What is the best way to play SNES games from PAL, NTSC and Japanese regions on the same console?
I'm from the UK by the way.
Just like with the NES/Famicom, you have to jump through some hoops, but this time it isn't a matter of different number of pins, but region locks. The PAL SNES has region locks that can only be accessed through PAL SNES games. North American and Japanese games both use the same region lock, but the cartridges are physically shaped differently. A North American SNES cart is much more rectangular than a japanese Super Famicom or European SNES cartridge is.
You can modify a North American SNES by simply taking a pair of pliers and removing two plastic tabs in the cart bay so Super Famicom games will fit, but it still won't play PAL games. On a European SNES, the cartridge bay itself will need to be cut and extended, ruining the exterior beauty of it. There are pass through plugs that you can buy that piggyback an Euro SNES cart so your system can run North American/Japanese games, but these are bulky, ugly, rare and expensive.
What I
highly recommend you do is buy yourself a Super Powerpak.
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?products_id=84The Super Powerpak is $145 USD plus postage but is the perfect solution to your problem. The cartridge is a special shape so that it will fit into ANY model SNES or Super Famicom. It has a cycle lockout chip that will work in any region, and boot games from any region.
Put your games on a CF card and play them on the system. It'll play fan translations and rom hacks as well as all the commercial games. Built in GameGenie support and saves directly to the CF card for easy backup.
The only thing the powerpak won't do is run games with special co-processors like Star Fox or Super Mario RPG. For these games you'll need the original carts.
Any questions feel free to ask!
