Game Cube import friendly?

Pictures have emerged of an experimental Game Cube unit used in presentations that boasts a USA/Japan switching mechanism to allow interoperability between regions. Of course, in previous years Nintendo consoles from Japan and the States have been interoperable after tiny modifications. With the Super Nintendo, the consoles were technically capable of accepting one another's carts, but required physical modification or a bridge adapter to allow this. With the Nintendo 64, internal modifications were necessary, but nevertheless successful. This writer has both such Japanese consoles modified for use with American released games. With the Game Cube though, Nintendo have announced that it will not be possible to play American games on a Japanese console and vice versa. However, the unofficial consensus from the development community seems to be that the Japanese console will be able to play US software with scant few hardware modifications. If the modification seen in the image on the left is possible on Japanese units, one has to suspect that details of the procedure will be with the modders very soon. Related Feature - The Nintendo Show