Joystick: Memories worth more than buyback money
Published 10:14 am Thursday, May 23, 2013
Buried deep inside a large plastic bin, underneath about 90 games, sits my old Playstation 2. I put it there last Christmas, after my Xbox 360 took its place on my small TV shelf. It was a strange feeling, packing away something that had given me thousands of hours of entertainment over the years.
That strange feeling will return next week. GameStop will no longer accept PS2s or PS2 games as trade-ins.
This has brought out mixed feelings for me. My PS2, like the more than 1.5 billion sold worldwide since it came out in 2000, was a hardworking machine throughout high school and college. I remember getting it for my birthday, remember playing games like “Dragonball Z: Budokai” and “Final Fantasy X” on it.
The system was such a revelation at the time: It was an amazing step forward into fleshed-out, gorgeous looking and complicated games. What’s more, it could play DVDs, a useful feature for parties or whenever a friend stayed over.
And it had a great library of, more than 3,000 games to choose from. Everything from RPGs to football to the Medal of Honor games. There was a lot of quality entertainment to find on the PS2, and hidden gems like “Odin Sphere,” the beautiful Vanillaware PS2 game made the system shine.
But all things eventually pass, and the new Xbox One and PS4 will come out at the end of this year to further remove the PS2 from the public consciousness.
I won’t trade in my games, however. I have never been one to trade in my games, nor have I bought many used games. That’s a big reason why my PS2 hasn’t received a lot of attention over the past few years, as there’s very few games I want for the system that I can find new.
I may not get the opportunity now. My old PS2 memory card is shot, and all of my PS2 games are put away. I won’t sell them back, as they’re worth far more to me than what I can get from a store.