WH-301 "Barney" Converter

[ctophil]

Hello everyone,

I know the WH-301 "Barney" Converter is the most "unreliable" converter out there.  But I just wanted to know something.  I noticed that on the retail box and the converter itself, there is a PC Engine in the picture.  Does that mean that it can't be used on a Turbografx-16 to play Japanese games?  I can't find reliable information on the Internet about this question, so thought I'd ask the experts on this forum.  Thank you now.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

Yes, you can use it to play PCE games on a TG-16; it'll also work the other way around (US games on JP system), but only when coupled with an internal ground mod on the JP system.  Note that these converters don't physically fit Duos unless they (the converters) have been modified.

[slinkyturd]

As far as I know all the converters in existence allow for the use of japanese hucards on american hardware and there isn't a converter available for the vice-versa.

[spenoza]

The only thing stopping a converter from working "the other way" is that a pin inside the PC Engine needs to be grounded to bypass the region check most NA games make, per Necro.

[ctophil]

Cool, thanks everybody!  My main interest with the WH-301 is to play the Japanese, Super System Card 3.0 to play Super CD games.  You guys already know the U.S. System Card 3.0 is worth a fortune.  So it's my only alternative at this point.  But I will look into buying PC Engine games too, since the Japanese PC Engine had a lot of good games.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

So it's my only alternative at this point.

There's two other alternatives: buy a PCE Duo or region mod your current console, which would be similar in cost yet more reliable.