Would you wait nine years before you bought a console of your own?

I’d like to think that the universe sends you signs when the time for something is right. For example, I noticed certain hints in the past few weeks, and all of them had at least one common denominator.

Sign Number One: a friend of mine who owns an Internet cafe (the very same cafe where I’ve been renting his PS2 per hour) said “maybe you should get your own console.”

Sign Number Two: I received a little news item when I logged on to Windows Live Messenger. Sony had apparently slashed the price of the PlayStation 2 down to US$100.

Sign Number Three: An ad on the Internet mentioned that someone was selling her PS2 for a little over US$50.

I figured these three signals were enough for me to go around. It was time.

I sent an SMS to the seller and made a new friend that day. We chatted online and I interrogated her about the details of the unit she was selling. Turns out it was an old, bulky, dusty SCPH-30001 model PlayStation 2.  The package came with a memory card and a few games like Capcom Classics Collection Volume 2 and TMNT.

The not-so-nice part was that it came with no AC or A/V cables and no controller. She claimed it still worked fine, but given the fact that she lived a few thousand kilometers away, I wouldn’t have been able to test her claims until the unit arrived. If she was up to any hanky-panky, it would’ve been too late by then.

I’m normally not inclined to taking risks like that, but for some reason, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I deposited the payment in her bank account and eagerly awaited the unit’s arrival.  The seller had it delivered to my doorstep, free of charge.

I thought I’d be able to play once I got the cables and the controller. Boy, was I wrong. The unit was still functional, but the lens no longer read discs very well, so it had to be replaced.

I visited the tech people at three or four different shops,  all of whom gave me either a shrug or a grim diagnosis.  It was only the adventurous technicians at the third shop who took on the challenge of acquiring and installing the right lens.

I liked their attitude, so I left the unit and my phone number with them. They got back to me the very next day and asked me to help test out the replacement lens they’d found.

The new lens worked, but not perfectly; it still needed a bit of coaxing from time to time. Besides, it read my Persona 4 disc just fine. That sealed the deal.

As I type this article out, I’m reminded of the words of Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata. He claimed that Japanese get tired of new entertainment more quickly than overseas gamers. And there I was, getting all excited over a console which is several years old.

Is it any real surprise, though? Given the fact that the Japanese have the means to churn out the games quickly,  it follows that they tend to tire of those games just as quickly. After all, they didn’t have to wait nine long years to get a PS2 of their own.

Perhaps that character from the old TV show The West Wing was right after all (I paraphrase):  “We esteem lightly that which we acquire easily.” With respect to that, I suspect it’ll be a while before I tire of this PS2. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be another nine years before I upgrade to this year’s next-gen consoles.