I have been reading here for a long time but this thread has promted me to step up and say what needs to be said.
Some of you people are insane. If you think TZD is trying to scam you a la Buyrite or some other lame online game stores, you're out of your minds. Either that, or you are so new to the Turbo scene that you know nothing about it.
TZD has been serving the Turbo community since the early\mid 90s. It's not being run out of a truck with the engine running or out of some guy's parents' basement. They used to operate out of Van Nuys and the last ten years or so have been out of Santa clara if I'm not mistaken. It has been a business for a long time. They have brought Sapphire, Dracula X, Ys IV and tons of other games (when they were available) from Japan. they didn't charge us ridiculous prices for any of it. They serviced Turbo machines, offered gameplay support, kept whomever they could from TTI, and, when able to, have cut many MANY deals to customers. They used to even give out free swag- promos, magazines, etc. Hell, I once even got a Sherlock Holmes 2 calculator from them- for free. This undeserved belly-aching is completely out of order.
Those of you smarting over Forgotten Worlds- if you wanted it so badly, you might have considered getting it sometime over the LAST 13/14 YEARS that they have been selling it instead of waiting until TZD was down to a handful of copies. Now, if you REALLY want it new, why don't you go over to telegames.co.uk. The last I checked, they were charging GBP 60 which is over $120 (US dollars) for it. TZD has had it for $30 for a LONG LONG TIME.
If you don't like the fact that they may have pulled the Expresses of the sale list (if they indeed still have them), then perhaps you should try buying a new one of those someplace else. I think Telegames US sold them for $250 while TZD sold them for $180. Telegames UK? $500 at last check. I don't blame them if they did such a thing. Someone once taught me a very valuable lesson (and that person is likely here reading this): It's better to make a slow dime than a fast nickel. TZD has lost its lease and perhaps more. They've severely marked games down over the years. Remember when Shanghai II and Power League V were like $40 a few years back? TZD had to take a loss on them just to get rid of them. Why not keep a few things which will definitely make money in the future? Given what market choices are on sealed Expresses, I'd certainly sell some stock for much more, much later.
Finally, those of you suspicious of TZD screwing people over with broken promises on games like Forgotten Worlds, I can sympathize. You, like me, have probably been under the assumption that TZD would be around forever with unlimited stock. After all, their original agreement with NEC expired like way back in 2000 and they're still here. Why not assume they'd be around another 20 years? Would you be wiling to believe that there were - if I'm not mistaken - less than 85,000 Duos sold in North America? How many copies of games like FW would have been made? Some Duo games had print runs of way under 5,000 (I think Dynastic Hero had 1,500). It's painful to know that your last chance to get something new has just slipped by but that is no reason for character assasination. I have been on the TML, a Turbo fan, a visitor here at pcenginefx.com and a customer of TZD for a long time- all for over a decade each and it just turns my stomach to see this kind of negativity in a community of the coolest game fans I have ever dealt with..
