I have become a collector of consoles, or rather of “wishful” collector of one.  In cleaning up my Amazon wish list, I removed all of the books in favor of consoles, video games, recording equipment, etc.  I obviously still have my book list on Goodreads, and I figured people know me well enough to realize that Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift cards are still amazing and noble presents indeed without the need for specific titles (I’m starting to reconsider this as I believe Amazon will send you offers/deals based on what you have on your wish list, but that’s neither here nor there).

As I conceived of this post before I received my PS3 in the mail yesterday (pictures to come on Tuesday’s State of the Gamer post), I’ll still mention it in my list, but will leave it off the poll.

I’d like to be wise in the vein of Hungry Goriya who is the queen of game collection and not just jump at the first console I find for some exorbitant price (for example, the Sega Master System on Amazon is at a whooping $700!), but rather be more savvy, shop around, drive a harder bargain, utilize eBay.  There’s also Jay Street Video Games, which is hilariously right next door to the GameStop.

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Nintendo Switch

Regular Retail: $299.99
Amazon: $375 – $19,499.99
eBay: $384.00

Easily the newest system on my list and the “it” item of the year.  People will be fighting over Nintendo’s newest offering this Christmas and the next just like the Wii.  Nor did you read that Amazon high price wrong.  Someone is legitimately trying to gouge some poor sucker for $20k (WTF?).  eBay is way more reasonable, and even Amazon has some used units for under $300.  I’ll probably try to snatch one up from Best Buy or Target (if I can ever catch someone in the electronics aisle).

Games I Most Want to Play

• Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Super Bomberman R
• Mario Odyssey

PlayStation 3

Regular Retail: $399.99
Amazon: $209.00

It makes sense that Nintendo and Sony would be the first systems on my list since they respectively allowed me to first play the game series I love the most: Final Fantasy, and the reason I was so hellbent on obtaining my own PS3 once again had to do with a Final Fantasy, too.

I think I’ve already talked about my adventures in PS3 buying, but if I haven’t, I’ll regale you with the story on Tuesday.  Suffice it to say, I now have one in my hot, little hand, and I couldn’t be happier about it.  Granted, I’ll feel better once I set it up and it actually works.  I believe PS3s are backwards compatible in respect to PlayStation games (but not PlayStation 2 ones), so I may be able to give my old PS2 a rest.

Games I Most Want to Play

• Final Fantasy XIII
• Mass Effect Trilogy
• Suikoden I & II
• Chrono Cross
• Castlevania
• Xenogears

From Suikoden to the end, all of these games are ones I downloaded from the PSN that I didn’t realize were PS3 only, so I’m pretty pumped.

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