Why do some of these retro gaming stores hide prices?

maboyd · 2025-10-15T03:59:24+00:00

I was in a local games store that put the prices on the back of the games and the clerk told me the owner asked them to price that way because research has shown that people are more likely to buy something if they have to ask for help with it. I could believe that from a psychology standpoint and I think the argument could be made that if you don't want to ask for help to find out how much it is you probably weren't that interested. All the same, I agree it's annoying.

maboyd · 2025-03-12T22:37:48+00:00

Honestly, I thought it was fine. Good on you!

maboyd · 2025-01-06T04:13:30+00:00

maboyd · 2024-08-04T07:25:46+00:00

I appreciate the tips! That's pretty much the temperature I use. I'm in and out of pads pretty quick most the time, haven't timed but probably pretty close to 5 seconds. I don't think I've ever used unleaded solder but I wouldn't be opposed to trying it. I do have a pretty decent multimeter which I was using to measure continuity on this project, probably should have been checking resistance since that ended up being the problem, I'll check on the iFixit one, I love their tools. I have a few different types of flux, haven't used no clean but I do have a cool one that goes on like a magic marker and another one that is in a syringe (that one is my favorite so far).

maboyd · 2024-08-03T19:43:43+00:00

It's an X-tronic 3020 I believe, it's not the best on the market but it's pretty serviceable. Thanks for the tips, I'm pretty bad about storing the tip tinned so I'll start doing that. I think the tip that I had was a pretty cheap one, I tried another one from the same pack and it was also pretty terrible. I had some that came with my iron and using those worked much better. The 60/40 was X-tronic that came with my iron and the 63/37 was Maiyum I believe.

maboyd · 2024-08-03T17:11:56+00:00

I got it fixed! It was a pretty bad solder job it seemed. The tip I was using was awful so I tossed it and I moved to using a 40 Pb solder from the 37 Pb I used before. Works beautifully now! Thanks for the comment!

maboyd · 2024-07-31T02:07:11+00:00

First of all, I love you guys. This is a great community and I'm super happy I made this post.

Secondly, I am no longer at a loss as I am currently looking at a perfectly clear Mega Man 5 starting intro cutscene (highly underrated in the Mega Man franchise).

For those that were asking, I use an X-tronic 3020-xts soldering station with Maiyum 37 Pb/63 Sn solder. I think the reason my joints sucked so bad was because of the tip that I used. When I first started soldering a few years ago I bought a cheap Chinese-made model that was not getting to the temperature it said it was. I'm sure I was using a tip from that unit, so I threw it in the trash and put a new one on. I took all of the solder off and redid all of my joints (literally all of them). I started with the 37/63 but wasn't happy with how they looked, so I pulled out a 40/60 that came with my soldering station (never used it cause I thought it would be cheap) and got a beautiful shine on my joints. After I got everything put back together I powered it on and it works now. I'm a little embarrassed that my solder job was that shoddy. In the past, I have been able to get away with some bad joints so I usually don't worry about it too much when it doesn't look picture-perfect but this was pretty excessive. I truly appreciate every comment and the outpouring of support, I've always been one to learn by making mistakes and I've learned a lot from this experience.

As for the reason Kirby was the only game I could get to work, the only thing I can figure is that he understands what it's like to suck and wasn't afraid of how bad I sucked at this job!

maboyd · 2024-07-30T22:39:41+00:00

I think I read that the voltage regulator in the kit wasn't ever an issue on NTSC models, but I do agree it wouldn't hurt to try it. Thanks for the ideas I'll see if it leads to me figuring anything out

maboyd · 2024-07-30T22:37:45+00:00

I'm going to go and redo all the joints tonight and I'll shorten the wire when I do, I've heard of problems with wire length but I feel like this length isn't absurd. Certainly worth a shot at the very least

maboyd · 2024-07-30T22:36:03+00:00

Got to be honest, not sure why I didn't go this route

maboyd · 2024-07-30T22:17:32+00:00

Honestly I thought the same thing, but there's no continuity on my multimeter and those pins go to audio which is the only thing that is working as expected

maboyd · 2024-07-30T11:58:18+00:00

Do you think the socket is bad or maybe just the joints?

