Before (or after) you read my post below, check out Mike Grindle’s essay “The Limits of Novelty and Fun.” It’s the sole reason the essay you are about to read exists.
I have a small collection of Playstation 2 (PS2) games in my workshop. They’ve been collecting dust for years. I’d love to play a few of the games, but I can’t. The console is no more. I let someone borrow my old PS2 about a decade ago and it was never returned.
If I remember correctly, and this is up for debate, it was never returned because the person to whom I loaned the console was robbed. Along with a slew of other personal items, the PS2 console was in a storage unit while they moved and it was broken into.
Congratulations, thieving one. You hit the jackpot! A gaming console which debuted in 2000. Your additional take-home prize: a genuine PS2 controller with a wonky X button.
I had a PS3 by that point so I didn’t lose sleep over my PS2 never returning. What I do remember correctly is I mistakenly thought my PS2 games would be compatible in my then new PS3. Was not the case. Sony made the executive decision to render PS2 games immediately obsolete on the new system. I even bought a retro Atari collection PS2 disc that to this day has never been played.
One day retro Atari collection. One day.
It’s now 2024 and PS3 is still the latest version of the console in my possession. Some may have you believe it’s because I’m frugal or a cheapskate. Pick your descriptor. I like to think it has more to do with me being a late adopter of new technologies. But yeah, the shit is pricey. So PS3 is where the buck stopped for me.
If you haven’t gathered from my blog, I’m a rather nostalgic human being. I’m aware of this. I’d still be playing Chopper Command (greatest game ever) on Atari if the gods would allow it.
Until I did a quick Internet search, I had no idea what iteration Playstation was even on now. The answer: PS5, which debuted in 2020. PS3 came out in 2006. I know full well I didn’t purchase a PS3 in 2006. It would have been brand new and the cost as high as would allow. I do believe I made the purchase in 2008 or 2009.
I bought it from Wal-Mart. This I know for sure. Because I remember walking through Wal-Mart thinking to myself, “Man, I hate this f—ing place.”
I don’t dislike Wal-Mart for the reasons you may think. At the time of my PS3 purchase, it had nothing to do with the People of Wal-Mart memes being generated all over the Internet. It’s easy to poke fun at how people look, but that’s not my type of humor.
Laugh with someone. Don’t laugh at them.
Plus, I grew up in rural Virginia and quite a few of those folks in the People of Wal-Mart memes look like people from where I grew up. I’m not judging. I’m stating what every one of you from where I’m from know. That could be your neighbor, your friend, or a family member.
I had to do a few double-takes myself.
The reason I dislike Wal-Mart, and stores like it, is because I find the layout of the stores overwhelming. There’s too much going on in my visual field. I don’t like stores that have everything under the sun, from chicken drumsticks to AAA batteries.
When I’m in Wal-Mart, I might as well be at a rave with green, red, and yellow strobe lights flickering throughout the room whilst blasting German industrial rock at unfathomable decibels through the speakers.
Stuff, stuff
Everywhere there’s stuff
Buy this, oh, and buy that
Did you see the SAVINGS signs?
It’s too much for my brain to process. And like I said, it’s not just Wal-Mart.
Do you like Costco? I don’t because it’s a gigantic warehouse straight out of a Dane Cook and Dax Shepard movie from the same year PS3 released. I don’t care if they sell a 46 lb. tub of chocolate almonds — and I love chocolate almonds. I’ll gorge them until I pass out from Vitamin E and Manganese poisoning. I’ve ventured into a Costco once in my life (at my wife’s request) and I’m never going back.
Unless she tells me I have no choice, in which case, you can find me standing on my tippy toes reaching for the 46 lb. tub of chocolate almonds that have been placed on a gigantic steel rack parked in the middle of a concrete floor.
PS3 is all my kids have ever known. Would you like to play NBA 2K10 with Kobe Bryant on the cover? We got you. How about FIFA 17? At your request.
Amazingly, and this is something I can give kudos to Sony and EA for doing, is making games for years after what most consider outdated consoles. In writing this essay, I read there hasn’t been any new releases on PS3 since 2020. Is that accurate? I have no idea. It doesn’t affect me either way. You can still find working games today. For example, the next PS3 game I buy will be NHL13 for $6.99. It’s on my wishlist.
My kids have a blast playing these games and, as a bonus, they don’t cost an arm and a leg. What’s latest and greatest isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I’ve never been what you would classify as a gamer: not when I was a kid, teenager, young adult, or adult. I’ve had a handful of video games during all these periods of my life. But the time spent playing them was minimal. It wasn’t something I did every day or even every week.
In college, I had a suite-mate named Donnie whose life and class schedule revolved around his gaming time. His set-up was insane as was his sleep routine. He stayed up all night long playing games. His classes all started after 2 PM and ended at 8 PM. Then from around 9 PM until 4 AM, he’d eat Dominoes pizza and game.
I’d always heard there were “gamers,” and I thought I knew what that meant until I met Donnie. I also thought no one could out-eat me in terms of pizza, and I lost that bet against Donnie. My $20 didn’t stand a chance. I should have known better. His room was the epitome of the Leaning Tower of Pizza (Boxes).
There was a time, however, when I was ten years old, I had a ton of games. Is metric shit-ton a word? Because I had a metric shit-ton. But that’s a byproduct of my dad who once started a side business renting movies and video games. His business was called Wayne’s Amusement World, and aside from movies and video games for Atari, Nintendo, and Super Nintendo, it served as a pool hall.
When Wayne’s Amusement World boarded its doors for good, I inherited his cache. The games with the most wear and tear from me playing were Mega Man II, 1943, P.O.W, and Tecmo Super NBA Basketball.
Gaming hack: Pete Chilcutt and Jon Sunvold on Tecmo Super NBA Basketball could drop about 30 three-pointers a piece each game with roughly 75% accuracy. It was either a glitch in the game or a bit of an easter egg by the developers. I’m guessing the latter. I was a Chilcutt guy (Sacramento Kings) whereas my cousin Kevin was all Sunvold (Miami Heat). I’m not sure we passed the ball to any of our teammates. We just let it rain with Chilcutt and Sunvold.
I wonder if Kevin remembers that.
Anyway, this entire essay turned out to be an exercise walking down memory lane for me. I didn’t know I had most of these memories in me until I started writing. I could keep going a great deal more about why it is that old technologies appeal to me. Have you heard of cassettes and CDs?
But whether I think long and hard about it or tread in the shallows, it comes down to one thing for me, and so I’ll end with a line from Mike Grindle’s essay, which inspired this entire piece from the jump: “Newer tech just isn’t as ‘fun’ to me anymore.”
What say you?
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