Year of the Horse causes building closure

Lunar New Year Update - January 30, 2014   We learned late yesterday that our building management decided to shut down the entire office building for the Lunar New Year tomorrow. Apparently, there were enough tenants reporting that they wouldn't be open for business on Friday that the management decided to not open the building tomorrow.

   Our weekly Japanese import shipment is already en route for delivery but UPS rescheduled the shipment to tomorrow and as luck would have it, they won't be able to access the building on Friday. We'll check today to determine if we can reschedule the delivery for Saturday but if that's not possible for a shipment that's already in transit, please note that preorders for this week's new releases will ship on Monday. Apologies for this unexpected issue.

   The Lunar New Year of the Horse kicks off around the world on January 31, 2014.

NEWS Delayed shipment

NCS Update
    Due to a missed connection in Louisville, Kentucky, this morning, please note that this week's shipment of new Japanese imports has been rescheduled to Saturday (December 21, 2013) or Monday (December 23, 2013). Since UPS normally delivers late packages on the weekend due to missed connections, we'll process and ship preorders tomorrow once the packages arrive by USPS Priority Mail for delivery by Tuesday of next week.

Datacenter still down, UPS working

The datacenter that colocates our ncsx.com server in Battery Park is still flooded but things appear to slowly be getting back to normal. We anticipate they'll be back online tomorrow. Our shop at www.shopncsx.com is hosted elsewhere so it wasn't affected by the outage. JFK airport has re-opened although Laguardia is still closed because of extensive flooding and damage. This week's import shipments should arrive on time (Thursday/Friday) since the flights are routed through JFK. Photo credit: kaitstalyn

Datacenter down, UPS down

The data center in downtown Manhattan's Battery Park where our server is located was affected by the Con Edison power shutdown last night so www.ncsx.com is down. There's no timetable as to when power will be restored but we're guessing Thursday.

Please note that UPS is not operating in our area today and the Postal Service is also shut down so packages will probably go out on Wednesday. Photo credit: jesseanggreg

NEWS Hurricane Sandy

NCS Product Synopsis
 «©NCSX» We're in the offices today but depending on how the day goes, we'll probably have to shut down early if the lights go out. Mass transit in New York City has been shut down and schools are closed. UPS and the USPS might also shut down early in the afternoon so all of their people are off the roads as the hurricane nears NYC. Due to the expected shut downs, NCS expects shipments for orders placed over the weekend to go out on Tuesday.

NEWS UPS, Interrupted (Second week in a row)

NCS Synopsis
 «©NCSX» This week's shipment made it out of Japan without any snags, cleared Customs in Kentucky, and was misrouted to Ontario, California. Thanks, Brown. Due to the error, NCS expects this week's new Japanese imports to arrive tomorrow but if UPS was able to correct the misroute in time last night, we might receive the shipment later this afternoon. We'll update accordingly if/when that happens.

NEWS UPS, Interrupted

   Due to an odd occurrence yesterday where our Japanese shipment was sent... and then returned to the shipper... all of this week's new imports and restock will arrive tomorrow.

NEWS General Updates

Fast Striker / Dreamcast «©NCSX» According to NG DevTeam, Fast Striker [Regular and Limited Editions] for the Dreamcast is shipping today. Please note that due to the Christmas holiday, our shipment will probably not arrive until next week.

UPS Holiday Update    UPS is delivering UPS Ground packages on Friday of this week but they are not picking up any Ground packages for dispatch.

NEWS Japanese Customs Computer Bottleneck (JCCB)

UPS Shipment Delay
«©NCSX» When shipping "Express" packages from Japan, we tend to hope for quick delivery. Speed is the reason why the going rate for UPS Worldwide Express is what it is compared to a service like EMS which costs about 1/3 less and delivers 3 days later. Yesterday, the following tracking result popped up on all of our UPS shipments from multiple Japanese vendors:

COMPUTER SYSTEM BREAKDOWN-PACKAGE DATA PROCESSING NOT POSSIBLE-NO CONNECTION TO CUSTOMS SYSTEM / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED

Maybe it was an erroneous message so we spoke to a UPS representative and pointed out the error message to him. He'd never seen such a message in his entire life. He sounded like an old dude too. His supervisor who had "seen it all" hadn't seen that message before either. In the two decades that NCS has shipped with UPS, that message has never appeared on any of our packages. Guess it was about time that it did appear and it was great that it happened on the day that some of our biggest shipments of the year were trying to escape from Japan.

We're disappointed. Tonight was supposed to be "Espgaluda II Night NYC." As of right now, it looks more like "Frozen TV Dinner Night 2010." The fare will include greasy Salisbury steak, congealed gravy, and mushy peas. If we're lucky, the dessert brownie will have a rock baked into it.

As of this morning, the shipments are on the way but they're a day late and won't arrive until tomorrow. If there isn't any further botching of shipments, all preorders for Espgaluda II (Regular and Limited Edition) will ship out tomorrow along with preorders for the other new releases including PSP BlazBlue Portable, PSP Kenka Banchou 4, etc.