Heres a neat idea, why not have a workshop for people who want to convert their game machines to asian specs? There are a lot of people who want to run import games but don't have the knowhow to make it work. You could get someone who knew what they were doing, and have a vendor that sold conversion kits there so people couild buy parts, and another vendor with a good selection of import games. That way, someone could bring their machinebuy the parts there, and then have an instructor show them how to work on it during a specific time session. I really want to get my ps2 to run imports, but I have no idea how:( I know this sounds kind of involved, but if you put it together right then I bet lots of people would be willing to do it.

you picked a good day to suggest that! I know just the people, and it's good I knew to ask about that BEFORE I talked to them about the con!

Wow, I didn't think you'd really like the idea! That's great! I think the biggest issue is cost. If we want to run a conversion shop for all three main machines (ps2,gc,xbox) like, what do the conversion kits cost? I had someone offer me a ps2 kit for $45 a while ago, but it might be more expensive in practice. I figure the instruction should be free, but the parts are extra.

That's a swell idea...I was seriously thinking of buyng a japanese PS2 to play imports. Hell I might just bring my PS2 there with me so they can use it for a test demonstration.

Why not just turn it into a general hardware hacking forum with an emphasis on the de-regionalization of consoles or even just a console hacking forum? Have someone talk on PSP hacking, DS Linux, and Console-on-chip stuff.. You could even try to get Ben Heckendorn as a guest.

I've got to say this sounds like a neat idea as well, on the gaming end of things. I've messed with gamecube softmods pretty heavily and GC-Linux in particular, and would be interested in learning more about other consoles or sharing some of what I've learned on the cube, though I guess that gamecube doesn't really need any modding for imports besides a swap disc/freeloader.

Plus gamecubes also have Region Switches, which I think are external and con't require physical modding. They're needed for a few games which are iffy with freeloaders, like imports of Donkey Konga

I'd attend. I've been curious about that stuff for a while.

Ah, interesting... I hadn't heard about/run into that before, going to look into it some. Should make for a pretty interesting panel/workshop overall, I like the elegance of some of the methods to get around the consoles' designed handicaps as much as I like the usefulness sometimes.