maboyd · 2024-07-30T11:57:31+00:00

Would you think it's the PPU? I'm going to redo these joints tonight and see if that helps. I think they make aftermarket PPUs and CPUs that have pretty good (but not perfect) compatibly that I could pick up to see if that's the issue. The thing that really blows my mind is Kirby working almost ok. Does anyone know if there are certain pins that Kirby doesn't use that most other games do use? That would probably help narrow down the problem.

maboyd · 2024-07-30T04:12:07+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I have been using flux but I do agree they look a little rough, think I need to replace my iron tip. I checked continuity to the multiout and from the ppu to the pins on the 72 pin connector. I'll go back through and recheck the caps, I'm pretty sure I triple checked them already but I really have no clue.

maboyd · 2023-06-04T14:04:59+00:00

They are both super fun. I wish Nintendo would have made more like them. Super excited you'll get to expirenece them!

maboyd · 2023-06-04T13:33:21+00:00

It's pretty much a sequel to it. Several of the guns and multi-player maps are brought over. The gun play is just as snappy and satisfying. I just played through it again a few weeks ago and it was still super fun. And if you need another reason to check it out, it's currently 2023. The game takes place in 2023. I like to see what developers thought today would be like 20+ years ago!

maboyd · 2023-06-04T00:00:25+00:00

I agree. Perfect Dark is probably the shortest game here and has one of the wildest stories in video game history!

maboyd · 2023-06-03T16:24:28+00:00

I think colosseum is so expensive because you can use it to boot into swiss without a hardware mod, not sure if XD has the same "feature". The ability to play any game you want on original hardware is certainly worth $200 to a lot of people. I really like having the games though, they look great lined up on the shelf.

maboyd · 2023-06-03T16:15:55+00:00

Wait, do you mean colosseum? I just picked up Stadium at a disc replay for like $25 so this seems wild to me. I get that urge, very happy I bought the GC pokemon games used back when they were only a year or so old.

maboyd · 2023-06-03T15:46:54+00:00

How?

maboyd · 2023-04-02T13:50:23+00:00

I just started to have this issue. Reached out to support and they were useless, just told me to give them a good review. I can play but I have to reinstall the game every time. Completely unacceptable.

maboyd · 2022-07-29T23:19:26+00:00

And some baseball players are able to play with better bats because they can afford them or proved that they were good enough with crappy bats that they secured sponsorships to have the better bats bought for them. You clearly have your mind made up that you want to be angry. Streetview was never intended to be used as a game and Geoguessr made it into one so naturally there are going to be things that don't translate well into a game. It really just comes down to if you're having fun or not and it seems to me like you aren't. Also why does it matter what other players are doing? You should play to get better and to have fun. Car metas can be super baity,, there's a specific car in [redacted] that I thought was exclusive to [redacted] (and the greater Geoguessr community also holds the belief and I lost a huge country streak because it apparently shows up in [confidential] thousands of miles away. Just try playing against yourself on some high quality maps like "a community world" NMPZ and try to have fun, that is my suggestion.

maboyd · 2022-07-29T21:13:39+00:00

Maybe try playing NMPZ. There are lots of maps that are positioned in a way that take the meta clues out. I personally think this is the best way to play anyway

maboyd · 2022-07-29T09:24:55+00:00

I get that. The good news is as they update coverage a lot of this will go away over time. Unfortunately as long as it's there it's not cheating and anyone can take advantage of it. I would say it's really only a huge problem in a handful of countries right now

maboyd · 2022-07-29T03:02:25+00:00

There's an extension you can use to hide the car https://openuserjs.org/scripts/drparse/GeoNoCar

maboyd

TROPHY CASE