Buying a sealed gamecube brand new?

[UlvenFenrir 987]

To those who collect things that you have no intention of ever opening, where the value is pretty high, 400$+ how do you know if the product you bought sealed is even working? Ive always wondered that. The obvious answer would be to unseal it but since you collect sealed things you would never know. In this case, it would be a gamecube but if it were to stay sealed, whoever ends up buying it would never know.

 

Just wondering those who buy sealed games or consoles, is this ever a concern for you?

[Dreakon13 2,762]

I would imagine the thought process is... if the collector never intends to open it, then it doesn't matter if it works.  If the collector is going to sell it to someone who does intend to open it, it's not the collectors problem if it doesn't work.

 

If I'm that collector, as long as I sent them a truly brand new sealed Gamecube that by all accounts should work, and shipping tracking indicates it was delivered... I don't really care what happens at that point.  I'd probably make sure to specify no refunds on the listing.  I'd do what I could to help the buyer if there is a problem but giving them the money back AND being out a sealed Gamecube is out of the question.

 

If I bought one, I'd either leverage the sellers refund policy if they have one or kiss that money goodbye if the Gamecube doesn't actually work.  That's the risk you take buying sealed products from unofficial sources.  Hell, there's no guarantee unsealed products will work either, just cause they say they tested it.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Dreakon13

[MonaSaxPayne 3,029]

Schrödinger's Cube

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV 2,736]

My personal policy on this is:

 

If I bought it brand new from a trusted distributor/website, I'll keep it sealed.

If I bought it from an eBay seller or something, and the game is getting on in age (say 5+ years old) and/or is hard to come by sealed, I'm opening that shit up.

 

I've ended up with a few reseals over the years that were sold as "new". Many were obvious, others less so. Thankfully I've never had a case where the game was completely missing or was a different game entirely, but it's always a concern with buying physical games that are no longer in production, hence why I open them. In those cases I was sold "new" games that were resealed, they were usually thankfully in pretty good condition anyway, but clearly used. I often asked for partial refunds, which most sellers were more than happy to oblige with (I guess the prospect of negative feedback for their scams was enough incentive on their part... Unfortunately for them, I left negative/neutral feedback after the fact anyway, people have a right to know what they're buying).

 

I don't really collect anything for anything as old as Gamecube nowadays mind you, pretty much only buy/collect last/current gen games, where there's less of an issue with this kind of thing. Although I do keep many games sealed, I've never had any qualms about unsealing them no matter how many years later or how much value they've racked up, as I don't intend to ever resell them 99% of the time (only times I've ever sold off a game in recent years is when a newer, better/more complete version of the game releases, and the old version is worth enough to actually bother to sell. Like selling off my Switch Super Rare copy of Human Fall Flat for £80 when the PS4 retail physical with more content was announced. Might as well make a £40 profit on a game I'd definitively never use after buying the PS4 version). I collect with the intention to own and play, not for investment purposes, personally.

 

As for consoles, I do have a few "sealed" ones... Except not really because I've always at least tested them to make sure they're working, even if that's literally just taking them out the box, setting them up, testing them for 5 minutes, making sure they can read carts/discs, etc. I put them back in all their original packaging, but keeping consoles boxed does concern me more than games, as I've had 2 faulty consoles over the years, an Xbox 360 and a PS3, which only became obvious after a few weeks or months of using them (when they were still under warranty). So there is some concern with my boxed consoles that they could actually have some kind of factory defect, and I won't know about it until the warranty is up when I decide to actually use the console in God knows how many years, but that's the risk I choose to take.

 

My only advice to you would be to decide what you value more - a genuine sealed Gamecube game/console, or knowing the disc/console is working.