PAL. Three letters that defined gaming for millions of Europeans and Australians. But what did it actually mean, and why did PlayStation handle it so differently from the consoles that came before?
The Technical Stuff
PAL stands for Phase Alternating Line, a television broadcast standard used in most of Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia. Unlike NTSC (used in North America and Japan), PAL ran at 50Hz instead of 60Hz, with a resolution of 625 lines compared to NTSC’s 525.
For the SNES and Mega Drive era, this created a notorious problem: PAL conversions often meant games ran around 17% slower than their NTSC counterparts. Developers would simply adjust the refresh rate from 60Hz to 50Hz without properly optimising the game code. The result? Slower gameplay, black borders to fill the extra vertical resolution, and in many cases, slower music pitched down to match the reduced speed.
The PlayStation Difference
When the PlayStation arrived in Europe in September 1995 (a full nine months after the Japanese launch), Sony and developers took a different approach. While early PAL PS1 titles still suffered from the old problems, many developers began properly optimising their games for the 50Hz standard.
Some notable improvements included:
Proper speed compensation - Many games adjusted their internal timing to run at the correct speed despite the 50Hz refresh rate, meaning gameplay felt identical to the NTSC versions.
Progressive optimisation - As the console’s lifecycle continued, more developers treated PAL as a first-class region rather than an afterthought. By the later PS1 era, many European releases were virtually identical to their NTSC counterparts in terms of performance.
Region-specific content - PAL releases often featured additional language options and sometimes included content updates or bug fixes that weren’t present in earlier NTSC releases.
However, it wasn’t perfect. Many earlier titles still ran in bordered 50Hz modes, and some games were never properly optimised. The difference was that developers now had the capability and increasingly the willingness to do better.
Why It Mattered
For UK and European gamers, the PAL region designation meant more than just a technical standard. It represented whether you’d get the “proper” version of a game or a compromised port. The PlayStation era marked a turning point where PAL gradually stopped being synonymous with “inferior version” and became simply another region with its own considerations.
By the PS2 era, most of these issues had been resolved, with many games supporting 60Hz modes even in PAL territories. But for PS1 owners, we lived through the transition period where some games were brilliant PAL conversions, and others reminded us why we envied our American cousins with their faster, smoother NTSC versions.
The legacy lives on in retro gaming communities, where PAL vs NTSC debates still rage, and in the careful considerations made when choosing which regional version to play on modern hardware or emulators.