Okay, so I know a lot of people on here like to buy stuff from China, and there are literally (not literally) a billion different agents who claim to help you in that process. so I thought I'd start a thread with a few of the ones i've had better experiences with.

(Also note that I mention Taobao specifically in the title since it's the largest and most popular online shopping site in China by a long shot, and 99% of anything you may be looking for can probably be found there, but most of these agents will also buy stuff for you from just about any Chinese site if you ask)

Basically all Taobao agents charge a certain percentage of the item price as their service fee and a percentage on all Paypal payments. International shipping is usually offered by both EMS and Airmail, with the latter being cheaper, but they almost universally offer a discount on the listed EMS price as they use shipping agents which offer a lower rate. Sometimes they'll offer other methods, but this seems to vary from agent to agent and even from week to week. Personally I had good experience with Yanwen Express (which is delivered by Interlink in the UK), it was cheap and fast, but it's rare to find an agent that offers it.


These two are smaller operations, but I've used them both recently and I was impressed with their service:

XYBBuy - http://www.xybbuy.com/
Service fee: 5% (minimum 50CNY) / Paypal fee 4% NO LONGER AVAILABLE - accepts Western Union or MoneyGram / EMS discount 50%
This one seems to be quite a new agent, but I gave them a chance and I was happy with their service. Their ordering system is a bit "oldschool" in that it's mostly done by email with Excel spreadsheets, but that does mean you're in contact with their staff at every stage in case you need to ask any questions or make any requests, which can make it more flexible than some of the newer web-based systems. In any case, everything was dealt with quickly (usually within a hour or two if it was within their listed business hours, 9:30-18:00 Mon-Fri), Brace was very helpful, always replied to emails quickly and was available on Skype when I needed to ask something at short notice.

TaobaoRing - http://www.taobaoring.com/
Service fee: 8% (no minimum) / Paypal fee 4% / EMS discount 40%
This one has a more automated web-based system but again everything was dealt with quickly - when I had to contact them Sydney was very helpful and quick to reply (again usually within an hour or two during business hours, and their business hours are considerably longer than most - 9:00-21:00 Mon-Sat), and available on MSN if you need a quick answer to something. Sydney's English is also very good so they might be a good choice if you have any detailed special requests or anything like that.

Both of these agents will send you a picture when the items arrive at no extra cost, so you can check everything looks alright before they ship it onto you, which is a nice touch.


Then there's the big one:

Yoybuy - http://www.yoybuy.com
Service fee: 10% (minimum $5.60 USD) / Paypal fee 4% + $0.30 USD NO LONGER AVAILABLE - only accepts credit card, Western Union, MoneyGram etc / EMS discount 50%
Yoybuy is one of the bigger agents around, and they probably have the best online ordering system (at least as far as I've seen). I also like that everything is basically done on a per-item basis rather than strictly grouping it into an order, so if one seller is being slow it won't hold up everything else, and you can always add more stuff before you have it shipped. The quality of service you get does depend on the staff member dealing with your order, though - on average they tend to take about 24 hours to respond or do something, which is much slower than the other two, and quite often they will just cancel an item when there's a problem whereas the smaller agents will contact you to try and work something out. Still, they seem like a professional operation, and they've always been reliable as a fallback. Also their mascot is cute.
edit: Also if you feel like giving me some Yoybuy points (not that they're hugely valuable, but hey) you can sign up using this link.


Anyway, feel free to add your own experiences/recommendations/warnings!

Just trying to track down some info on something I saw ages ago and I've never been able to find since... a Famiclone I saw being demonstrated in the Prospect Centre in Hull around Christmas 2005 or 2006. I don't remember much about the actual console,but it was most likely one of those N64 controller-ish clones, and I think it was called something like "X Games" or "X Games II" maybe (although I could be completely wrong on the name, and it may have been sold under multiple names anyway)

It had all the standard games you usually see built into this type of thing, but they'd made some kind of attempt to skirt trademark infringement and removed all the title logos from the games, and very slightly renamed them in the menu - the one thing that really stands out to me and is pretty much the sole reason I even remember this thing at all is the two Donkey Kong games on it. One had been renamed "Honkey Kong" - okay that was quite amusing, I thought, until I spotted the next one. HONKEY DONG. i swear to god.

so yeah, basically I'm trying to find even the tiniest bit of proof that this console existed and I'm not insane. anyone?

dumped by me! yay
http://hhug.me/?post=4
^ this is also one of the first things I've posted on my amazing new site Handheld Underground. just saying, like.

