Place: Ted's Coney Island
Lunch: Coney basket (chili dog, fries, onion rings, cole slaw), Pepsi
Ted's is a greasy spoon in an old IHOP A-frame. People love it because it's local. At least I hope that's why people love it because the food is terrible. I don't even know why they call it "Coney Island". The focus is on Gyros.
So it's here. The new PlayStation 3 gaming system.
The hype has been growing for the past couple of weeks. The usual issues with any new gaming system (except Nintendo Wii, apparently) are being heard. Specifically, the word "shortages". Sony can't build enough of them, but are releasing it anyway.
The news stories Friday were ridiculous. Two armed punks held up a line in Connecticut demanding money, and one guy got shot. A store line in Kentucky was the scene of a drive-by shooting. The mayor in one city was firing a letter off to Sony demanding they pay for his city's police costs in the melee that broke out at a local mall.
The really stupid thing about this is that most of the buyers aren't buying it to play. They're buying it to resell on eBay at a hefty profit. PS3's were going for an average $1500 on eBay. If people were honest and good and only people who wanted the system to actually play it were able to be the first buyers, none of this would have happened, and few would have been disappointed.
My video gaming history as a child started with a Radio Shack device that looked like a big cordless phone. It had a dial to select the game, which included a Pong copy called Tennis and a few variations with double players and what not. It also had a Skeet shooting game with an included gun. It was ten kinds of awesome.
Then we got an Atari VCS (later known as the 2600) for Christmas. It was the center of entertainment in the house for a couple of years until the Atari 5200 came along. That's the first one I purchased myself. I saved up the $315 it cost (after tax), plus some money for games. A local video rental store special ordered it for me. Over the years, I owned nearly every title ever released for the thing. I LOVED the 5200. The initial controllers wore out on me, but a second pair I got on closeout from an Atari authorized dealer lasted until I sold the thing in 1990, along with my next system, the Atari 7800.
I also owned the first three Nintendo units. Never owned many games for them. The 64 was a complete waste of money for me.
When PS2 came out, I wanted one because all the cool arcade games from my childhood had come out in PlayStation editions as near perfect ports and the PS2's capabilities would make for great hockey, wrestling, and race games. The day after Christmas the year it was released, I was in Target and, as was heading up the aisles past Electronics, I happened to spy a single unit for sale in the video game case. That's still my current gaming system (that original one, which is amazing considering the quality problems that model had initially.) I own a bunch of retro compilations and maybe a half dozen actual PS2 titles. I still haven't completed a whole season of NHL Hockey, and I have the 2001 edition. About the only real PS2 game I've seriously played over time on it is Splashdown.
Considering what I play, and the fact I don't have a high definition television yet, the PS3 serves literally no purpose in my life. Maybe in a couple of years. But I'm a sucker for marketing hype. If nothing else, I want to see what all the fuss is about.
So yesterday at 11:30am, I walked into my local Best Buy and wandered back to the video games section, thinking they'd have a display model and I could watch frenzied fans playing it. Much to my surprise, I found two PlayStation 3's on the shelf AVAILABLE FOR SALE! One guy was leering over one reading the specs, and one store employee was stationed there to watch the aisle. Nobody else around. If I had been so inclined, I could have walked out of the store with one.
The store's demo display was available for play. Some sort of 4x4 truck racing game. It was pretty cool. No more cool than the racing games I have on my PS2. The graphics were sharper, but nothing mind boggling. I suspect it could have been rendered nearly exactly this way for my console. The system itself, however, is BEAUTIFUL. Really sharp looking.
I probably would have bought it if I had the spare funds and an HDTV.
No, no. That's silly. I've already established that.
Sony should appreciate me waiting. They might actually make money on the unit by then.
