'New' Dreamcast More Like Nightmarecast
Released stateside in 1999, Sega's ill-fated Dreamcast never got a fair shake in its time. The system, the forerunner of the generation that would include the more successful Xbox and PlayStation 2, offered online connectivity and stunning graphics. Yet the Dreamcast flopped so hard, Sega pulled out of the consolemaking business and now spends its time standing in the corner, talking to itself and making 12 awful Sonic games a year.
Still, the Dreamcast has its followers, who were overjoyed in April when ThinkGeek offered new, boxed Dreamcasts for sale. Too good to be true, right?
Right. Nick Chester of the video game blog Destructoid writes that an anonymous tipster ordered one of those Dreamcasts and found that the seller has a very loose definition of the term "new."
Our tipster was "fortunate" enough to place an order before they were sold out, and was disappointed by what he received.
"While the extra controller was new, the console was far from it," he writes. "The console itself is roughed up — the barcode has been scratched, the console's plastic has gunk on it."
He continues on to mention damage to plastic from being expose to the light, a worn serial number sticker, scratches, "gunk" on the controller port, and more. All total, with shipping and delivery, our tipster tells us the Dreamcast cost nearly $200.
A request for a full refund has been submitted, which he hopes will cover costs of the console, shipping and handling charges; after two weeks, he's received no response from ThinkGeek.
Dreamcast, your tragic mythos only grows with sob stories such as this.
UPDATE: ThinkGeek apologized.
We're very sorry about the whole thing—we never meant to ship used Dreamcasts. We know our customers are smarty pants and could tell if they'd been duped with a stale Dreamcast; we'd never get away with taking advantage of you guys, so why would we try?
ThinkGeek's new-in-box Dreamcasts not so new [Destructoid]
(Photo: Destructoid)
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I bought a brand new one off of Amazon in March. It was the black Sega Sports edition and it was brand spankin new. Sure it had a problem with shutting itself off after turning it on for a day, but after that problem disappeared I haven't had a problem since.
@Koinu:
More light may have been shed onto this, other readers have said they got theirs brand new, and only cost them 10$ in shipping.
I still have my dreamcast - and play it occasionally. Me & my friend still love playing the basketball & football games on it.
And of course something I would never do - but simple enough to download & burn games to normal CD's and play them.... for those that are into getting tons of games for little cost. (since it is hard to find games for purchase anymore.)
Anybody know where I can get a "new" Intellivision console?
I have two used Dreamcasts (one is a back up in case the first ever dies), as well as several controllers new in box. My favorite part of my DC collection is the official mouse and keyboard, and using them for Typing of the Dead :D
While I wouldn't spend $200, I would probably spend more than I should on a new Dreamcast.
@Koinu: Maybe the one the reader got was some sort of return, where ThinkGeek got scammed/screwed by another customer or the distributer.
The Dreamcast flopped hard because it was soon discovered that the system could read burnt CD-R's without any modifications and the games that didn't work just needed a start up disc which is just as easily found as the files to burn the games on the interwebs. Thus the bootlegging began and no one bought any games since they could all be had for nothing. I have one and I only paid about 15$ at a yard sale with games and accessories. Good system otherwise though.
Man, I played Virtua Tennis until my thumbs turned purple.
It could be true, we'll see, ThinkGeek not replying to this situation could be a problem, we'll see what happens.
I had a guy try to pull the same thing on me the other day at work, the SN on the back of the console was scratched off, he said it came like that (xbox 360). i asked him how we scanned the SN of the product on his recipt (he bought it brand new), and we "scanned it off the box".
Popped open the front faceplate, bam, SN did not match, I sent him away.
People will try anything to get something their way, I'm not going to point the finger at TG so quick as I was to before.
We'll see what happens by the end of the day.
I got the black sports ed and can't believe how clear the graphics are. Virta Tennis is addicting as well.
Nope. Ebay an old one, buy the PS2 disc with 60+ intellivision games on it. Or download the emulator and some roms.
The one that I get misty-eyed for is the Atari Jaguar. It was way sweet hardware that Atari and it's partners totally screwed the pooch on...missed development deadlines and didn't get it out in time for Christmas shopping that year, and then there was no money left to finish the games in progress, so on and so forth.
The few games that were finished were kind of cool, and the controllers were kind of mind-blowing at the time. Great graphics etc. But they blew it, and that was the last gasp for Atari.
Skies of Arcadia was my drug of choice on my console...
Then I moved into some of the other games whose names slip my mind at the moment... Power something or other, and that game where you played a kid who had a mechanical arm and hunted for treasures...
And I did buy both of the fishing games and 2 fishing controllers.
