Now, Gord liked to sell games from Japan as Japan gets a lot of curiously odd games that never come out in North America.  Sadly, North American gamers generally only want new games that they have already played before and like to complain that there are no curiously odd games.

Anyway, there is quite the market for importing games from Japan as a number of people actually want the curiously odd games.

While the legality of a territorial restriction on a game console is questionably dubious as it is clearly a violation of laws that specifically address and prohibit the encumbrance of trade, that is a discussion for another time.

Long story short, you can't play games from Japan on your North American PlayStation because Sony hates you. 

To get around machine encoded lockout, you have to consider the options.  First, buy a machine from Japan.  The "not so cheap" way.

Or the cheap way, have a small chip installed into your PlayStation that circumvents the territorial protection of the PlayStation, and thereby allowing you to play games from any region.

The most common variant of "mod chips" are the ones that also nullify the copy protection scheme in the machine.  For some strange reason, this is a very popular attraction.

However, as a game store owner, Gord likes the first reason and not the second one.  A rather uncommon mod chip that he stocked was a mod chip that did only territorial protection removal.  Most people would assume that mod chips by default removed copy protection.  This provided many, many hours of entertainment.

"Do you sell mod chips?"

"Yes, I sell mod chips that let you play games from Japan."

"Oh, great!  I've been wanting to get one for a long time.  I'll go get my machine."

Customer leaves, brings in PlayStation.

Gord gets mod chip installed.

Customer picks up machine.

Customer returns angry. 

"It doesn't play back-ups!"

"It also makes for a lousy speed dump and it isn't a web shooter.  Catches criminals like flies, my ass!"

"I wanted to play back-ups."

"I want to be Spiderman."

"You said it would play back-ups!"

"No, I said it would play imports."

"You ripped me off."

"No, I sold you exactly what I said I would."

"Give me my money back."

"Not seeing a positive angle for me in your plan."

"I'm never coming back!"

"Door's to your left."

Or for the sake of variety, as this type of conversation would happen rather regularly, he would actually offer the refund.

"Very well, I'll give you a refund on the cost of the chip."

<Gord would remove chip>

"Here your machine, and here's your $10."

"Hey!  I paid $50."

"Yes, $10 for the chip, and $40 for installation.  Taxes included."

"I want all my money back!"

"Sorry, labour is non-refundable."

Alas, this would soon become the favourite way of handling the situation.  And the best part would be when they would ask for the chip to be installed again.

"Very well, that be $40 for installation.  Payable in advance this time."

"You're a rip-off!"

"I'm also very good at StarCraft."

"I'm never coming back!"

"Door's to your left."

Ah the memories. 

.