But think of the savings!
People like to say you’ve got to spend money to make money, but you can also spend money to save money. You can buy in bulk at Costco or buy higher-priced goods that are more durable.
Or you can decide not to pay for stuff at all.
But even that’s not cheap. Take gaming for instance. Getting bootleg copies of stuff is cheap, but in addition to the cost of the system to play them, there’s also the cost of enabling to system to play unauthorized copies. And that ain’t cheap.
It can even cost more than the system itself.
Case in point – the Nintendo DS. The system goes for about $130. If you want the hardware to make it run backups, that’ll run you around $100. Oh, and you’ll need a memory card to load your files on, so tack on another $80 or so.Hmm, system costs $130, and it’s another $180 to play ROMs…
Why would anybody do that?!?
Well, for the cost of 5 or 6 games, you open up the possibility of playing a hell of a lot more. (There are currently more than 200 DS titles, never mind the 1,000 or so GBA games.) The initial cash outlay does seem a bit much, but given the benefits, it’s a deal.
I went with the M3 Adapter and a 1GB compact flash for my DS needs. Not only will the M3 let you run DS and GBA roms (either with the Passkey device or after flashing the DS’s firmware), but it’ll also turn the DS into a mini-media center. Now mine can play videos and music, serve as a text reader and even display photos. Sure, I can do all that on my laptop (which I have in my backpack every day when I’m working), but the PowerBook will hardly fit in my pocket. The DS will.
And I think putting that kind of functionality into a slick little package like the DS is more than worth what it’s cost me.