Game Choice Club..reliable import shop?

[LiquidPolicenaut]

Game Choice Club seems to have a good number of games I want and was just wondering if anyone here has dealt wih them before. Are they a reliable place to do business with? Are the products as they describe them to be? Any info. would be greatly appreciated.

[dethink]

i've heard that they're "honest people" but that you have to "hound them for condition"...not sure quite what to make of that, but i think opinions of them are kind of mixed. dunno, i'd love to hear someone chime in with the low down, as they DO have lots of stuff i want...

[rbudrick]

I have ordered from them before. It usually went smoothly. They are expensive but they carry some pretty rare stuff. However, I once ordered a FDS drive from them and it worked for about a week and died (I basically used it about 3 times). As far as I'm concerned, that's pretty much DOA. They repaired it, but I had to send it back out on my $. Has worked perfectly since, however. They often list things as in stock that aren't. So, beware of the availabitlities of their items...they are not updated in real time.

-Rob

[Ed Oscuro]

What do you expect from a 15+ year old piece of hardware? Finding a FDS drive where the belt hasn't gone bad is a big issue...they get bad with age, sort of like old rubber bands. I think anybody buying a FDS drive should know what they're getting into. FDS drives and the disks themselves just don't last.

I see I've been quoted. Game Choice Club seemed pretty honest but you DO have to force them to give you a condition on items, because you might pay $150 for something and get a brand new item, but if you pay $20 for something else you get a heavily worn boxed item. There's no indication as to how good the stuff will be, and that's a major failure on the part of Game Choice Club. Furthermore, I've mentioned before that they didn't have a good system of keeping their site updated back when I bought my Famicom Disk System from them. I did get one, but it wasn't even the style I ordered (possibly worked out in my favor but still...)!

[rbudrick]

What do you expect from a 15+ year old piece of hardware?

For $150 (w/ shipping-complete in box)? Well, shit...I don't know...a working machine, maybe? Who's gonna knowingly pay for a non-working machine they were told was working? I have some systems that are over 30 years old that still work...ok, so they don't have disk drives. :-) BTW, the drive was probably 18 years old when I got it....

Finding a FDS drive where the belt hasn't gone bad is a big issue...they get bad with age, sort of like old rubber bands.

True, but most are recondidtioned nowadays (at least if they are working at all they usually are). The belts aren't too hard to find and replace. The difficulty lies in retuning the motor. I'm trying to come up with an easy way to do that (measure when it's set right)

I think anybody buying a FDS drive should know what they're getting into. FDS drives and the disks themselves just don't last

Yeah, I'm working on that....I'm talking with a bunch of people about alternate backup methods for them (FDSLoader and other methods)...Usually the data just has to be remagnetized. There's a few ways of doing it.

But anyway, not to threadjack. :-).......Game Choice Club is pretty reliable and they have a pretty good record of resolving any issues. Chan is usually pretty speedy about helping out....even though he makes you pay return shipping for things not your fault.

Oh yeah, I remember their shipping being pretty high for their already expensive items....I think he strictly ships by EMS only. I could be wrong on that though...it's been a while since I bought from them last.

...he's got an NGage right now for $299 still.

-Rob

[Dreamscape]

Anyway, Yes Game Choice Club is reliable. I have ordered from them before, and even though their English sux, the are allright.

[Ed Oscuro]

What do you expect from a 15+ year old piece of hardware?

For $150 (w/ shipping-complete in box)? Well, shit...I don't know...a working machine, maybe? :-D

Again, it's like that rubber band...it might stretch a few times, but it'll crumble soon enough. Sounds like what happened here. For them to check out every FDS unit would be a lot of work and there's always a chance they break the merchandise. The FDS is one system I will always be telling people to be aware about.

Finding a FDS drive where the belt hasn't gone bad is a big issue...they get bad with age, sort of like old rubber bands.

True, but most are recondidtioned nowadays (at least if they are working at all they usually are).

If they aren't but are working, what then? You lucked out, that's all.

Chan is usually pretty speedy about helping out....even though he makes you pay return shipping for things not your fault.

I would say the FDS is something most people should not get into. Game Choice Club sells things and isn't in the repair business. I myself got a new Sharp Twin from them and I paid almost twice what you did for that FDS drive, and I'm not overly concerned about the drive dying. It'll just be the belt, after all.

[rbudrick]

I would say the FDS is something most people should not get into

Blasphemy, I say! I love the FDS. They are a pain in the ass, but once I figure out how to repair these things effectively, I hope that notion goes out the window, because I'm gonna tell everyone how to do it. The sites that explain how to repair them NEVER go into detail about how to adjust the motor. Tomy's site says to use a Bung program called Copy Master, which I believe requires at lkeast a 2M Super Game Doctor. Both impossible to find (the software 10 times harder to find than the SGD).

http://members.lycos.co.uk/tomyweb/

If anyone can hook me up, you's gonna get PAAAIIIDD.

I'm trying to find a way to measure the drive with a meter of some sort so that you know when you have it set right. It seems that if it's off by even a 10th of a millimeter on that little screw, you're, um, screwed. Strangely, even though Bung is out of business, no one out there wants to dump ANY Bung software....many are afraid that the value and rarity of their Bung stuff will go down if this happens. I mostly worry that the disks will die before someone can dump them.

But yeah, Ed is right....if you don't plan on repairing your FDS drive at some point, don't get one. They are a pain in the ass to repair and you WILL have to.

Man, there I go threadjacking again. Sorry LiquidPolicenaut!

-Rob