ABOUT SUPERCHALLENGE
WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO THE WAY WE DO...ERM...DO
In 2021, we started a challenge to collect a complete set of PAL Nintendo 64 carts with only a £50 budget. The goal was to buy, sell, and trade our way up to the whole set. For some reason, we called it The SuperChallenge. Surely, it should have been The 64Challenge, right? Oh well.
In truth, we got bored and failed about halfway through. Along the way though, we found that the service we were getting from second-hand game sellers left much to be desired. When (and if) items eventually turned up, they were often damaged in transit due to substandard packaging, missing parts, or in far worse condition than we ever could have expected. Sellers of all sizes were cutting every possible corner to squeeze every extra penny of profit.
We quickly decided that rather than keep complaining about it, we would have a go at being better.
So, we sold off the incomplete N64 collection and invested the proceeds in packaging, tools, repair equipment, and a label printer. A (very!) small budget was reserved for buying stock, and we were off to the races.
We kept the name because it's different, and we like it. Plus, it was either that or changing it to something generic and rubbish and blending in with all the outlets from which we were trying to differentiate ourselves.
By the way, the Japanese text in our logo just says "SuperChallenge!"
We're not very creative.
BUT WHY JAPANESE GAMES?
Japanese games are fantastic. We often prefer their packaging and artwork over Western-released versions' often far more bland efforts. They're usually beautiful pieces, even if you can't understand every word.
Also, despite being UK-based, we usually avoid PAL stuff as we prefer to avoid sourcing it. We'll sell it if we get it, but we don't put any effort in to finding it.
We just don't enjoy trudging through muddy fields at 6 am in the rain to haggle over a quid at a car boot sale. We're not fans of wading through a million scratched copies of FIFA until we can find something that allows us to "catch out" our local shops that are raising money for good causes. Also, we'll pass on fighting with dozens of other resellers over shady Marketplace offerings and thumbing our way through the 872 basically identical Ubisoft sequels sitting on the bottom shelf of our local branch of CEX, thanks very much.
Plus, tons of really cool pieces were/are never made available in the UK and Europe. We love getting the chance to find these items and give them a 1UP so that they can live again and be enjoyed by gamers and collectors like yourself, who will genuinely appreciate them.
OUR PROCESS
When an item arrives at SuperChallenge HQ, we examine it for completeness, remove any stickers or labels, and give it a general clean.
Cartridge pins are gently cleaned. Batteries and cases are checked and replaced if needed. Discs are examined for damage and - only if required - are buffed and polished to get them as close to perfect condition as possible. We use a combination of professional-grade machines for this process, and we assure you that absolutely nobody does this with a lighter touch or with more care and attention than we do.
The item then goes to our testing station, where we test it on genuine original hardware.
We then give the outer packaging a final quick cleaning and photograph the item while noting any defects. We immediately pop it into a thin polythene wrap to keep it in the advertised condition before giving it an individual stock number to ensure you receive the exact item you paid for.
We follow this process for every item we stock. Whether we're talking about a valuable Super Famicom game, a super-common PS1 title, or a ratty old Game Boy cart with a yellowed case and a damaged label...they all get the same treatment.
We don't claim that every item we sell looks like new. Far from it, in fact! But by following this relatively straightforward process, we know that we're delivering items in the best possible condition that we can.