Power Up Gaming — Local services in Barrie

I've infrequently been to this store for years, and each time I either go in person or look at their website, it gets worse. The biggest issue with it is, and seemingly always will be the prices. Retro game stores are almost always higher than market values, but this is insane even by those standards, to the point that I wonder why people actually spend their money here, and not just take 10 seconds to find a better store/seller.

The trade in rates are tolerable, but their prices are high enough that they would have to be, or else trading things would be pointless. They're always going to give the same excuse of putting quality before cheap prices, which can be good, but no amount of quality can really match their prices, even during their monthly sales, where the vast majority seem to just put some products prices from horrible to mediocre. I can understand putting a high price tag on something like a console, given how they're more complex than just a game, but even their console prices are awful compared to just about anywhere else.

One thing that has always really bugged me are the negligible discounts on games without their proper cover art. At that point, the market value of that game is for just the disc, and printing out your own cover does not fix that, so without the official art, the value drops by usually a good bit, meanwhile they'll always just take it down by a couple dollars or so, rather than base it on the actual value of what they're selling.

The fact that they've also replied to negative reviews on here with paragraphs is almost embarrassing, and replying with exactly what people said/ordered feels kind of weird and wrong in a way.

While they don't do console mods or repairs anymore, I even had a bad experience with that, as I had got an original GBA modded with a backlit screen from them, and had to open it myself afterward because there was dust/other stuff on the screen itself, and for some reason when I opened it, I saw that inside, on the back of the screen had a lot of crumbs or something stuck to it which was almost laughable. Also given other reviews saying that the staff was helpful and all of that stuff, to me it always just the standard for smaller businesses like that, and I can say I've had significantly better from other retro game stores. Another bad experience was when I bought a DS Lite from them which had a faulty speaker, one side being much, much more quiet than the other, which seems like a pretty basic thing to check for before selling it, but I've been able to trade them a handheld with the same issue, you'd think them testing it for like 10 or so minutes would have made them realize one of the speakers didn't work though.

If anyone is ever considering going here, don't. Its insanely easy to find a better alternative for the same quality, to the point that nearly everything this store offers involves you wasting some amount of money. Even eBay has better prices for similar quality on most things, if not better on both ends, while also having a very good money back guarantee. Stores like this are part of the reason why collecting retro...

DO NOT SHOP HERE

PowerUp Games in Barrie is very overpriced, which anyone who shops there can tell and I sincerely didn't care about that because I thought they had better quality products, were a legit under dog company trying to keep up with the future (digital games, downloads, subscriptions, mods) and stay in business. I happen to love hard copies, and retro games so have enjoyed shopping here for 3 years now supporting them.

BUT I now know they aren’t honest and don't back their products! They claim to ‘clean and test’ before resale, and claim ‘if anything is wrong with it bring it back and we will get you an equal replacement’. I purchased an original copy (non repo) of Pokemon Blue from them, finally had time to play it as a working adult, opened it and the game didn’t work properly. I brought it back (to a city I don’t live in), where they confirmed it ‘loads in and glitches out’ and ‘crashes during trainer battles’ for reasons unknown to them… The staff were good to take it apart, tried to troubleshoot it, it was nothing I did to the cartridge, it was not damage, not dirt, it’s battery was not dead, it didn’t soft lock before the start screen… the game was simply defective … expecting a simple swap/replacement for another refurbished copy, i was left with “sorry, there is nothing we can do about it” because it had been 3 months and I didn’t open it the day I bought it because of their “back their product promise” and previous purchases that did work without issue.

The response I got was “that’s 4x longer than we guarantee”… any logical person would know that the game should last another 20 years working perfectly if not damaged and without issues loading into the game. My original GB games and SNES games work they don’t just load perfectly fine the. “glitch out (unknown)”. If they can’t guarantee the software coding or (unknown) longer than 30 days, then they should not promise quality products or charge high prices. Putting their name behind a product means nothing to them, so Don’t pay extra for it. I would rather go play eBay roulette and hope a game lasts longer than 30 days before glitching.

That will be my LAST transaction with this terrible company; this an 85$ review that hopefully works more than the faulty game cartridge I’m left with. As for the 10 dollars in “reward points” left in my loyalty account (saved up from previous transactions) for “future purchases” - KEEP IT, use it to buy...

I've been following Power Up Gaming for about a year now. During their 10th anniversary celebration they got my attention with free games, and my heart with a charity donation.

I'm from out of town, and haven't had the chance to visit until now.

The staff were amazing. The employee I spoke with was willing to chat if I wanted to, but just as happy to let me browse in peace.

The store was much larger than I expected. It didn't have that usual retro store atmosphere. Instead it was clean and open, a welcome improvement.

The selection looked amazing. Rows upon rows of games for some systems. The 3ds section looked small in comparison. They have over 100 games, or 1/4 the entire 3ds library, but not much I hadn't seen elsewhere. I still came out with a game I didn't have yet, as well as some good quality dust protectors for cheaper than Chinese sites.

Prices were competitive with other stores.

Trade-in is where I was disappointed. The store advertised that they beat their competitors rates. While this was true with the store credit I was offered, the cash value was lower.

There was also an error with my trade. I didn't fully realize until I got home. I understand that mistakes happen, and was more worried that it was too late to fix. I emailed the store in a panic, and not only did they respond, and resolve it within 24 hours, they went above and beyond what I was expecting to make up for the mistake.

One item that I brought in didn't pass quality control. Completely my fault for not inspecting it properly myself first. While disappointing, I was more impressed that they had such thorough testing. I definitely feel confident buying hardware from them.

Final word, I'm a casual reseller, and very strict with who I'm willing to deal with. Power Up Gaming came through with a win in nearly every category. I'm disappointed that they won't replace my local store for cash trades, but I'm looking forward to coming back with another batch for store credit, or taking advantage of their mail-in...