Hello everyone,

It’s been a while since our last major update, and I feel like I owe everyone an honest explanation of what’s been happening behind the scenes at Retro Game Restore.

The short version is:

We’re still here.
We’re still working.
And we’re not giving up.

The last ten months have probably been the most difficult period in RGR’s history, but there is finally some good news to share.

Some Good News First

Before diving into everything that happened, I’d like to start with the most important update.

Beginning in June 2026, Taiwan Post introduced a new process that allows duties and taxes to be prepaid for US-bound shipments.

This is the first meaningful improvement we’ve seen in a very long time.

We’re currently monitoring the process carefully to make sure shipments move through successfully.

If everything continues to operate normally, we expect to begin gradually shipping the accumulated backlog of US orders starting around the middle of June.

To thank everyone for their patience, Retro Game Restore will absorb the prepaid duties and tax-processing costs for all affected pre-orders placed before July 1st.

Many of you have waited far longer than anyone should have had to.

We know that.

And we’re incredibly grateful for your patience.

Without your support, RGR might not have survived this period.

What Happened To US Shipping?

Many customers have asked why their orders have been delayed, especially shipments to the United States.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t caused by anything RGR did.

Beginning in August 2025, changes to US import and tariff policies created significant problems for parcels entering the United States from Taiwan.

Packages that had already been shipped before the end of August were affected in different ways. Some were eventually returned to Taiwan without warning, while many others simply disappeared after arriving in the United States.

In fact, roughly 60% of the parcels we sent to the US during August never reached their destination and never returned to us.

Tracking records often stopped updating entirely and showed only “NO DATA“, leaving both us and our customers with no clear information about their whereabouts.

After that, Taiwan Post gradually became unable to accept normal commercial shipments to the United States at all.

For months, the only postal option available was to declare packages as non-commercial gifts or books valued under USD 100.

While some customers chose to proceed under those conditions, many understandably weren’t comfortable with the risk.

As a result, a large number of orders simply could not be shipped.

During this period, we spent an enormous amount of time answering emails, updating customers, monitoring postal policy changes, opening investigations, contacting postal authorities, and trying to find alternative shipping methods.

UPS, DHL, and similar services remained available, but often required prepaid duties and taxes, pushing shipping costs to levels that simply didn’t make sense for many orders.

To make matters worse, every refund request also cost us money.

Even when customers chose to cancel because they couldn’t wait any longer, payment processors still retained various processing fees.

RGR absorbed those losses.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault individually, but the situation hurt a lot.

For many months, I found myself sending the same long explanation email over and over again, updating it whenever the situation changed and trying to keep everyone informed as honestly as possible.

The Email Nightmare

As if shipping and manufacturing weren’t enough, we also spent much of the past year fighting abuse against our online store.

Over the last several months we’ve been hit with large numbers of fraudulent order attempts.

Stolen credit cards.

Compromised PayPal accounts.

Automated testing attacks.

Some attackers would generate dozens of fake orders within minutes.

Even though the payments usually failed, our system still generated order confirmation emails.

Hundreds of attempts per day eventually caused some email providers and forwarding services to treat our messages as suspicious.

The result?

Some legitimate emails occasionally stopped reaching customers.

To keep our email system functioning, I ended up spending countless late nights reconfiguring servers, updating website code, changing mail routing, and applying for new relay email services.

Just when things seemed stable, another wave of attacks would arrive and trigger rate limits or reputation issues all over again.

Then it was back to debugging logs, adjusting settings, submitting support tickets, and waiting for providers to restore service.

For a while it felt like I was spending almost as much time fighting email infrastructure as I was making retro gaming products.

We’ve since added additional email infrastructure using Titan, Gmail, SendGrid, and other services to improve reliability.

Things are much better than before, but we’re still fighting occasional delivery issues.

At one point I was even locked out of our X/Twitter account because verification emails weren’t arriving correctly.

That was… not a fun week.

Thankfully, things have become much more stable recently.

After months of dealing with shipping issues, manufacturing delays, fraud attacks, email blacklists, and payment disputes, I remember thinking:

“Surely the universe has run out of new ways to make this complicated.”

Apparently it had a few more ideas.

But we’re still here.

Unexpected Skills

My original background is actually software development.

I’ve been a programmer for most of my career, and like many of you, I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember.

Retro Game Restore started because of that combination: a love of technology and a love of games.

What I didn’t expect was how many completely unrelated skills I would end up learning along the way.

Over the past year alone, I’ve found myself learning about international shipping regulations, customs procedures, payment processor dispute systems, fraud prevention, email infrastructure, supplier management, plastics manufacturing, supply chain disruptions, and more.

There were nights when I was debugging website code at 2 AM, mornings spent talking with factories on the other side of the world, and afternoons spent tracking down missing packages that seemed to vanish into another dimension.

Sometimes I look back and laugh.

I started out as a software developer who liked making things for retro gamers.

Somehow I ended up becoming a part-time logistics coordinator, email administrator, customs researcher, fraud investigator, manufacturing manager, and customer support representative as well.

The strange thing is that every challenge teaches you something.

I wouldn’t have chosen this path voluntarily, but after surviving the last year, I’ve definitely gained a collection of skills I never expected to have.

Not all of them were learned the easy way.

The Xbox OG Shell Project

Another topic many people have been asking about is the Xbox OG shell.

You’re absolutely right.

The original goal was to have production moving forward shortly after Q1.

That didn’t happen.

And I should have communicated more often.

That’s on me.

The project is still alive.

The project is still moving.

And most importantly:

“The project is not cancelled.”

Some prototype samples were delivered back in March, and we’ve been working through various design revisions since then.

However, we’ve also run into another problem that’s completely outside our control.

The ongoing conflicts in the Middle East have contributed to disruptions in plastics and petrochemical supply chains.

Our manufacturing partners have repeatedly informed us that raw materials are limited.

When material availability becomes scarce, factories naturally prioritize their largest customers who can commit to huge production volumes.

Small niche projects like ours get pushed to the back of the queue.

We’ve spent months contacting factories, evaluating alternatives, and searching for additional manufacturing partners willing to take on updated prototype runs.

While we’re continuing to work with our current manufacturing partner and waiting for production capacity to become available, we’re also actively exploring other suppliers who may be able to accelerate the project timeline.

The goal isn’t to replace our existing partner, but to find practical ways to move the project forward faster if an opportunity becomes available.

The project is moving, just much slower than any of us would like.

It’s frustrating.

But every month brings us a little closer.

The project is still active.

The tooling work is still moving.

And we’re still working toward production.

We’re going to keep pushing forward until it becomes a reality.

There aren’t many companies willing to jump into a niche project like this anymore.

The original Xbox is now over twenty years old.

Most companies look at projects like this and simply don’t see enough demand to justify the effort.

Maybe they’re right.

But somebody has to keep these machines alive.

Sometimes I ask myself:

“If RGR doesn’t finish this project, who will?”

So we’re going to keep going.

Over the next few days I’ll be posting updated Xbox OG shell photos and progress reports so everyone can see exactly where things stand.

Looking Forward

Despite everything, we’re still here.

The shipping situation is finally improving.

The Xbox shell project is still moving forward.

And we’re continuing to invest in better infrastructure to support our customers.

There have been days when it felt like every possible problem arrived at once:

Tariffs.

Returned packages.

Disappearing tracking numbers.

Factory delays.

Raw material shortages.

Payment processor fees.

Email blacklists.

Fraudulent orders.

Yet somehow, we’re still here.

There are still products we want to build.

There are still projects we want to finish.

And there are still corners of the retro gaming world that deserve to be preserved.

Sometimes I ask myself:

“If RGR doesn’t finish these projects, who will?“

So we’ll keep going.

Thank you for your patience.

Thank you for your support.

And thank you for sticking with us through one of the strangest chapters in RGR’s history.

One More Thing…

During all of this waiting, I found myself returning to one of the things I’ve always enjoyed most: programming.

While waiting for factories, shipping policies, and supply chains to cooperate, I’ve been spending some of that time working on software projects and contributing back to the retro gaming community.

One recent example is the updated Saroo firmware release, which now includes cheat code support and a number of other improvements.

Creating things has always been the part I enjoy most, and while some projects have been delayed by circumstances outside of our control, there are still many things we can build, improve, and share with fellow enthusiasts.

There are several more projects currently in development, and I hope to share them with everyone in the future.

So while some things may be moving slower than we’d like, progress hasn’t stopped.

Thank you again for your patience, your support, and for being part of this journey.

We’ll keep moving forward.

— Martin
Retro Game Restore