From: bel@whipassgaming.com   
      
   >> Does anyone know if Japanese Mega CD games will work on a US Sega CD? Is   
   >> there any region protection on them -- or an easy way to get around it?   
   >   
   > Sega CD and Mega CD games use a long, complicated hash to indicate the   
   > region of the game. This code is not always in the same place on the disk   
   > and is dependent on a large piece of the BIOS ROM image in the CD drive   
   > peripheral unit. This is very different from most game consoles, which use   
   > only a jumper to indicate the region of the hardware and a single-bit flag   
   > to indicate the region of the software.   
   >   
   > There's no easy way to get around the region protection. Without venturing   
   > too far into piracy, the most reliable method is to get a real Mega CD   
   > unit to play JPN-region games. Short of that, you can open up a US model   
   > and swap out the BIOS chip for one from a different region. Note that in   
   > many cases, this means having to set the jumpers in your Genesis so that   
   > it acts like a Megadrive unit that would be recognized by the foreign CD   
   > drive. Hope that helps you out.   
      
   Well, you don't even have to go that far. There's this app out there   
   that can convert Mega CD games to play on US Sega CD units. It doesn't   
   work on all Mega CD games, but it works for a lot of them. Essentially   
   you make a disc image of the Mega CD game you want to play, run to   
   converter, then burn the image to disc. From there, if it worked, you   
   can pop said disc in to a US Sega CD unit and play it without any issues.   
      
   I played around with it in the past, but then was offered a modded Mega   
   CD unit that will play Mega CD games while connected to a US Genesis   
   unit. It's the *only* modded Mega CD unit I have *EVER* seen.   
      
   Bel   
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