Richard Kain

And, a quick update on the Pocket.

The pre-orders opened for it yesterday, and sold out in 8 minutes. Pre-orders are no longer available.

The sheer speed was a little surprising. Previous pre-orders for the Super NT and Mega SG lasted several days at least. This is probably a combination of very limited supply (not surprising), and unusually high demand (a little surprising). With the steep price-point on this device and its associated dock, I was expecting the ardor for it to cool somewhat. That's clearly not the case. Even with a smaller supply, the demand for this thing is straight-up rabid, way higher than I was expecting.

I'm wondering if the additional features for the device may have figured into the demand. It's possible that the music-mixing community may be part of what's boosting the demand. Original video game handheld hardware has been used for music sampling and synthesis for quite some time. A lot of DJs use GameBoys in their performances, because of the unique sound their processors produce. The Analogue Pocket is going to come bundled with music composition software, and it has the potential to near-flawlessly simulate any traditional video game handheld. In fact, it will likely have the FPGA muscle to simulate ANY older audio chip. And it's going to come with a plethora of MIDI output options built right in. For classic chip-tune sampling, it's basically a bargain, and a dream-come-true for a lot of DJs.

Was it a good idea to go ahead and get one of these for the original retail price? Yes, yes it was.

Would it be a good idea to horde these suckers, and any other mini consoles in the future in order to flip them for a profit? No, that would be a terrible idea.

The circumstances for the TurboGrafx 16 mini are a bit unique to start off with. Konami hadn't been planning on mass-producing these things from the get-go, so the supply was always going to be constrained. Then COVID hit and all bets were off, further preventing any additional production runs.

Generally speaking, game flipping is a bad idea to begin with. It's really only profitable in the short term, and even then it is excessively risky. The only way to make a decent profit off of it long-term is to have an extensive understanding of the industry as a whole, and the consumer response to various titles and systems. And once again, even under the ideal circumstances the profits we're talking about would be pennies on the dollar. It's just not a good way to make money.

You can always wait and see. Knowing Youtube, it's only a matter of time before someone else orders those cases, and then puts up a detailed video review. Unboxings and product analysis is a popular approach for generating content. SOMEONE will do it.

I picked up the Cardcaptor Sakura series set from the Right Stuf sale, as well as the third season of Food Wars, and Gundam: War in the Pocket. Not exactly bargain-basement prices, but fairly reasonable, and all items I had been meaning to get sooner or later.

I would rather go with a plastic repro case for $5 of an old GBC, N64, etc. game than pay that much for a flimsy box or worse yet, more for an actual original box.

Yeah, no real argument here. Paper boxes have never lasted well. Original NES and SNES games are very difficult to keep in good condition, thanks to their flimsy cardboard boxes. Old Master System and Genesis games are very easy to maintain, and their plastic cases usually do a much better job of keeping their paper elements in good condition.

As to the cartridge issues you brought up, it's worth noting that companies like LRG frequently go to extra trouble to insure that their repro carts are higher quality than the cheaper, unlicensed Chinese knock-offs. Those knock-offs normally use the cheapest plastics and labels possible, making for repros that look and feel cheap and flimsy. The LRG repros are held to a higher standard, and the quality of production reflects this. They also have their own LRG-specific branding on them, so they aren't directly attempting to ape the originals or pass themselves off as reprints. The point isn't to pass off a pale imitation, but to create a new, LRG-specific print run.