PlayStation Australia has tonight confirmed what many classic gaming purists were hoping for: we will be getting NTSC options for many of the PlayStation Classics on the new PS Plus Deluxe tier.
We’re planning to roll out NTSC options for a majority of classic games offered on the PlayStation Plus Premium and Deluxe plan in Asia, Europe, Middle East, India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand regions. More PlayStation Plus info: https://t.co/2Y26oVa0Rq
— PlayStationAU (@PlayStationAU) June 23, 2022
As people perusing the list of games launching on the retooled PlayStation Plus platform noticed today, our range of PlayStation Classics does not have NTSC options. To a certain extent, this makes sense. At the time these classic games were released, Australia was a PAL region.
PAL (Phase Alternating Line) and NTSC (National Television System Committee) were the two primary analog formats found in CRT TVs. PAL was used in countries like Australia and New Zealand because our utility frequency was 50Hz. In the Americas and parts of Asia, it was 60Hz, and thus NTSC was the standard format (though, of course, there were many exceptions). PAL was technically higher resolution, with 567 visible lines compared to NTSC’s 480. Because NTSC ran at 60Hz, however, it was better for fast-moving images — like video games.
The reason a lot of Australian gamers are keen to see NTSC versions of the PlayStation Classics range come to PS Plus is that the NTSC versions are considered the more performant of the two. They have better frame rates than their PAL counterparts, which makes the play experience much smoother.
That’s obviously an incredibly base-level explanation of the PAL vs NTSC debate. You can read a more in-depth explainer over here if you’d like to know more about how these formats worked.
There’s no word yet on when NTSC options will begin to roll out for PlayStation Plus Deluxe in Australia. For now, we’re just happy to know they’re on the way.
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