Playstation3s are hitting ebay. My favorite is this one with a Buy It Now! price of $1999. Somehow, I feel like I’ve seen this before. Oh yeah, Playstation2.

I remember my boss in 2000 ordering me to take the day off and go stand in a line at Best Buy and get him one. He had done all the research on unit quanitities, given me a bunch in cash and let’s not forget gave me the day off to buy him a video game console. I got in line, with tons of excited geeks, at 4am. I missed the initial hand-out by 2 people. However, I was put on a reserve list. This was a list of backup consoles that Best Buy had to keep in stock in case there were any returns. Later in the week, I got a call by the manager and he told me to come into the store (but quietly). So I went into the store and told a worker that I was here to get you-know-what. The manager got the PS2 out of a locked safe and personally escorted me up to the counter. All the other customers stared at my blue box knowing what they would sell for on eBay.

We hooked up Madden 2001 and were completely blown away. It was marginally better than my high-end PC at the time, citing eye-balls on the football players that actually moved. We were shocked. At the time, everyone was screaming dreamcast. Take this usenet post from 2000:

Topic in uk.games.video.playstation
Sun, Aug 27 2000 12:00 am
Mark Stevens

I’ve given up the notion of pre-ordering now. What’s the point? Why pay an inflated price on launch day, with a poor selection of titles to choose from, when I can wait 6 months and then buy it at a more attractive price (and probably a model with a firmware upgrade too), with a wider range of (hopefully) decent titles to choose from?

Nah, I’ve made my mind up to buy a Dreamcast ASAP. Virtua Tennis, Jet Set Radio, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2, F355 Challenge, Shenmue, D2, Type-X: Spiral Nightmare, etc. I’d rather spend the next 6-12 months playing some of those than paying over the odds, twiddling my thumbs until MGS2 arrives.

Yes, the dreamcast was a good system. But the PS2 succeeded. New titles aren’t coming out for the DC. And the PS3 is a franchise with full backwards compatibility, the DC is … um … well the point is hindsight is 20/20. It’s all good to say Wii360 until you are blue in the face. The fact of the matter is, no one can predict the future and the PS3 has more horsepower than you can discount. Specifically, I’m talking about a post on DailyTech (a site that is swarmed by morons):

NEW! P$3
By Crusader on 10/10/2006 5:47:27 PM , Rating: 2
This isnt enough PS3s to saturate the market enough. P$3 is dead. Xbox360 is taking this Christmas, having mass quantity out this season was crucial. Later Phony.

Yes. The PS3 is dead. Before it hit the shelves. Give me a break. I mean, what’s up with the hating. Is it the price? Are these people who are broke? Is is the burns that Sony has left on the community? Is it the obvious blueray push? There’s definitely a major meh going on. Let me list:

- Vista looks like crap – PCWorld says even RC2 is pretty bad
- no one cared about Apple’s new nano or 80gb ipod – Even I am doubting Apple’s ability to make a dent in Vista, no matter how crappy. Windows is good enough™ apparently.
- HDTV isn’t taking off en-masse
- blueray and HD-DVD is a CF
- the Wii’s sensor bar fails in sunlight
- no one is buying the Physics cards
- and who gives a damn about Microsoft’s Zune and Urge service? “Biggest flop of 2007″

Of course, this is all up for debate. I read DailyNews and Digg which is just chalk-full of negativity.