[runjake]

When I was a teenager, I had a hobby of importing Japanese gaming consoles and video games.

I had a PC Engine and a Super Famicom (well before the SNES made it to the US!). They both had cosmetic differences but I thought that the Japanese versions of both would be more attractive to US customers. I'm not sure why they shipped different casings like they did.

[pipes]

Presumably you were in the USA? We had grey imports in the UK too, but it was prohibitively expensive. My family was relatively well off, but no way I'd have been able to wangle an expensive import super famicom.

Even worse when the snes did finally arrive we were stuck with pal 50hz squished slow versions, especially noticeable in street fighter 2.

[runjake]

Yep, I was in the US. IIRC, the Super Famicom cost me about $350-$400 at the time. Also had the .jp version of the Neo Geo, which was even more. And the PC Engine and Famicom. I did some tradings between consoles there. We weren't well off but all my job money went into it.

[chocochunks]

For the SNES, from what I heard it was partially because with the flat topped NES, Nintendo of America got a lot of repairs from kids spilling soda or whatever on the NES they were using as a table. For the SNES, they deliberately made it harder to that.