A couple weeks ago I purchased a CD door for PS2 7XXXX Series from Pink Godzilla Games in Seattle. These are a brilliant little mechanism where you can replace the DVD door on a thin PSTwo with the new door that has a pop top mini door on top of the main door so you can open up and swap out a disk with out tripping the disk tray sensor. Now the main reason to do this is so you can play imported PS2 games in a US PSTwo with the help of a boot disk.
I never got around to installing it and it ended up being a very good thing. They sell the door and two boot disks for $45 and they will install it for you for an additional $10. Now I have never opened up a thin PSTwo and I thought that it would be defiantly worth the Franklin to have it installed by a pro. So on Saturday I took my PSTwo, the new door, boot disks and power cord to Pink Godzilla and told those mad cats to pimp out my PStwo.
There is a pop top door that is easy to install in an old school big ass PS2. My friend BBQ has one and he enjoys import PS2 games like SVC Chaos almost as much as a Beefy Spicy stick of Slim Jim.
The experts as Pink Godzilla had no problem taking apart my PSTwo and attaching the new door. However some PSTwos are easy to mod and some are a real evil bitch to mod. Since I had a first of the line US PSTwo it was not an easy task for them to install. You see there are several sensors and connection points that they need to get attached and there are two screws in the new door that they have to get just the right height or the sensors will trip out and the damn thing will not work. If the sensors are not properly tricked out not only will it not play import games but it won't play any games at all.
My PSTwo was not an easy one to mod and they told me to come back later on that day. The thing is was that Saturday was also their biggest sales day and they did not have it tweaked properly when I dropped in after I was done kicking BBQs ass at several fighting games. Ok BBQ did large amounts of ass kicking but that is not an important point of my story. It ends up they got it working ten minutes after I left the store and caught a ferry home. So I headed back on Sunday to pick up my newly pimped out PSTwo. They said that my PSTwo was the absolute hardest most stubborn system to tweak that they have ever come across. I purchased Samurai Spirits Zero for PS2 (Samurai Showdown) as my first import PS2 game and carried it home like it was a carton of eggs out of the carton in my back pack. The guys there know their stuff and if you can get your PSTwo tweaked by an expert I recommend it.
When I tried it out later that night I was pleased to see that it worked with out a hitch. They tested it in the store but it survived the journey.
I plan on getting more imported PS2 games a Pink Godzilla, Video Game Depot, Play Asia or Lik-Sang. I prefer Pink Godzilla since you don't have to mess with shipping and you can get it that bloody day. I whole heartedly recommend getting a pop top CD door installed on a PS2 or PSTwo. Only install a door on a PSTwo yourself if you have a degree in electrical engineering or have mad skillz. I would rather on kick ass import PS2 games than squirrel my video game money away on a PS3 at launch time. I can't wait to get a Nintendo Revolution but by enabling imported PS2 games i feel that I just extended the time that I can enjoy my PSTwo by vastly increasing the amount of games that I can play on it. I can't wait to get King of Fighters NeoWave.
HAHA HA video game region lock out can bite my ass!
Nice mod. I recently pimped out my xbox, too, for imports as well as trying to make the beast easier to look at.
Which looks like it might have been easier than your case modding.
Nice pictorial. I stil use the swipecard method on my clunkly PS2 and my brothers lost the card. I'm going to make them replace it...
Modding my xbox was a pain in the ass. But it was worth it. My old clunker PS2 is WAY too much trouble to mod though. I think there are something like 22 solder points on the monster. Not to mention it's starting it's quick decent to death. If only the PStwo's were cheaper, like $50...
A PSTwo for $50 well wait about 8 years when they are taken off the market.
Actually if you just install a pop top swap door on a old PS2 it is not that hard at all. There is no soldering involved.
Just a heads up if you haven't heard yet, Sony is recalling the early model PSTwo AC adaptors...
http://www.us.playstation.com/Adaptor/
I just checked mine (launch PSTwo as well) and it's one of the affected adaptors.
Mine is fine. Yesterday I read that 75% of all the affected AC adaptors were sold in Europe.