Hahaha, I flipped out when I saw that region toggle switch! Though I didn't really understand if that was just to change language settings in their dev tools or if it actually enabled it to read carts from different regions.

On a related note, I was listening to this interview with Just Blaze (famous rap producer), and he was talking about when EA brought him on as a consultant for the NBA Street games (like which beats and songs to use in the game). At some time when he was working with them up in Vancouver, he asked them to give him a test PS2. They were like, "come on, those are expensive", and he was all, "yeah, so give one to me!" They ended up giving it to him and he just brings it around to rapper's houses to play shit hahaha.