by Timothy Franklin

Created on: November 15, 2008   Last Updated: March 12, 2012

When I was a kid growing up, the Atari 2600 had already been out for a couple of years. The console was selling for "Under $50!". That was the advertisement slogan back then. Of course, back then, fifty bucks was still a lot of money. It was still in the 70's and the gas crunch was still hitting American households pretty hard. Back then, that kind of money was pretty steep. After all, $50 bucks would buy you a tank of gas and a week's worth of groceries. Today, it costs roughly $50 a week to get through the week just driving back and forth to work and running a couple of errands. But today, games systems are costing anywhere between $300-400 when they first come out. That usually doesn't include anything other than the connectors to your television and a single controller. The games themselves are expensive as well, ranging anywhere between $20-80 for most games when they first come out. So unless you are a teenager who has no bills but has a job or you're a very wealthy person, you are not likely to be shelling out the dough to pay for one of these toys.

However, there are some ways of having a gaming console without breaking the bank. First off, you have to wait for the game system's cost to come out of the stratosphere and settle into a far more reasonable price. For example, once upon a time the PlayStation 2 (PS2) came out at a whopping $300. Today, you usually find it for around $100-129. You can even buy it refurbished or used for $60-90 depending on where you go. So needless to say, this definitely cuts down on the costs.

Next, you can save money on the games in the same way. Simply wait for the game to stop being a hit seller and buy it at roughly half the cost of it when it still had that fresh-from-the-factory smell. A game that cost $80 initially will often drop to a more manageable $40. Also, as with consoles, games come down in price when they are used. So that same eighty dollar game could not cost only twenty.

Also, you can trade in old game systems, games, and controllers, etc for store credit at most video game retailers which can further drive down the price.
And finally, the gaming console is specifically geared towards being a dedicated system meant to exclusively drive complex graphics, sound, action, and interaction. The average computer would practically blow up trying to play the simplest Xbox 360 games. The average home computer these days requires an upgrade just to be able to play even the most basic games (beyond Solitaire, Hearts,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>