That reminds me, I want to get rid of my Dreamcast. Never had any problems with it, and it works fine and has 7 games with it. Anyone who posts a reply to me here, i'll alert you in a couple weeks when it's up on ebay with no reserve. It's just gathering dust (so to speak, it's in a bag and box) and I haven't played it in years. Will test and photograph before ebaying, though.
@Koinu:
I bought one... the outer box def. did not seem to be in new shape, but that didn't bother me... I opened it only so far as to see that it was in there, haven't unboxed yet... I'd better get crackin before the refund period is up
This isn't confirmed yet, they're still waiting for a reply from others who bought them and thinkgeek to see if this was one of those mixups where 10 years ago some dummy stuffed a used dreamcast into a new box and returned it.
Amazon has factory sealed Dreamcasts (they claim, at least) for $102.
I already own one in working condition.
@AlteredBeast: LOL I also have 2 DC decks. I used to take one places fairly often (friends and family LOVED Samba De Amigo) and had read that they did not travel particularly well and I didn't want to be without!
I should go back and finish Shenmue2 after all these years!
Hello from ThinkGeekland!
We emailed Destructoid's editors [where this post originated] late last night but haven't seen the posted amended, so here's our Official Apology, in blog comment form.
First, a little backstory: We came upon an amazing cache of new-in-box Dreamcasts not too long ago. We had a bunch of units shipped to us to inspect them, and indeed, though the boxes were a little worse for the wear on the outside, the consoles had nary a scratch and even the wire twists that bundled the cables had never been undone. It was like magic--magic that had been hiding in a warehouse, unknown, for years.
So we asked our source from whence these beautiful Dreamcasts came, and they didn't know--could've been a liquidator, or a Circuit City that had closed shop. (Hear that? It's the sound of a plot thickening.)
But we'd seen them with our own eyes and figured it was best to share our discovery with the world. Hundreds were snatched up quickly and squees were heard 'round the internets.
So far we've had 2 instances of not-so-new-in-box Dreamcasts. The individual who received the one reported here contacted us via email (which never appeared in our inbox, for some reason) and Twitter (through which we've taken care of the situation) has already been issued a return shipping label. We're more than happy to refund him for the Dreamcast as well as shipping.
We're very sorry about the whole thing--we never meant to ship used Dreamcasts. We know our customers are smarty pants and could tell if they'd been duped with a stale Dreamcast; we'd never get away with taking advantage of you guys, so why would we try?
And now we have 3 options: 1. Stop sharing the gift of new Dreamcasts; 2. Have them all shipped to us and inspect each one individually and then ship back to the warehouse; and 3. Continue spreading the (mostly) untainted Dreamcast love and working with the very few customers who get lemons.
We hope you'll understand why we're continuing to offer them on our site (when we get our grubby little paws on more, of course). And again, we apologize to the 2 customers who ended up with what appears to be returned merchandise.
--The ThinkGeek Monkeys
AvP was one of the craziest, mind-blowing games I'd ever played at the time.
You're right, the power in that thing was tremendous.
@SynMonger: sure. Try www.atari2600.com. I am not affiliated with them whatsoever, but I picked up a "new" NES from them.
Based on the manufacturing date, the DC console is a launch unit, but the box is a late (mid-2000 on) version. Someone, somewhere either returned an old DC in a new box and kept the new one, or is in the business of reboxing very worn Dreamcasts.
@Outrun1986: There have been easy piracy mods for many systems that stayed commercially viable. $20 bucks got you a DS flash card device to play DS games right off a microSD card and the DS is still selling like gangbusters. $15 back in the day got you a device to plug into your PSX parallel port and a spring to hold the disc cover button down to play CD-Rs and still made lots of money for Sony. No cost? Cutting up a old credit card in a certain shape gave you a tool to pull discs out of your PS2 and replace them with CD-Rs or DVD-Rs. And, hm, I think there have been more PS2 games sold than there are people on the planet or some other ridiculous statistic.
Of course piracy didn't HELP the Dreamcast, but it was first out of the gate in Dreamcast/PS2/Gamecube/XBox times and crazy marketing by Sony tried real hard to paint it as a loser. The fact that Sega had already built a reputation for releasing and abandoning hardware quickly (32X, Sega CD, Saturn) certainly didn't help either. The price cut after only six months to compete against the PS2 and the phone-it-in approach to releasing decent games released outside of Japan? No help.
That there was easy piracy at all probably kept people buying the systems at least.
@Outrun1986: Come on, piracy has never killed a system. Just because some college students were doing it doesn't mean every kid with a Dreamcast was...
