Slashdot Mirror
Huge Console Auction Debuts
neura writes "In quite possibly the largest console auction ever, someone is selling just about every development kit and production game console ever made in Japan. They also have listed tons (almost literally) of software to go along with the systems. Anybody ever seen the original Super Famicom development system? The pictures alone are worth taking a gander. :)"
The dude is selling this for $100,000 starting price. That's pretty insane. Unless you're a store wanting to resell this in a 3rd world country (even then, it'll be hard), you're not going to make your money back.
Truly this is only for the insanely obsessed console freaks.
But that's just me. Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh well.
Don't you get the impression that the person listing the auction is not a naitive english speaker? All of the hardware is Japanese and the seller is located in Hong Kong. A few spelling errors doesn't change what you get.
I was the same thing, mostly with the development and obscure stuff. For example, I imagine there would be alot of people in the current Dreamcast homebrew/emulation scene who would pay a bit for that DC development machine, not to mention the emulation types who might like some of the older development tools there.
Look at his selling history and active auctions. He's been selling this stuff on eBay for over FOUR YEARS. He has about 100 seperate items on sale right now. He is probably bored as hell of it. This auction was a great idea, even if no one bids the $100,000 dollars. It has generated HUGE amounts of publicity for him(it had 20,000 hits before it hit /.) If no one bids on it, he'll have no problem selling the items seperately. And maybe, just maybe, there's a video game obsessed nut rich enough to bid the 100k.
If I were serios about making a 100k PURCHASE i would fly to hong kong to personally inspect the goods. The amount you spent on airfare, accomodation etc would easily be worth the cost to avoid disappointment / fraud. For 100K im sure the guy would let you look and test too.
DSLIP Web Design and Content Management Australia.
"They also have listed tons (almost literally) of software..". Not wishing to pass up this opportunity to be anal (no, not even almost literally), I'd like to (a) point out that something is either literal or it's not and (b) how much does a bit weigh (and how many bytes in a ton)?
Exactly.
I have a good friend who lived in Hong Kong until he was 15. He spells exactly like this guy's auction and uses similar phrases.
He is absolutely brilliant though, and his goofs at English on occasion are nothing compared to how he storms through classes at the U of A.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
While we're shamelessly advertising this guy's shit, for what it's worth he has some other stuff on sale if you can't fork out 100k (more Japanese console stuff, I imagine it's rare, not really a connoisseur though) including familiar-looking NES, Sega and Playstation units/devkits and some Pippin thing I've never heard of.
Some of the 'OMG RARE 500 PCS ON EARTH' items are kind of interesting (well, would have been before discovering girls)
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
I have come to the conclusion that if the seller were to list each item separately, he would probably double or triple his returns.
If you honestly believe this you should buy the set, split it up, and relist it.
"...ooh a limited first edition boxed Biohazard LE (dark blue)...".
Anyway must go back to drooling at that list. Ohhhhh lovely! 419 whatever... I want that stuff :)
All you need is 10,000 visitors @ $10 to cover the cost of buying it...
Plus a fair amount for shipping and a location
But I imagine 20,000 visitors would cover it fully.
"You forgot the Simpsons quote"
No he didn't.
"7) In Soviet Russia, the consoles buy you!"
>>PAYMENT:--- ONLY ACCEPT:--- 1/ INTERNATIONAL BONK TO BANK TRANSFER--- 2/ WESTERN UNION INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER
This guy will accept his $100K the same ways kidnappers accept theirs!
No sending an intermediate party after this guy to get your $$$ back (as one could with, say, a credit card)... and somehow I doubt Hong Kong's laws would protect an American buyer if something went sour...
"I'm sorry, but when you ask for that much money for ANYTHING, you can not make yourself look like a first grade jackass."
I'm getting rather tired of using spelling as an IQ test. You just called somebody who probably doesn't speak english natively (which means they took a LOT of time to learn it. I bet you don't know Chinese.) as sounding like a 'first grade jackass' because he didn't spell a few words right. Big surprise some of us Americans have negative stereotypes.
"Derp de derp."
You're not just looking at the $100k pricetag plus S&H but also at spending quite a bit at customs (and it's going to be a b**ch to get some of this stuff cleared by customs in the first place). Oh, and be sure to tell the UPS guy not to leave the stuff on the front porch. ;)
If you used your imagination to determine what it might be like doing business in a second language you'd know:
1. translators will not keep your business interests in mind as well as you will.
2. Since it's difficult to determine where your own errors may be, it's even more difficult to spot errors made by a spellchecker. And what commonly used, unmodified spellchecker would have correct spellings for "Deramcast," Famicon, or the many other specialized words in this ad?
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Many people in the US, however, have had a good deal of contact with people whose command of their second language is less than perfect wrt spelling, yet manage to communicate with them and trust them, even here in the US in southern Florida, or southwestern Texas.
Unless you are speaking from experience, which I doubt, you have no reason to tell either side of such business dealings that they are wrong.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Probably the easiest thing to do is throw it on a container.. It'll probably cost about $3500-$5000 door-to-door, but when you're already spending $100k, what's the difference? :).
www.lonseidman.com
It's quite illegal to sell the devkits to the public.
Where? Is it illegal in Hong Kong, where this guy is? Do you know, for a fact, that he didn't obtain these devices legitimately and/or without signing any type of agreement? Hell, for all you know he dumpster dove for the things.
A sticker on the bottom of thing marked "Property of Sony" has no legal force whatsoever. They could have trashed the thing and he obtained it from the garbage, which makes it now his, legally, and with no restrictions whatsoever.
Without knowing the complete and full path by which he acquired that devkit, you cannot say for certain whether it is illegal for him to be selling it.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I wonder at that as well as his decision not to give a complete listing of all the merchandise. Based on other comments here though, it sounds like he's counting on the value of a handful of really valuable items (like the developers kits) to affirm the value, and starting with a exceptionally high starting bid to keep any dilletantes out of the picture. It's a fair bet this guy wholly understands this market and I imagine there must be a small group of individuals with the money and inclination to make it worth his while. Running separate auctions on it would be a LOT of work and chances form many, many bad or fraudulent transactions. This way he can focus on vetting a handful of participants (most of whom he probably already knows) instead of thousands of random yahoos.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries