Sony Playstation 2 Still Rocks My Gaming World

A few weeks ago my home was Burglarized and I was pretty much cleaned out. Of course insurance will cover the major losses but the Videogame systems were not included in my policy. So with my "Household Goods" settlement I had to prioritize what got replaced and when. With a teenager in the house a gaming system was fairly high on that list just to stop the whining and complaining. So the trip down to BestBuy was filled with excitement but ended in a teenage temper tantrum when I refused to replace every single game, controller, memory card and router right then and there. With a $500 base price all of those extras rapidly pushed my replacement value to around $1200 USD and I was not able to justify that expense. So me and the Kid rode silently home.

The next Saturday I went back intent on buying the base system, two games and a spare controller hopefully keeping the initial cost below $650 USD after tax. Of course the kid did not come since a family vote decided the two games we would purchase and "NCAA Football 07" was not on that list. I hit BestBuy with a mission and a bad temper dreading spending so much money. As I got to the Gaming System row I saw the clerk stacking boxes on a special Sony end cap. Thinking it was the PS3 which they usually keep locked away I snatched it up and proceeded to the game isle to spend $45-60 each on two games. Gathering up my stuff and heading for the cashier the isle clerk pointed out that I had picked up a PS2 system and those PS3 games would not work on it.

Looking down I felt pretty stupid and said so explaining the situation. He looked at me with pity, leaned in and told me that he personally believed the PS3 was and inferior system, Sony was already working on a PS4, and almost every new game was still being published for the PS2. Then he informed me that Sony had just cut the PS2 price to below $130 USD. If I wanted a wireless gaming router, DVD remote, wireless controllers and all of the other extras they would still be available for awhile but were beginning to get scarce around the store. I did some quick math in my head...........

I went home that afternoon with the PS2, wireless controllers, DVD remote, memory cards, the 2 agreed upon games, a half dozen PS2 classics and to the Kid's surprise "NCAA Football 07". One unexpected twist of this entire episode was that our Burglar stole all of the PS3 games that were with the system but we still had most of the old PS1/2 games that were not compatible with the PS3 contrary to advertising. All for less than $400 USD after taxes which made me happy since I now had a spare $250 for my trip to Home Depot to replace my tools.

Overall all of us are insanely happy we dropped back to the PS2. It is a good solid gaming system and I can not tell a difference in game play from the stolen overly expensive PS3 system. Even the Kid has commented that there is hardly a difference unless we hook it up to an HDTV. Based on this experience I believe that from this day forward we will not be spending $500 plus accessories everytime SONY and Microsoft decide we need the new "X-Station Wii60 Gold Extreme Edition".