Impulse buying and its consequences

John Gibson · Impulse buying and its consequences

Didn't know a better title for this.

Rather than write out this whole event, I recorded audio for it.

http://www.videomasterstv.com/audioblog1.mp3

Black Flag NC

Kinda like the new car thing, huh? As soon as you drive it off the lot, it's worth half of what you just paid for it.

Yeah as you get older priorities change. In 1997 I was a senior in high school and I got a job bagging groceries. After graduation, I went to working full time and bought a PS1 with one of my first checks. I was 18, I lived with mom and dad so why not? Fast forward to 1999 and the Sega Dreamcast comes out. I'm still a young dude with few bills to pay so I reserve that system and take it home on launch day with 3 games. By the time the PS2 came out I had joined the Army and got my $8,000 enlistment bonus. As soon as I got outta basic training the PS2 was mine. Also briefly had a Gamecube. I had rent to pay and a car payment by then but I had a good job and still could afford a ton of games. I played nearly every major PS2 release. That was 2001-2003 or so.

I didn't get a "new" console until Bree and I got an XBOX 1 in 2008. My mentality has changed. It's hard to justify spending $300-$500 on a console and $60 for a game. We have the money, that's not the problem. It's just that I no longer have that frantic urge to be playing the latest greatest game. I haven't played nearly all of the Dreamcast, PS2, and Xbox 1 games I want yet, let alone finished them. I have a 50+ game backlog as it is!

I'll get to them eventually. But at 1/3 the price that everyone else paid. By then there will be PS4, and Xbox uh...720.