Worst financial decision you made?

[MirabelleKaida]

Ever wasted money on micro-transactions and immediately regretted it?
Did Gamestop give you $2 for the rarest game ever?
Did your family get you a really bad game or a game you can't play at all for your birthday/Christmas?

I'll go first, if I'm allowed to do that? A few years back, I ended up owning two 3ds systems (lost one and got another for Christmas). It was a special Mario dream team one and a red New 3ds. I wanted to get back into Flipnote (It was my childhood RIP Hatena) and see what kinds of hacks are available for the Dsi, so my parents and I went to Gamestop with my old 3ds...And they wanted less than $60 for my 3ds. And we still had to cough up more money just to get the Dsi. It wasn't like the 3ds had any major issues, just some minor scratches on the shell. Why I said yes I'll never know. Still get angry every time I think about that day. Though I suppose I do get a happy ending, since my Dsi got me into hacking and is the reason I joined this forum.

...Anyways, I should probably stop venting. But fell free to vent here about your (or your frind's/family's) worst decisions when it came to games/consoles! If you haven't made any bad decisions, then uh...tell me about the time you almost bought a bad game? And what made you change your mind about the game?

 

[FAST6191]

Worst gaming related financial decision?

I got a second hand wii fairly early on, ended up trading it for a RROD 360 but still reckon I came out ahead there.

I traded games as a kid that would probably be worth a fair bit today, however it did also see me play a lot of games so that was not so bad.

I have a few mod chips I did not end up installing and are still sitting in my box of such things.

I have taken a punt a few times on broken hardware but even when I could not fix it the parts helped out down the line.

If I ever got a bad game it was part of a bundle that the good far outweighed the bad for.

Friends wise. I usually pick them based on their abilities to make good decisions here. Some of them had a thing for sports games but personal preference and all that. A few of them also paid for xbox live but again personal preference.

 

[mightymuffy]

Financially the worst gaming decision I ever made was trading in a US SNES copy of Chrono Trigger, here in the UK, for a UK copy of MD/Gen Sonic & Knuckles, and paying £5 on top of that for the trade. Chrono Trigger cost me £80 to import, and Sonic & Knuckles was 2nd hand to boot
However, in my opinion I'd got my money's worth from Chrono Trigger playing it (plus I felt a bit bad that I bought Shining Force III on the Saturn from him for 25p, which I promptly sold on eBay for over £50 - actually bought 4 Saturn games for £1 on that visit and sold them all for about £70 in total)
Still, whilst I'm simply not into gaming to make a few bob anymore, I still look back at that and think 'you fukkin moron!' hehe

 

[Alexander1970]

Hello.

For about 3 months I want to expand into the 3DS "scene" and decided to get an used 3DS XL over our "Local" private Internet Buying platform.From there i bought used video game devices since the last 7 years.Everything was always fine.

Except this time.Paid a lot of money and......got no device.No chance to get the money back.
Since that day I do not want an 3DS any more.

Belongs to the chapter life experience.

 

[Itsuki235]

Traded my used N64 games into gamestop for $3 store credit.

 

[FAST6191]

Traded my used N64 games into gamestop for $3 store credit.

Assuming that was not within the last 5 years or so then I don't think many saw the price rise coming -- after the N64 failed and was the running joke of the games world for however long, and from what I can tell has aged absolutely horribly (not that they ever looked especially pretty). I can understand nostalgia for the 8 and 16 bit era stuff, PS1 too, but N64... the world is a stranger place than i thought. The main reason I still have mine is because it was not worth the effort to go down the hill with a box of them, or stuff them back in their cardboard sleeves.

 

[RattletraPM]

Back when JTAG was the only option for homebrew on the 360, I ended up buying a pretty expensive compatible console on eBay to hack it. It was a Xenon unit and I managed to hack it successfully while also adding a few bells and whistles in the process (bigger HDD, an external serial port, 12V fan mod). So far so good, right?

Not quite, as the 360 RRoD'd about a month later. To add insult to injury, RGH was discovered literally just a couple of weeks after it broke, and my main console (a Jasper) was fully compatible and even recommended for it at the time. I don't remember exactly how much everything costed me in the end, but I believe it was around 250/300 EUR total down the drain.

