ADN

we have a "get an additional $10 in credit for every 2 ps2 games or xbox games you trade in." and I always wait for the before holiday season to liquidate my old videogames. one man's conquest is another kid's christmas present. take that to the bank.

Thus, my trade value was about 15 dollars per game for about 50 games, when most of them were bought used for 20-30 dollars over the last 5 years. I actually only bought 2 games for full retail, GTA San Andreas (for 40 bucks), and True Crime Streets of New York.

That rings in about 250 dollars a year in depreciation for my gaming habit.

So, I paid 2000, got about 750 in trade, and can offset my losses at a rate of about 21 dollars a month for entertainment.

That's about seventy cents a day for the last five years for my computer game budget. On a ten hour a week play schedule, that's fifty cents an hour. On a more realistic 20 hour weekly play cycle, that's a quarter an hour.

So, I pay 25 cents an hour for video games, after liquidation of supplies (trading games) offset my overhead. That's what I legitimately enter into the video game industry, on a five year regressive analysis.

and coincidentally, that is also what I used to enter into the market when playing Frogger at the local arcade... when I was 4.

sidenote:
there is a 5 cent an hour offset, for the 57 dollars in cash I paid out of pocket for the 360, but that is easily compensated for as a legitimate expense upgrade. Still that is an acceptable variance of approximately 3%.

So what that really means is I paid 3% of my current purchases in next gen gaming in cash.

( My girlfriend hates it when I get technical like this, because in real practice her make-up and special shower stuff costs more than my gaming habit. and of course don't DARE try to tear her away from her hand-held Ninetendo DS Lite!)

*** mind you, I have spent more than 2000 dollars in the last 5 years on games and gear, probably closer to 5 or 6... but I still have all of that. this just represent my liquidation offset for current purchases, which is an acceptable 97%. hell, I still have my original NES and the light gun and controllers work, and 140 games!

So, if you need to, make a jar, and drop a quarter into it every hour of a eight hour day,.. or two dollars a day. then, you can buy a game a month, and still have a bit left. and then, trade two good ones for a new one, and then go back and buy the good one again when they release it as a greatest hit, or just buy it used when the price goes down.

Like GTA - 40 bucks new,.. traded for 27 when it was still hot, bought a new one (x-box) for 20. you do the math. game, in total cost me 33 bucks, I played it the first day on ps2, and I still own it (on a different console), and by time I bought it again (last month) it was a challenge again.

As it is, I got three games (Dead Rising, Far Cry Evolution, Elder Scrolls Oblivion) to trade for the 360 that will get me just over 100 dollars in trade value right now, and I bought them with store credit value of 130 dollars... so I paid 30 dollars to *hold* these games for three months, unlike with a gamefly account I played them all at the SAME TIME, and I can trade them off now, and get them again later, if I feel so inclined. Cost out of game credit pocket is a staggering 10 dollars a month. nothing out of cash pocket.

~Techrepublic.com

Finally, it is official: Microsoft has admitted that all of the 11.6 million faulty XBox 360s sold over the last 19 months, are, erm, faulty.

According to Microsoft, every single one of these consoles suffer from a fundamental design flaw that could lead to the machine failing. The afflicted affected simply call it the “three flashing red lights.”

Rather than doing a general recall or an exchange, Microsoft will be extending the warranty coverage from the current one year to three years to compensate instead. Under this new warranty, Microsoft says it will pay repair and cover shipping costs for any machine that suffers from this problem for up to three years after the purchase date.

Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division elaborates:

We’ve had to do a lot of investigation work and testing to understand it’s a combination of things, not one error.

Bach blamed the problem on Microsoft’s own hardware design rather than its suppliers.

All two million units of the XBox 360s in stock will also be upgraded to circumvent the flaw.

You can read more on this from The Australian.

Alternatively, you can check out what TechRepublican Shawn Morton has to say about his experiences in Microsoft extends Xbox 360 warranty… just in time.