Not really New...
It seems like some of the "new" Dreamcasts being sold at Think Geek were not really new at all. (Probably returned items)
Ever vigilant wraggster from DCEmu alerted me to this in his most recent article after he read all about it in Gizmondo.
Gizmondo ran the article about the matter after they read one from the Consumerist.
The Consumerist ran the article derived from a Rumors article written at Destructoid by Nick Chester.
So lets run down the list.
Destructoid originates story.
Consumerist grabs story.
Gizmondo gets story via Consumerist.
DCEmu reads story on Gizmondo.
I read the story from DCEmu.
I knew a guy in college who was an extra in a movie starring Kevin Bacon! Yeah!
I hope this doesn't lead to people thinking that we aren't really on top of all the Dreamcast rumors flying around. I mean we were kinda in the top ten of the people who first reported this (At least we were when I first started typing this out).
All kidding aside the Think Geek Monkeys replied to the Gizmondo article with the following comment.
"Hello from ThinkGeekland!
We emailed Destructoid's editors [where this post originated] late last night but haven't seen the posted amended, so here's our Official Apology, in blog comment form.
First, a little backstory: We came upon an amazing cache of new-in-box Dreamcasts not too long ago. We had a bunch of units shipped to us to inspect them, and indeed, though the boxes were a little worse for the wear on the outside, the consoles had nary a scratch and even the wire twists that bundled the cables had never been undone. It was like magic--magic that had been hiding in a warehouse, unknown, for years.
So we asked our source from whence these beautiful Dreamcasts came, and they didn't know--could've been a liquidator, or a Circuit City that had closed shop. (Hear that? It's the sound of a plot thickening.)
But we'd seen them with our own eyes and figured it was best to share our discovery with the world. Hundreds were snatched up quickly and squees were heard 'round the internets.
So far we've had 2 instances of not-so-new-in-box Dreamcasts. The individual who received the one reported here contacted us via email (which never appeared in our inbox, for some reason) and Twitter (through which we've taken care of the situation) has already been issued a return shipping label. We're more than happy to refund him for the Dreamcast as well as shipping.
We're very sorry about the whole thing--we never meant to ship used Dreamcasts. We know our customers are smarty pants and could tell if they'd been duped with a stale Dreamcast; we'd never get away with taking advantage of you guys, so why would we try?
And now we have 3 options: 1. Stop sharing the gift of new Dreamcasts; 2. Have them all shipped to us and inspect each one individually and then ship back to the warehouse; and 3. Continue spreading the (mostly) untainted Dreamcast love and working with the very few customers who get lemons.
We hope you'll understand why we're continuing to offer them on our site (when we get our grubby little paws on more, of course). And again, we apologize to the 2 customers who ended up with what appears to be returned merchandise.
--The ThinkGeek Monkeys"
Personally I did order a Dreamcast from them (Though I would have had seconds thoughts if I knew that Monkeys were processing my order...damn dirty primates.). It was in a beat up box that smelled faintly of bananas but it was NEW.
If I had gotten a used Dreamcast I would have known and I would have been a bit upset. But really folks. It's a console that's ten years old. You are always rolling the dice when you order stuff online. Still it looks like Think Geek is gonna back up their reputation and work with the people who got screwed over on this deal. It also looks like the number of people that did get screwed over might be very small.
-All Hail the Undead Console!
P.S. - In the article about ThinkGeek's response blogger Nick Chester used the word "Debacle" to describe the situation. It's my personal opinion it was more of a Kerfuffle or perhaps a Snafu.