 

[Taleweaver]

Hmmm...seeing the stories, I honestly can't complain. I learned my lesson not to buy cheap-ass controllers after a couple of knock-off PS-like controllers. The steam controller started collecting dust not soon after I bought it, but I still feel like I've got my money's worth out of it in games.

My 3DS and vita just weren't made for me. I'm sure that if I put in some effort, I can get them hacked without too much effort or risk, but I can't be bothered the effort. This is a "a project for later(tm)".

On the software side: tiberian sun. I've mentioned it a few times, but I was so disappointed in the game I just wanted to trade it in...and then realised that if I did that, I wouldn't be able to have enough money left to buy another game. I did it nonetheless (heh...I even found it on a rom site and thought to myself "this game isn't even worth my freaking BANDWITH to download!").

 

[DinohScene]

Back when JTAG was the only option for homebrew on the 360, I ended up buying a pretty expensive compatible console on eBay to hack it. It was a Xenon unit and I managed to hack it successfully while also adding a few bells and whistles in the process (bigger HDD, an external serial port, 12V fan mod). So far so good, right?

Not quite, as the 360 RRoD'd about a month later. To add insult to injury, RGH was discovered literally just a couple of weeks after it broke, and my main console (a Jasper) was fully compatible and even recommended for it at the time. I don't remember exactly how much everything costed me in the end, but I believe it was around 250/300 EUR total down the drain.

Normally I'd say reball the Xenon but about now... poor you.

 

[ImLEBrAn]

I bought a PS4 Pro and 5 games and I didn't even finish one game. Shit console and shit games.

 

[RattletraPM]

Normally I'd say reball the Xenon but about now... poor you.

Eh, I know =/ But I nowadays try to think about it positively. It was the only catastrophic failure I've ever had with console modding and it was mostly due to one thing only: younger me wanted dem hacks, and wanted them nao. If I had waited a bit more, not only I would have had them in a much better way, but with fewer problems and without spending a fortune. That whole experience taught me a valuable lesson: be patient and don't do that shit ever again.

 

[shinrukus]

Worst FINANCIAL decision... Marriage. Followed closely by having children.

 

[avencaar]

Purchasing DayZ standalone, lol

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Buying a Bitcoin miner that ended up being way more expensive than I initially expected.

 

[Glyptofane]

Worst FINANCIAL decision... Marriage. Followed closely by having children.

This makes me sad. Those are the things that give my life any meaning at all. If we weren't already so old, I would be trying for more children. I'm happy to have the one though.

 

[shinrukus]

This makes me sad. Those are the things that give my life any meaning at all. If we weren't already so old, I would be trying for more children. I'm happy to have the one though.

Your reply actually gives me hope, but after going through divorce, Yea I love my children, but I pay more in Child support then some people make a month... And dont get me started on Alimony :/

But you Glyptofane, you actually give me hope!

 

[DeoNaught]

Purchasing DayZ standalone, lol

I'm guessing you don't have a ps4? xD

 

[Ryccardo]

Fair amount of things that didn't satisfy me too much or were redundant (but they all met my entertainment product standard of < 1€/hour), like:
- PS3 (I actually bought a PS2 because of how much it sucks at playing its games - also worse 50Hz games than NES)
- Half of the six 3DS-compatible consoles I've owned
- Half of the three PSPs I own
- Half of the two PS2s I own
- Smash Bros 3DS (fair game with no practically usable multiplayer, ie download play or free join-only client on eshop)

...oh, actually there's something that didn't meet my standard - a bluray movie of The Expendables, which I bought for 6 € only to test the optical drive of the PS3, which I didn't watch for more than 5 minutes (and with the PS3 not having a CFW with a RGB bluray/dvd playback patch (unlike the PS2, eh?), I don't even have a practical way of watching it without ripping)

Face Training for DSi is not on the list

 

[DeoNaught]

Just take a look at my ebay lol, bunch of replacement parts, and none of it replaced...

Maybe the worse was the 3 year insurance plan for my Nintendo Switch, since it's a game console, rather hefty price... When my joysticks started breaking I just decided to replace it myself lol

 

[Ryccardo]

Maybe the worse was the 3 year insurance plan for my Nintendo Switch, since it's a game console, rather hefty price... When my joysticks started breaking I just decided to replace it myself lol

Ohhh right, totally forgot about Game$top membership and insurances