Leveling Down

I think I want one of these now.

For followers of Leveling Down, you all are most likely aware of how entrenched I am in the 360. I own three 360 consoles, probably something like 70+ Xbox 360 games, and have even bought and returned a PS3 at one point. Well, now I’m back to wanting a PS3 once again. It didn’t seriously hit until this past weekend, due to a variety of factors that have all come together to make me seriously lean towards purchasing one. And when I am seriously considering purchasing one, there is often very little to stop me once my mind has been made. Read on for reasons for my “capitulation”, my worries, and even how my PS3 hunt went this weekend.

Reason #1 – The PS3 Now Has Games I Want to Play
The PS3 exclusive library has come a long way since the days when Metal Gear Solid 4 was released on the system. When I originally bought a PS3 back then in the summer of 2008, I didn’t know what else to play after I beat it so I returned the system. Now that it’s been more than a year and a half later, there are actually games I want to play. By now, it’s probably no surprise that I tend to enjoy games with classic gameplay mechanics – and thus I tend to be among the small group of people that still favor Japanese developed games.

To a typical American, the games for buying a PS3 will most likely be Uncharted 2, Little Big Planet, and of course, the upcoming God of War III and Gran Turismo 5. While I would play those games if I had a PS3, they are not system sellers for me. The games that I’m most interested in are still Japanese developed games. I still own my copy of Metal Gear Solid 4 (signed, no less haha), but the first two games I’d actually be most interested in acquiring are Valkyria Chronicles and Demon’s Souls. These are two Japanese developed strategy/RPG games. And then I might consider White Knight Chronicles, and am looking forward to The Last Guardian coming out later this year. While PS3 owners are going nuts over God of War III this month, I’m actually interested in getting a PS3 so I can pick up Sega’s Yakuza 3, which is also releasing this month. So as you can see, the games that I want to play on the PS3 are not the typical American set of games.

Sure, I’ll go and pick up the Ratchet & Clank games, the Uncharted games, the God of War games and such when appropriate, but those games are more “filler” games for me between the serious Japanese releases. In any case, the PS3 has enough exclusive titles now that I want to give it a second chance and maybe now is the time to do so.

Reason #2 – Gamestop is running perhaps their best trade-in promotion ever
Currently, Gamestop is running two different trade-in deals that work in my favor towards acquiring a PS3:
1. Any trade-in gets a 50% bonus (+10% for Edge card holders)
2. Any system traded in towards another system gets a $30 bonus

The first one is a monstrous deal for owners of recent games they’ve already beaten. Over the past year or so, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to just keep my 360 library, and no longer sell them even after I am done with them, but I couldn’t resist taking advantage of a few “deals” that Gamestop was providing.

Left 4 Dead 2 had a base price of $29.75, which gets bumped up to almost $50 after the 60% bonus. DJ Hero was $30, and got bumped up to almost $50 as well. BioShock 2′s base price was a little lower at $25, but after the bonus, $40 trade-in credit is not a bad deal considering I bought it from Amazon for $44. I ended up trading in all three of those games (sorry for those of you that still play Left 4 Dead 2), and got almost $150 for just those 3 games. If only I had Mass Effect 2, which I believe has a base of $35, which would have gotten $56 after the bonus. $56 trade in?! Crazy.

I have a ton of other games I could have traded in as well, but stuff like Assassin’s Creed 2, Bayonetta, Dragon Age: Origins, and Tekken 6 were only getting about $15-$16 base, making them only about $25 after the bonus. The rationale behind which games I decided to trade in were almost like how I was analyzing stocks. We all know games are depreciating assets. Gamestop, for some crazy reason or another, wants to buy my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 for nearly $50. I’ve already pretty much played most of what I wanted out of it, so why do I want it to sit on my shelf for the next several months and drop in value? Why not sell it to them now, and then if I want it again, buy it later when it sells for $20-$30? I think the $25 mark or so is the turning point for me where I decide to sell or hold a game. I loved Bayonetta, and if they were going to give me $40-$50 for it, I would have sold it since I can go buy it again in half a year for half that. But if they’re only buying it for $25, forget it – the cheapest price it’ll probably drop to will be around that price, so I won’t have really gained anything from selling it now and buying it later.

In any case, I would be able to trade in three “high value” games towards a PS3 purchase. Now the hardware deal is also good – $30 bonus on any system traded in towards a PS3 purchase. I bought my third Xbox 360 Arcade for $100 these past holidays, since it was a Jasper unit and my other 2 360s had already red-ringed, been sent to Microsoft, and were now out of warranty. Gamestop is currently offering $90 for an Xbox 360 Arcade unit (bare console with no hard-drive, composite cables, power cable, and wireless controller), and the $30 bonus brings it up to $120. I realized that with 3 Xbox 360s, I could really stand to exchange one for a PS3, since the PS3 is actually a better media streamer than a 360 (PS3′s codecs appear to stream digital files noticeably better than the 360) and I would also be able to play PS3 exclusives with it. Again, I asked myself, if Gamestop wants to buy my out-of-warranty refurbished non-Jasper Xbox 360 for $120 when I bought a Jasper unit for $100, why not?