All credit to RobGBA for this one - he was poking around with my (unsuccessful) dump of Harry Potter 3 by Yong Yong trying to get it working, and he discovered the string "MakonSoftStudio" in the ROM. he also found it in the existing dumps of Digimon 2, 4 and 5.

so, what is this MakonSoftStudio? Yong Yong's real name?  the makers of some development tool they used? Either way, Google returns nothing of interest, except an Android developer MLX found called Makon Mobile Studios whose games I can't seem to find for download. possibly a connection there?

---

Okay there's *definitely* a connection here. This page has screenshots from one of Makon Mobile Studios' games, "Rolling Ball":
http://www.androidzoom.com/android_games/casual/rolling-ball_beexh.html
which is a remake of Rockball by Sachen! using the levels from the hacked version, "Lair's Secret"! omg! this shit all fits together now.

just wondering about this one. it says all over the wiki that Rockman 8 is a hack of Rockman World 3, is there any proof of that? they don't seem to have all that much in common. i mean if it was a hack maybe it would have been playable, at least.

I've just started a new youtube account for Game Boy stuff: http://youtube.com/handheldunderground/
(my plan is to launch a whole new site soonish, i'll keep you all posted on that front)

at the moment there are two videos up:

Street Fighter Zero 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9fF5t3vWW4

Space Baby - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71loKUJmNyA

But I have loads more mostly unseen crap to record. o:

I mentioned this company in the Games Xplosion thread since their logo was found in the ROM, but if I went into any more detail there I'd probably be driving the thing way off topic, so.. Basically it's a Russian company that distributes, among other things, game consoles - mostly handhelds, mostly from Jungletac but with a few others mixed in.

here's the English version of their console page: http://www.eng.defender-global.com/products/game/electronics/

And Sharky - their game division, I guess: http://www.sharky-game.ru/

now Sharky's site is interesting because they actually went to the trouble to screenshot all the games on their various consoles (except the very newest ones, for now), link them and cross-reference them to all the different consoles they appear on. So basically an official version of the plug & play database I've been working on, on and off, for a while now... Theirs does tend to conflate different versions of the same game into one though, so in some cases you'll see a screenshot of a version for more or less powerful hardware than the console actually offers, but still! its pretty damn thorough, for a website of a company in this most half-arsed of industries.

Consoles: http://www.sharky-game.ru/console/
Games: http://www.sharky-game.ru/games/

and just a quick rundown of their consoles, for the interested (... which probably just means me, but still):

MX-08 - fairly standard 75 in 1 Jungletac 8-bit handheld

MX-09 - Seemingly Jungletac manufactured console, but with 100 Nice Code games built in..

M-2500P - hey its the Cyber Arcade Centre!

MX-15 - Jungletac 70 in 1 16-bit console. Seemingly their more powerful (Sunplus?) 16-bit hardware, since it has the Mode 7-y racing games on it...

GameMix Classic - 114 Nice Code games. Possibly by Qi Sheng Long I think, this may be the origin of the logo in the Games Xplosion.

GameMix Funny - 45 in 1 Jungletac 16-bit thingy. Seems to be their less powerful 16 bit hardware (VT168?)

MultiMix Lucky - Jungletac console/media player also known as the Pocket DJ. Plays video, music, has a camera and 55 built in 16-bit games.

MultiMix Magic - Rebranded version of the Letcool Gamestation, a Chinese handheld designed mostly for playing emulators. (and video etc). I was interested in buying a Letcool a while back & I found out about this version back then, Defender actually did a better job supporting it with firmware updates than Letcool themselves.

Sharky TV-mate - did someone say Zone 60? no? it says hi anyway.

Sharky 3D - 51 games! in 3D! Well, some of them. This seems to be a Prescope/Promexus production, and Promexus is basically the present day successor to Dragon Co., so there's that. AKA "iGo"

Sharky Touch - Another Prescope/Promexus thingy w/ touch screen and 50 games. aka "eGo"

Sharky Move - & another! This one has a camera and 20 motion controlled games Kinect/Eyetoy/etc style.

Sharky Dream100 - Seems to be the same as my Jungletac 100 in 1 console in a different case. VT168 or whatever their less powerful 16-bit-y hardware is. in fact from the front it looks exactly like jungletac's camera console, complete with button in the "shutter" position, but presumably there is no lens on the other side.

Sharky Legend100 - not much info but I bet it's the same as the Dream100 in a different case. Which would in fact make it the same as my own 100 in 1, in the same case. But a different colour.

Sharky Mix200 - even less info but I'd wager it's a mix of Jungletac and Nice Code 8-bit games.