Interesting Taiwanese XBOX bundle!

[OptOut | 8,886]

Hello fellows!

Probably not many people will be TOO amazed by this, but I reckon @fcgamer, @spacepup and @drxandy will like seeing this, so I figured I'd make a post!

I picked up another OG XBOX this week (eight and counting... ) but this one is a little special because it's got a funky box!

So, this is a Taiwanese release OG XBOX, but it's got a sticker! As you can see:

The system comes with a disc that has a double sided cover, and two games on one disc, Sega GT 2002 and JSRF!

It's quite interesting that the game is labelled in both Korean and Chinese, indicating that this is intended for inclusion in bundles in multiple Asian countries.

There are a couple more stickers on the box like this:

And possibly my favourite one is the one from the store with the date that it was stocked!

Not sure if this will actually be of interest to many people, but hey, it's SOMETHING, eh?

 

[Brickman | 3,987]

Sort of related but during the 360 days it was really common to see 360 games from HK in secondhand shops and on Oz EBay. They had Eng/Chinese/Korean on the box.

I wonder if this was a Xbox/360 thing where it was easy for them to do an Asian type version that covered HK/Taiwan/Korea/Aus/NZ all in one? 

[OptOut | 8,886]

2 minutes ago, Brickman said:

Sort of related but during the 360 days it was really common to see 360 games from HK in secondhand shops and on Oz EBay. They had Eng/Chinese/Korean on the box.

I wonder if this was a Xbox/360 thing where it was easy for them to do an Asian type version that covered HK/Taiwan/Korea/Aus/NZ all in one? 

Hmm... I would say that is not likely, due to the fact that the Aussie games would have been in PAL format, whereas Asian XBOX and 360 games are NTSC-J. Also, as you know, games for sale in Australia need to be certified by the Aussie guidance board, so I doubt any games came through OFFICIAL channels in this manner.

However, due to the proximity of Australia and Asia, I can DEFINIETLY imagine a lot of grey imports of Asian games into OZ, especially on the 360 seeing as, unlike the original XBOX, the Xbox 360 has only selective region locking. That means region locking was optional according to the publisher, so there are MANY 360 games that are region free!

In fact, I have a couple of Aussie PAL 360 games that I bought local here in Taiwan, so that would be pretty good evidence that this "grey-market" trade worked both ways!

[Brickman | 3,987]

13 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Hmm... I would say that is not likely, due to the fact that the Aussie games would have been in PAL format, whereas Asian XBOX and 360 games are NTSC-J. Also, as you know, games for sale in Australia need to be certified by the Aussie guidance board, so I doubt any games came through OFFICIAL channels in this manner.

However, due to the proximity of Australia and Asia, I can DEFINIETLY imagine a lot of grey imports of Asian games into OZ, especially on the 360 seeing as, unlike the original XBOX, the Xbox 360 has only selective region locking. That means region locking was optional according to the publisher, so there are MANY 360 games that are region free!

In fact, I have a couple of Aussie PAL 360 games that I bought local here in Taiwan, so that would be pretty good evidence that this "grey-market" trade worked both ways!

Ahhh ok yeah must have been a grey market then, they definitely were never sold in retail stores, just second hand stores.

I thought the 360 was region free, interesting it isn’t.

[OptOut | 8,886]

2 minutes ago, Brickman said:

Ahhh ok yeah must have been a grey market then, they definitely were never sold in retail stores, just second hand stores.

I thought the 360 was region free, interesting it isn’t.

Yeah, it's a funny situation on the 360, and actually as someone who buys and plays games from multiple regions it's not a BAD situation, although there are some gaps in compatibility here and there.

As I mentioned previously, publishers were essentially free to choose if their games were region locked or not, and not only that but they could mix and match between the regions so that you get weird examples where like the Japanese version is region free, but the US version isn't, or like the PAL version works everywhere, but the US version only works in US and Japan, just CRAZY shit, lol!

If you want more information, and just to get a taste of the madness, this is a pretty good list that I use:

https://gamicus.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_region-free_Xbox_360_video_games

It's far from complete, unfortunately, but it's a PRETTY good guide for the more popular games, and it's definitely served me well over the years!

[drxandy | 3,225]

Heck ya nice pickup!! Cool to see all the variants out there, thank you for sharing this combo bundle was in the states too and not sure if they just stopped printing the standalone jsrf after it but it made the shiny cover jsrf go for more $$