I think I'm in the "business" of collecting video game consoles now.

When I was a young pup, my parents bought me an NES. THE videogame system of the late 80s. I remember playing Mario ages and ages ago. I was probably not much older than 3. Definately before I was in kindergarten, and probably before preschool. We were at some family reunion for my Dad's side at someone's house on a big ol' lake. I remember what the house looked like, and I remember this one big room downstairs. They had a big TV with an NES and Mario, and I watched other people playing it and I was totally enthralled.

But anyway, we got an NES when I was 5? We got some uber bundle set. NES, two controllers, light gun, running pad, and the big ol' three-in-one Mario/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet cartridge. I remember playing with Dad that first time. He eventually got to World 1, Level 3... the first occurance of the "hilly level" with all the pits. He just couldn't seem to make Luigi ever jump over that first cliff. Never... and then he gave up. Now he's doomed to live a life of darkness without the guiding light of Nintendo. (Yes, I know my parents are probably reading. Hi, Mom!)

Eventually, we were slowly, forcibly weaned off the Nintendo by the ruling might of Mom, and we couldn't play it until the weekends and even then we could only play for about half an hour, which wasn't enough time to do anything! So we eventually just stopped playing it at home. In the meantime, the Super Nintendo came out... the Ninteno 64 came out. Our cousins and friends got them, so I still had a limited experience with them. During this time, Nintendo's main competition was Sega, which I really could NOT stand the presense of. Stupid upstart gaming company trying to steal Nintendo's power! ...and with what? A blue hedgehog? What the heck? (I have sense become more open-minded and don't mind Sega quite as much now.)

We used to rent NES games from a shop in (name of nearby town that if I mentioned here you'd know where to start stalking me). We never bought games for our own. Sometimes our cousins would give us some games because they felt sorry for us (sarcasm... maybe!), but we had some experience with the treasure of fun little time-wasters.

Then, when the Gamecube came out, with games that actually reached the point of becoming less of a pure waste of time, and more of a mind-challenging exercise, we were able to convince our parents to let us pool our saved up funds and buy a Gamecube! Finally! We had a current generation console! Oh, sweet Nintendo! To finally be able to call myself a fan again!

That was the icebreaker. I now own an NES, a Super NES, three Gamecubes, one Xbox, and Dad's old Pong console. Soon to be added to this list is the new Nintendo Wii, and the Xbox360. I really don't see a need for Sega, yet, besides pure collection, since I can play most fun games on my Gamecube now (Sonic), and Sony never interested me... that is... until Okami was announced. Which brings me to the point of this entire post!

Okami. It's a sort of... puzzle/adventure/action sorta game, I guess, and the main playable character is... a wolf! Yay! I think the name of this website gives away one of the weird obsessions I have, and, well... I instantly fell in love with this game. But the downside was that it was for the PlayStation 2, which I didn't have, and wasn't ever planning on buying, since it was still a bit too expensive for what I wanted to do. But... man. A wolf-centric game that actually looked COOL?! How could I pass this up and actually remain sane? The answer is simple. I couldn't. It's just not possible.

So, as you know, I'm an eBay guru. 1200+ positive feedback, a couple deserved negatives, a few negatives from little buttheads who think the world revolves around them. I know my way around eBay, and I've become more comfortable in buying things from there. If something were to ever go wrong for the buyer, getting your money back is INCREDIBLY EASY. Almost so easy that it's scares sellers into being honest, haha. That is... if you use PayPal. I know people don't like PayPal, but, seriously, if you buy things on eBay, use PayPal. It's seriously the safest thing to use for buyers. I would never buy anything from anyone without using PayPal. Anyway... enough of the plug.

I've been browsing eBay for cheap PlayStation 2s. Not an easy feat, seeing as how most items were bundles with a ton of games I couldn't be less interested in. Sports, ugh. Give me first-person-shooter and role-playing-games any day. So I keep passively searching for PS2s... all this time, Okami's release date creeps closer and closer.

Well, lastnight... I was chatting with Ed, and the subject of Okami popped up, and I looked for PS2s on eBay again. As usual, most of them were around $100 and higher, because they were the special slim versions, or had a ton of games and controllers that I didn't need. But then I found one. It stood out at around 25 dollars, current bid... ending in 6 minutes. I wondered what the heck was wrong with the thing to be going so cheap, so I clicked it.

It was an older system, came with two controllers, and the laser lens was replaced, so it's pretty much as good as new. (PlayStation lasers enjoy dying. It's like a favorite pastime for them. They get bored and decide to kill themselves.) That was pretty much the entire description. Didn't mention any cables, but I don't need those, either. The man's feedback was 99.9% positive with several hundred total transactions. Not some random crackpot. Now, my tentative budget for these dudes were $50 to $75, with 75 being almost too high for me. $50 would be really nice, but I didn't think it possible.

