fluctuate happily in a 60 Hz signal. (Image: Ape Escape)

Sony has released updates for some of the previously released PAL games, but they caused as many problems as they solved:

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Jerky PS1 classics

Sony’s rescue attempt went completely awry

There is probably a simple reason why only NTSC versions were used in Japan: There are simply no PAL versions of games with Japanese localization. Games developed in Japan used the NTSC standard anyway, and if a title had to be translated into Japanese, the American NTSC version served as the basis.

This is potentially bad news for European fans

The fact that Sony attaches great importance to the publication of localized versions could prove to be a problem for European players, since PAL versions mostly only offered screen texts and voice output in a non-English language.

If only one version finds its way into the European PS Plus Premium on June 23rd, German-speaking players would also be affected by the PAL problem. Under certain circumstances, this could even apply to more titles than in the first swing in Southeast Asia. Siphon Filter and Abe’s Oddysee, for example, have been translated into German, so they may well be released in PAL in this country.

On the other hand, Sony has already thrown together NTSC and PAL versions for the PlayStation Classic:

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PlayStation Classic reviewed

A mini-console with dubious stuffing

Above all, many PS2 games that were not included in the Asian releases have been announced for the European launch of the new PlayStation Plus. But these are not new implementations, the PS4 ports have been available in the PlayStation Store for many years. The full list of all announced games can be found here:

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PS Plus premium

All previously known games

Unfortunately, these new releases have too a dubious reputation, since they are based on PAL versions in Europe and are therefore jerky. Giving players the choice between NTSC and PAL versions would certainly be a good compromise on how Sony ultimately deals with the situation, but remains open for the time being. Perhaps the American changeover date of June 13 will allow further conclusions to be drawn.

Do you think there will be a better implementation of retro games in PS Plus for the European release?