Did you know the PlayStation 2 video game console has been around for almost ten years? It debuted in the United States in the year 2000. With the PlayStation 3 gaining popularity, you’d think the PS2 was old and forgotten, but it is still holding strong and new games are still being developed for it. In this article, I’ll discuss why the PS2 is still worth having. Forget about the old Xbox, though.
Some gamers have to play the newest game out. These are the people who line up outside electronics stores or pay extra money to pre-order special edition versions of games. If you are one of them, then you’re going to laugh at this article. Those type gamers probably quit playing the PS2 years ago and now makes jokes about it to their other elitist gamer friends. This article is for us working stiffs who can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars on video games. I do have a PS3, but it’s the 80 GB model that also plays most PS2 games, and my video game library has titles for both systems.
A recent trip to my local GameStop store is what gave me the idea to write this article. While browsing over the PS3 games, I noticed several large bins of PS2 games that were all less than $10. I’m talking about entire PS2 games for as cheap as $2.99. That’s hours upon hours of entertainment for you to keep and own, and for less than the price of a three-day video rental from Blockbuster. If you like to play video games, but don’t consider yourself to be a serious gamer and don’t have to play the newest stuff the day it is released, then the PS2 is perfect for you.
I have no problem buying stuff second hand, especially when it comes to things like movies, books, and video games. With PS2 games, you just need to be careful of overly scratched discs that may not play correctly. Especially be careful of games described as ‘former rentals’ because they tend to be heavily abused. Otherwise, having the original game case or even instruction booklet is lagniappe. There is a huge market out there for buying, selling, and trading used video games. If you know where to look, you can save a ton of money and still play the games you want to play, so long as you don’t mind playing stuff that has been out for a little while.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Sony and the PS2 have forgotten about those who do want to play some of the new video games that are coming out. The good thing is that Sony has realized that many gamers can't afford the new PS3 and are releasing some of their newest games, such as Ghostbusters and G.I. Joe, for the PS2 as well, so that any gamer can buy and play the latest and greatest.