I stopped buying from Think Geek a while ago. Their stuff is never quite as good as they advertise. I remember picking up a sonic grenade that broke after the second use, a copy of Khet where the lasers weren't nearly as aligned as their example photo showed, a compressor-less refrigerator that wound up being noisier than one with a compressor might sound, a car LED display that only worked for one day...
I have no idea how they have any repeat customers. I saw that same notice on Kotaku about new Dreamcasts at Think Geek and immediately said to myself "I'm not falling for THIS one again."
@Carrie Gouldin: On a completely unrelated topic, can you guys start including model numbers on the website for the stuff you sell? I'll find stuff I like, but I'll want to read some reviews before I buy. However, because I don't have the model number I basically can't search for it.
Anyway, other than that I love you guys.
Skies of Arcadia was amazing. They came out with a GameCube version which didn't have so many random battles which made it even better.
@coan_net: My husband and I still occasionally hook up our Dreamcast. Samba de Amigo on the Wii just isn't the same.
Lets not rewrite history Consumerist. Playstation 2 did NOT offer online play when it was released, it didn't do that until the broadband assult of the Xbox forced them to, and the Dreamcast didn't die because of the Xbox but because of the Sony Hype machine and it's lies it offered to the public about how much better the PS2 was. The Xbox is actually the spiritual successor of the Dreamcast, which included the former Dreamcast and Sega head Peter Moore taking over the Xbox division. Dreamcast was the best console to never reach it's true greatness. What a shame.
@AlteredBeast: I love "Typing of the Dead." I always thought that typing classes would be a lot more fun if they used that instead of that stupid b-word Mavis Beacon.
"The system, the forerunner of the generation that would include the more successful Xbox and PlayStation 2, offered online connectivity and stunning graphics."
I don't see in that sentence any statement that the PS2 offered online play at all, much less at launch.
Reading. It's what's for breakfast!
@Outrun1986: Most people in 1999 had dial-up connections and no easy access to information or ISO files. The few that did did not kill off the console. Like was mentioned, the DS and GBA were easily made into pirate devices for less than the price of a game. The PSP has been made into one as well. DS is still selling like crazy, consoles and games. PSP, not so much. A sytem can kill itself.
@the bends: The football game that came with my Sega Sports Dreamcast was the only football game I was ever good at. Good times.
@emis: My box was flawless and my total was not over 120. Guess the warehouse had some beat up ones?
Paid nearly $200!?. Sealed its not even worth that much you can get them loose with hookups a controller and a few sega sports games for like $20 consistently on ebay.
@Quake 'n' Shake: You could wait 6 years till Marty Mcfly shows up to save his son, then ask him to bring you one back from 1985 when after he takes care of that whole sports almanac mess.
@Carrie Gouldin: The monkeys certainly know how to keep a sharp eye on those internets to quell any geek uprising...
You guys have been top notch in the customer service arena, and I'm glad the situation got cleared up!
Just let me know if you happen upon any magical stashes of original NES consoles ;) (I know you've got a nice remake or two on the site, but nostalgia and all that...)
@Applekid: Dunno about your experiences, but I've only had one issue with ThinkGeek. I bought a R/C helicopter and one of the blades didn't rotate, so I got a UFO - Uncontrollable flying object. RMA'd at Thinkgeek, and they shipped me a new one no charge, and didn't even ask for the old one back (spare parts, woot!)
All the other many many things I've ordered have come as described without any problem.
@Daniel Lawrence Kurnath: I dunno where the 200$ number came from. Even on the site, it's 99$ for the unit, and I believe 20$ for an additional controller. So maybe the OP was willing to pay 80$ for overnight service or something?
It was ahead of its time, for sure.
@djsyndrome: Wrong. I have a launch Dreamcast and it was made in JAPAN. Later on production was shifted to China to save money.
You know, it's weird, but I always say the opposite: Lack of piracy seems to kill systems.
Piracy shows a system's popularity, and gives poorer people a reason to buy into it. The more systems sold, the more likely games are to be developed for it.
Since piracy normally has absolutely no effect on sales whatsoever (prove it does!) there is a net benefit from it that increases a console's popularity.
@nucwin83: I bought one of those RC helicopters for my dad and he LOVED it. I was really impressed with how quickly my items were shipped, etc. I would buy from them again. Of course, no one is perfect and some people are going to have problems.
Those are the kind of response we need here at the Konsumerist..quick, witty & to the point.
Keep up the Good work HOORAy!
@Outrun1986:
i remember the nail in the coffin was a hardwar issue. they had updated the laser that read information off the disc, and due to that some early gen consoles couldnt read new material. i never saw any actual news article off of it, so i may be wrong.
I knew it was too good to be true, that's why I didn't order any.