Just like DVD's, video recorder, HDTV's and TV's. Video game consoles in America NTSC are superior than the PAL versions and Japan versions. Why? You may ask well NTSC are faster, better quality picture, better sound output, wider range of DVD's, video's and video games in America. Where did I find this info? It is well known to  consumers. All I can say is Americans are the lucky consumers better video game consoles and some of the cheapest prices for all electronic goods found in the Western world (Europe and North America) are in the USA.

Its a shame that the PAL video is higher quality then NTSC video quality.

EDIT: I wouldn't agree with the cheapest electronics either, cell phones are less than 1/3 the price in Japan and China.

I've had both a PAL and NTSC PS2 before and they appeared exactly the same in every way. What is this, a new fad of MY COUNTRIIS GAMSYSTEMZ IZ BETTER DEN URS!!!!111

The new video standards (480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p) are the same everywhere. The 50 Hz limitation is a thing of the past.

Isn't everything made in China?

The only advantage of the American zone is that more games get shipped there, therefore it's easier to acquire games that are out of produtcion - the reason I have an NTSC slim PS2.

They're just better 'cause they're red-blooded American. /macho Texan voice

Yeah... like NJ5 said, the video standards are the same now. And even before, it was arguable which was better. NTSC frame rate was better than PAL, but the opposite was true of their resolutions. The only reason things generally looked better on NTSC sets was because most content originated in America (film and games) or Japan (games). The games were programmed with the intent of running at NTSC's 29.97, which sometimes cause issues when converted to run on PAL sets. While film actually has a different frame rate than either standard, studios were often lazy and only really put effort into the NTSC conversion, then converted to PAL from there resulting in problems. Any American or Japanese TV show was encoded at 29.97 fps. Because all these things were originally made for NTSC, they also wouldn't really use the added resolution of PAL effectively.

So, the PAL standard was different, not necessarily worse than, NTSC but the most prominent worldwide content originated in NTSC regions, resulting in better general experience for NTSC customers. And it's moot now that we have the HD standards which are the same everywhere.

By the way, there's also the (old) issue of NTSC jokingly meaning "Never The Same Color".

That's because NTSC is less robust to signal noise than PAL. In any case, this shouldn't affect games.

Leave it to Rock on to elevate video gaming related fanboyism to a new level.

Nice summary. One rather fortunate coincidence is that the differences in framerate and resolution cancel each other. NTSC has 20% higher framerate than PAL, but PAL has 20% more resolution. This results in nearly the same amount of computational power being needed for NTSC/PAL consoles.