The combination of these high value games and the 360 trade-in would net me close to $300 already, which meant I was practically on my way towards acquiring a PS3.

Reason #3 – Got the Wife’s Approval
The hardest throughout all of this was of course, getting my wife’s approval. She obviously is not a huge fan of being married to a hardcore gamer (I actually hide all my games, because she would probably go nuts if she saw how many I had). With the number of games I already own for my 360, if I were in her shoes, I would never let me get a PS3. That just means more and more games and another system to get games for. Fortunately, my wife is loving and she knows it makes me happy but that doesn’t even matter. What matters is how I spun the purchase to her, which was very delicately.

Sunday morning, I sat down with my wife and was like, “Honey, we have to talk about something important.” She started freaking out and was wondering what it was, so then I broke the news to her: “I’d like to get a PS3. But wait! Let me explain!!”

I illustrated to her that I had 3 Xbox 360s, and would actually be trading in one of them for a PS3, as well as a few games I no longer played. Thus, I would not be paying much out of pocket at all for the new system. She seemed to understand, and said, “Ok – just this one time. Only because you’re exchanging one system for another.”

Woohoo! I quickly retorted though that I couldn’t accept a “just this one time”, as there could always be justifiable reasons why I would do what I would do. But did she seriously think about what she had just said? Only because I’m exchanging one system for another? It’s not like clothing exchanges or whatever girls do – this was a completely different system I was exchanging for, with its own library of games. My wife messed up. I cackled sinisterly to myself after running out of the room.

Later she told me that she appreciated that I was truthful with her about my intent to acquire a PS3. I basically blurted out that I had to (but I wish I hadn’t told her that). If my wife sees me playing the 360, she has no idea what I’m playing. I could buy a new 360 game every week (sometimes it actually feels like I do o_O) and she wouldn’t know. But if I was playing a PS3, she would definitely notice. So it’s not the approval of any game purchasing that is the problem, it was getting around the fact that she would see me holding a PS3 controller. I couldn’t avoid that, so I had to ask. But I knew she would let me when I told her that I wouldn’t really be spending any money to acquire it. It’s funny that I just need to get approval from the wife to buy a console, but in the years to come that means even more money spent on the games for it, which don’t require approval. Funny how that works out. (And, hopefully my wife never reads this entry.)

Off to Buy a PS3
All of this spanned between Saturday and Sunday, and my asking of her was Sunday morning. After she granted me permission, I drove towards my nearest Gamestop Sunday morning to trade in my 3 high-value games and my oldest 360 for a brand new PS3 slim. I got to the counter, and here is how my conversation with the clerk went:

espion4ge: I’d like a PS3 please. I have a bunch of stuff to trade in for it.
Gamestop Clerk: Sorry, we’re sold out of PS3s.
espion4ge: But, the website says you have some in stock here.
Gamestop Clerk: Oh, those are on hold for people that reserved it.
espion4ge: Oh…ok, can you see if there are any other Gamestops in the area that have the PS3 in stock?
Gamestop Clerk: The entire region is sold out man. The nearest Gamestop store that has one is probably in New Jersey.
espion4ge: When is the next time you’ll get more PS3s in?
Gamestop Clerk: I have no idea.
espion4ge: Can I get on the reserve list?
Gamestop Clerk: Sorry, we are no longer doing that.
espion4ge: Uh, ok, can I just trade these 3 games in then.

And that was it. Talk about a let down. I had gotten all excited over this past weekend to go buy a PS3, and I ran into quite a wall. I was surprised that the PS3 was out of stock all over, and when I got home, I called several of the Gamestop stores in the region to see what they would say. All of them were sold out, and one at least told me he thinks they will come in on the 26th. The 26th of March?? What the heck? I did some searching online, and found some articles from Sony saying to expect shortages in February. Great, that’s just the time I want to get it too. Even Amazon has a 1-2 month delivery estimate for the PS3.

People are suspecting whether or not these shortages are genuine, due to the PS3 selling more than Sony anticipated over the holidays, or whether they are fake in order to build up demand. Ah well, there’s nothing I can do but wait now, and in a way, it’s good that if I want to get a PS3 I have to wait a month. That gives me time to re-evaluate if I really want it.

My Primary Concern With Purchasing a PS3
Now that all systems are go and there are actually reasons why I can get a PS3 now, part of me is still afraid of getting one. It makes me wonder if getting one will actually be a step forward in “leveling down” my gaming even more. I do know a couple of people that have moved from a 360 to a PS3, to eventually not much gaming after that. Will I go down that same path?

With a new shiny PS3 sitting next to my 360, will I really be able to keep coming back to the 360 and tell the PS3 that it’s only supposed to be played occasionally and is secondary to the 360? I honestly don’t know. Part of me likes owning only the 360 so my focus is just on that, so having two similar and competing systems at this age in my life may be a big mistake. Is it honestly possible to own both a 360 and a PS3 and enjoy them both in their own ways? I really don’t know if I have that much gaming love to share around. But, I guess I have a month to think about it.