When I bought my Xbox 360 I was surprised to find that it’s still labeled as “PAL” version. I tried playing some 360 games on a regular TV (my TV was capable of interpreting PAL, Secam and NTSC signal by the way) but they looked barely better than my old Xbox games. I kind of expected this as 360 was intended for an HD capable TV anyway.

So my guess was that “PAL” or “NTSC” label on a game box (and 360 itself) only has meaning if you’re (again, not recommended) using an old analog TV as the output device. However, recently I read how the games are actually sold in regions, just like DVDs, thus NTSC games are not playable here in Europe.

Therefore when I was buying some games on eBay recently I made sure that the games are labeled “PAL”. But then I ran into a guy from Hong-Kong selling “region-free” games. Prices were excellent, even including an expensive shipping and the guy had an excellent rating. I took the risk and ordered two games.

10 days or so later I got the games and was expecting something like “region-free” on a game box. Unfortunately the label clearly read “NTSC”. I was torn between returning the games as they were (the packaging was flawless, both games were brand new including Microsoft’s authenticity seal) and opening the boxes and trying the games out. I opted for the latter – I had two games anyway, so if one works the other should too, if not, I can at least return one game unopened.

As I hoped, both games worked fine. So I can only presume that my original assumption was correct – the “PAL/NTSC” label only has meaning if you have an analog TV.