As we move towards the imminent launch of the revamped PS Plus across the globe, more information on the emulation side of things has been steadily trickling down. Some classic games have started appearing on Asian PlayStation storefronts recently, and it seems that Sony has used PAL versions of the classic games even in NTSC regions.
VGC reporter Andy Robinson took to Twitter to confirm this suspicion, wherein he revealed that all PS1 first-party classic games such as the likes of Ape Escape, Wild Arms, and Everybody’s Golf in Taiwan have PAL region versions of the game running instead of the NTSC region format. PAL games run at a slower 50Hz refresh rate when compared to the more standard NTSC format, whose games run at 60Hz.
As detailed in this VGC report, some third-party games such as the likes of Worms, World Party, and Armageddon are also based on the PAL versions of the games. Other releases such as Tekken 2, Syphon Filter, Abe’s Oddysee, and others are, however, based on the proper NTSC versions of these releases.
Sony has previously committed the same mistake with the release of its mini-console PlayStation Classic, which also emulated PAL versions of games across both PAL and NTSC regions. As to why the Japanese gaming giant continues to do this, we will have to wait until revamped PS Plus starts rolling out across all regions to get more answers.