Tag Archive for 'ebay'

Santa’s Bag o’ Video Games Part 2: Dreamcast

Published by Scott on December 24, 2007 in Shopping and Video Games. 5 Comments

I’m really excited to officially break out the Dreamcast tomorrow. I already had a sizable stash of games to go with it but I’ve picked up a few more since then. One title I really wanted to get was Sonic Adventure. I got it but what an ordeal! I took a chance at half.com and bought it from the person that had it listed cheapest. This seller only had feedback from four people, but all were positive. Turns out he is selling bootleg copies of games and trying to pawn them off as discs sent to reviewers.

The Sega Dreamcast can play cd-r’s but all of their games were released on the unconventional gd-rom format, which can hold up to 1.2 GB of information. The disc I got from this shady dealer was most definitely a cd-r. It says so right on the transparent ring in the middle! I know from poking around an underground game sharing network that Sonic Adventure is too large to fit on a regular cd-r. I could have downloaded the same free copy this person did, with deleted cut scenes, music downsampled from stereo to mono, and who knows what else hacked out. That’s not what I wanted and I certainly wasn’t going to pay for it. I didn’t call the guy on his bullshit but did tell him I thought I was buying the official release and requested a refund. He gave me my money back without argument and I soon found a “Buy It Now” deal for the real thing on eBay for about the same price.

I read about a similar scenario on the racketboy forums, did some sleuthing, and discovered they were talking about the same fellow. He’s got lots of rare Dreamcast games listed for cheap on both half.com and Amazon. So buyer beware! Here’s a comparison of the copy (left) and the official Sega release:

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I had a much happier experience purchasing a lot of Dreamcast sports games on eBay. I was looking to buy one of the 2K hockey games, which go for next to nothing by themselves. For twenty bucks (including shipping) I found not only that game, but seven more titles plus two VMU memory packs. That was an excellent deal, especially considering that the VMU packs normally sell for around $6-8 each plus shipping. The games came with their instruction manuals and jewel case inserts too. Score!

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I also bought a VGA cable from the racketboy store so I can plug the Dreamcast directly into a computer monitor. I haven’t tested it out yet but it’s supposed to offer a clear, crisp picture. And finally, I found a third party light gun for a couple of bucks from Goodwill so I can blast some zombies in House of the Dead 2.

Goodwill + eBay = Quick Profit

Published by Scott on December 15, 2007 in Shopping and Video Games. 3 Comments

super-mario.jpgOn my usual after work trip to Goodwill the other day I was thrilled to find a copy of Super Mario All-Stars for Super Nintendo. It’s an awesome compilation of the first three Super Mario Bros. games for the NES plus the so-called “Lost Levels” (the original Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2) all spruced up with improved graphics for the SNES. I’d browsed around before on Amazon and half.com and knew it went for at least twenty dollars. I snatched it up for a measly three bucks and added it to add to my box o’ xmas games.

Today at the other Goodwill we frequent on our Saturday library runs, I found Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World. This was another compilation for the Super Nintendo that included, as the name implies, all of the games on Super Mario All-Stars plus the SNES sequel for the franchise, Super Mario World. We already have that game for both the SNES and Gameboy Advance. Since I knew the going rate for All-Stars, I figured this one had to be at least worth that much. Why not try to make a little money to offset my many retro game purchases?

I looked up the recent completed auctions for the game when we came home and saw that all of the “Buy It Now” sales went for around $25. Nice! Cleaned up the cartridge, tested it out to make sure it worked, took a picture, and finally listed it for $23.99. Believe it or not, someone snatched it up within the first hour. Talk about a quick turn around! I’m feeling very savvy right now. And did I mention that I love Goodwill?

Retro Game Explosion Part Five: Sega Dreamcast

Published by Scott on October 28, 2007 in Shopping and Video Games. 4 Comments

Just before we took our trip to South Carolina, the local Goodwill got in a stack of Sega Dreamcast games and put them for sale at three bucks a pop. The only thing I really knew about the system was that it was beloved by longtime gamers. Went home and did some reading at Racketboy, a simply amazing retro game resource, and decided I should probably pick up a few in case I ever came across a Dreamcast. I put together a list of recommendations from that site and bought:

  • Crazy Taxi
  • Tennis 2K2
  • SoulCaliber
  • The House of the Dead 2
  • Resident Evil Code: Veronica
  • Sega Rally 2
  • Cannon Spike

After a couple of weeks of monitoring Dreamcast auctions on eBay, I saw what looked like an awesome deal. For $41 including shipping I got a Dreamcast, two controllers, one VMU memory card, two rumble packs, and three games: Quake III Arena, Silver, and Shadow Man. All of this stuff plus the initial games I purchased are my Christmas present. I figure we’d gone a little crazy with the retro systems since June and another one now would be a bit much. Plus it gives me something to look forward to.

I have been sneaking it out after the kids go to bed however. Again thanks to Racketboy and this article, I have discovered the seedy underworld of emulation and ROMS. The Dreamcast will read CD-R discs without any chip modifications, making it possible to play NES games on it. Pretty darn cool. I’ve tracked down all of the necessary software and figured out how to burn a self-booting disc consisting of an amazing collection of NES games.

There’s also a homebrew scene in which people have developed their own Dreamcast games. DCEvolution has free collections of these games where you simply have to download an image file and burn it to a disc. As recent as last year there were commercial releases of homebrew games. Kind of crazy, considering the Dreamcast came out in 2000 and has been out of production since 2001.

And if great commercial games, emulation, and homebrew weren’t enough, techno smarties have long since figure out how to rip backup Dreamcast games. I found a little group that shares torrents of impossible to find or prohibitively expensive games like Ikaruga and REZ. No, it’s not even close to legal but I’m not losing sleep over it. Instead I’m counting down the days until Christmas when I can break this awesome system out permanently!

Camera Upgrade

Published by Scott on May 13, 2007 in Chatter. 5 Comments

canon-powershot-a80.jpgWhile not exactly of Elwoodian proportions, we just upgraded to a Canon PowerShot A80. Last summer our perfectly serviceable Fuji FinePix A205 was inadvertently left out for a couple of hours within range of both a sprinkler and the harsh Georgia summer sun. Since we really liked the dock/recharger that it used, we found a cheap Fuji FinePix A210 on eBay to replace it. That worked fine until it conked out a couple of weeks ago, at my school’s Spring Carnival. It was pretty frustrating because Helen took several cute pictures of Dashiell, Ray, and Hazel riding ponies and playing on inflatable slides, etc. that were marred by scores of horizontal lines distorting the images. Helen did some research and read a lot of positive things about the A80. It’s supposed to be a good camera to help learn functions beyond the simple point and click. She found a reasonably priced one on eBay and it arrived the other day. We’ll start sharing pix soon!

So long, Snaggletooth!

Published by Helen on April 17, 2007 in Chatter. 1 Comment


Scott set this guy aside when he got all his Star Wars toys a few years ago (for the boys . . . ) It was part of a set that was only sold at Sears, so we knew it was kind of rare. We always talked about putting it up on ebay, and yesterday I finally did. I had a bid within 5 minutes of the listing, and now, 24hours after listing it there are 3 bids and 5 people watching the auction. I started it at $1 and it is up to $20.50. This guy is pretty roughed up, and others like him usually sell for around $100. In perfect condtion he’d go for about $225! Crazy.