I place a bid for $30. I don't get it. I place a bid for $40. I get it at $38.50. Wow, a like-new condition PS2 for $40? I wouldn't win with all the rabid Sony fanboys out there looking to replace their old deadified PS2. (Maybe you can see where this is heading already?) I leave the page, look around some more, visit the page again... 4 minutes left, and I still have it. 3 minutes left... 2 minutes left... 1 minute and I still have it. Yeah, T-60 seconds and counting. This is sniper territory now, so I start refreshing the page faster. 50 seconds... 40 seconds... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll skip all that. Nobody bid anymore and I won. By accident, really. The cheapest PS2 I've seen on eBay that wasn't in not-working condition.

I don't know if I'm happy or not. It's Sony... but it was incredibly cheap... and I get to play Okami now, and a massive amount of bargain bin games that I can get that aren't cheaply produced games, but they've just been on the market FOREVER and they're dirt cheap. I'm kind of excited about that... I think. I'm not sure. Like I said, it was kinda-sorta an accident, and when I won, I just kind of started for a minute. "Oh... look. I own a PlayStation."

But, yeah... I think I'm in the business of collecting videogame consoles now! Because I was such a technologically deprived kid when I was growing up, and then I was suddenly allowed to get back into things, and I've just gone cray-zee, man! It's awesome! I almost want to be a videogame reporter like... well... I was going to say IGN, but they're a bunch of dorks, so not like them. I want to be someone that people read my stuff and go "yeah, I agree with that. This guy knows his stuff." That, or I could take my experience on dealing with customers on eBay and turn it into a job at Blizzard for World of Warcraft and answer everyone's in-game complaints and questions. That would be sooo cool.

...and Mom can't say I'm going insane! Because she grew up without a lot of books, but now she's making up the difference by... well... our house is a library. Almost literally. It's cool, really. I've just gotten used to the fact that if you ever want to know something about anything, you just walk into the "school room" and you have a bazillion books and internet access to Wikipedia and stuff. I think her book craze is passing to me now, too... except, she likes historical fiction, and I love fantasy and science fiction, which I don't get much of.

Anyway... kind of off topic now! So yeah... I have a PS2 now. o.o

Yes... there is more, apparently. What is this? Nitpickers United or something? This is just a bunch of hogwash.

• Nintendo will only have two first-party (made by Nintendo) games at launch.

First, this is a lie. There are five games by Nintendo (I think... I know there are at least three) scheduled for launch. But even just five games from one developer is pretty good for launch, granted they're a big developer. I just don't see where you're coming from. Second, ever since the late Nintendo 64 era and the Gamecube era, people have been ranting and raving about Nintendo's lack of third-party games (games made by other people), and that the best games were always first-party.

This was bad, I agree. Nintendo used to be rather stuck up under the old management and made it difficult for other people to make games. But Nintendo has completely turned around and made the Wii one of, if not the, easiest and cheapest platforms to build games on. Now that we have nearly 30 launch titles, 25 by companies besides Nintendo, people are complaining that there are TOO MANY third-party games and not enough Nintendo games? Am I the only one seeing a TINY bit of hypocrasy here?

Console popularity directly translates to how many games are available, with, of course, some emphasis on the control hardware, which Nintendo has always changed with every console. Good exclusive titles are very, very nice to have, too. But in this day, where games seem to become less and less console-exclusive, people will be looking at other features, such as power and controllers and price. (Price, Sony. They're looking at the PRICE. Hint-hint.) I predict the Nintendo will be a phenomenal success, and take the world by complete storm. Yes, I'm biased, but I also see that the gaming world is ripe for a change in how things are done, and Nintendo did exactly that, and they did it WELL. The Xbox360 is slowly picking up in popularity, with the slow release of better and more interesting games. Then, of course, there's Sony, which, in my biased opinion, will tank and take down the gaming division of Sony with it, along with their precious Blu-Ray. I'm not sure what will REALLY happen, though, but I honestly don't see the PS3 taking off like the PS2 did. The PS2 rode on the success of the PS1 and the reputation Sony had... which Sony does NOT have anymore. I think the PS3 will be a niche market. There'll be a few people who will buy it, but the greater gaming community will take a 360 and a Wii.

Anyway, there will always be people who will never be satisfied with anything anyone ever does. These sorry people need to just break out of their little shell and get a taste of the real world. The Wii will not be another Nintendo 64, the Wii will not be another Gamecube. If you think $250 is too expensive for the latest and greatest in the evolution of electronic entertainment (when you think $400 and $600 is just fine for what TRIES to pass as "latest and greatest"?), then that saves more for the rest of us. I'm sure there will be someone who'll fill your preorder slot.