Category: gamecube

Well, as of today, the last of my gamecube stuff is gone.  The broadband adapter sold today.  I just have to send it out and I’m done.  Overall, I lost $4 on the Gamecube mistake.  I’m happy with that.  The broadband adapter sold for $45 (retails for $35), the memory card sold for $24 (retails for $30), and the Phantasy Star Online game sold for $55 (I paid $45).  If only amazon.com didn’t take out such a huge chunk, I could’ve made money on the venture.  Oh well, no biggie, at least I made back all the cash I spent (minus taxes).  I’d definitely recommend using amazon.com if you’re trying to sell something, especially if amazon.com doesn’t actually sell it, but they have it listed.  That’s how I was able to get over retail value for two of the products I sold.

Well, I was easily able to return the cube to best buy.  However, ebgames doesn’t take returns on cube accessories that have been opened (broadband adapter and memory card).  Plus, I accidentally disposed of the reciept for Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2, so they wouldn’t take that back either.  Talk about a bummer.  Well, off to ebay to sell them, or so I thought.

Aaron Binford recently started selling his cd’s on amazon.com, while undercutting all the other personally sellers on there.  Turns out he’s already made close to $300.  Well, what have I got to lose?  I throw up the game, broadband adapter, and memory card on Sunday.  Today, just an hour or so ago, PSO sold for $55 ($10 more than what I bought it for, but $10 cheaper than the cheapest other seller on amazon.com).  Hopefully the other items will sell just as nicely.  One can only hope.  Now I just need to get to the post office tomorrow and get it sent off. 

This is way better than taking a huge loss, that’s for sure 🙂

Well, I finally got a GameCube.  Granted, the only reason I got it was because of the $100 Gift Certificate to Best Buy I received from my credit card company.  So, I bought the broadband adapater, memory card, and Phantasy Star Online for it.  I got it all hooked up and I was able to stream some of the games to the gamecube.  Most of the games worked fine, but granted, it’s a wee bit more of a hack than on the xbox.

Now, this morning, I’m questioning my decision.  The system was free for me (minus tax), however, the other 3 things added over $100.  I think I’m going to return everything and just use the $100 Best Buy gift card to buy cd’s instead.  The nice thing about the xbox, is that I can use it for other things (i.e. streaming music to my reciever and speakers from my server upstairs), but the GameCube can only be used for games and I don’t game that much.  Once the initial fun wears off, it will just sit around collecting dust.  Heck, the xbox does that enough on it’s own.  Thankfully the xbox is easy to repackage, and I’ll just return it to Best Buy.  The other stuff (minus the game) might be a little harder, since it’s some great packaging that you have to destroy to actually get the product out. 

Hopefully EBGames will take them back, otherwise ebay here we come!

I guess this marks the end for the gamecube category.

After playing with the Xbox awhile, I think it’s time to move on.  Now, I’m not saying I don’t enjoy my xbox, but the whole “modding” fun of it has definitely worn off.  Now it’s time to move onto a new challenge: the Gamecube.

The gamecube is more of a challenge for a number of different reasons.  First of all, there’s no built in NIC, you have to go purchase the broadband adapter (bba).  Secondly, the bba is limited to speads of 27Mbps.  Thirdly, there’s no harddrive that can have software loaded onto it.  And finally, in order to get into the gamecube you have to own Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2 (pso), which is a very hard game to find.

Now, to get this to work, you load up PSO, and then on the pc you load up the streaming software (psoload, or psul).  Then, you attempt to connect to one of sega’s online servers, but you actually put your pc’s ip address as the server ip.  That way, pso is fooled into thinking it should be getting data from your pc.  Now, the pc software streams the game image to your gamecube.  Sounds easy enough in theory, but it’s definitely hit or miss right now.  What also makes it difficult is that there is practically no community what-so-ever that keeps software updated, or tries new things.  It’s as if when 2004 came around, all developement stopped.

What makes this even more funny is that I don’t even have a gamecube yet.  I’m working with Aaron Binford and his newly acquired gamecube to all the testing and whatnot.  So far we’ve had great success, but we’re stuck on a couple of games, notably Luigi’s Mansion, which is a game both of us want.  I’ll keep everyone updated because I know YOU want to know 🙂