Games ported to PAL have historically been known for having game speed and
frame rates inferior to their NTSC counterparts. Since the NTSC standard is 60 fields/30 frames per second but PAL is 50 fields/25 frames per second, games were typically slowed by approximately 16.7% in order to avoid timing problems or unfeasible code changes.
Full motion video rendered and encoded at 30 frames per second by the Japanese/US (NTSC) developers was often down-sampled to 25 frames per second or considered to be 50 frames per second video for PAL release—usually by means of
3:2 pull-down, resulting in motion
judder. In addition to this, PAL's increased resolution was not utilised during conversion, creating a pseudo
letterbox effect with borders top and bottom, which looks similar to a 14:9 letterbox, and leaving the graphics with a slightly squashed look due to an incorrect aspect ratio caused by the borders. This was especially prevalent during the 8-bit and 16-bit generations when 2D graphics were used almost exclusively. The gameplay of many games with an emphasis on speed, such as the original
Sonic the Hedgehog for the
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, suffered in their PAL incarnations.
Despite the possibility and popularity of 60 Hz PAL games, many high-profile games, particularly for the
PlayStation 2 console, were released in 50 Hz-only versions.
Square Enix have long been criticised by PAL gamers for their poor PAL conversions.
Final Fantasy X, for example, runs in 50 Hz mode only, meaning it runs 16.7% slower than the NTSC release and features top and bottom borders; while this practice was common in previous generations, it was considered inexcusable by contemporary consumers at the time of release.
[5] In contrast, the
Dreamcast was the first system to feature PAL60, and the overwhelming majority of PAL games offered 50 and 60 Hz modes with no slow speeds. The PAL
GameCube also offered 60 Hz on almost every title released. The
Xbox featured a system-wide PAL60 option in the Dashboard, with almost every game supporting PAL60. Seventh generation PAL consoles
Xbox 360,
PlayStation 3 and
Wii also feature system-wide 60 Hz support.[
citation needed]
As of the eighth generation, consoles such as the
Wii U,
PlayStation 4,
Xbox One and
Nintendo Switch have all games solely in 60 Hz, with 50 Hz only being used for video playback and, in the Wii U's case, backwards compatibility with
Wii and
Virtual Console games.