Passing up a PlayStation 5

The cost was more than the price.

Photo by Marcos Ferreira on Unsplash

I’ve never wanted to spend $500 so badly.

I basically was begging Sony to take my money. But the company couldn’t get right.

Pandemic problems stalled production on its latest gaming console, the highly coveted PlayStation 5. Mass delivery of the machine to the market was delayed for years. A global chip shortage caused its scheduled, late-November 2020 release to stretch well into 2021.

Chaos commenced. You needed status to score a console in those early days. If you were a nobody, you had to know the right people. Or be on the right lists. Lotteries were held by retail stores in possession of extremely limited supplies, which meant if you were a nobody and you didn’t know somebody, you had to get lucky. Price gouging ensued. Scalpers hawked the system for twice its sticker price. And people paid.

Not me. I knew better. Still, I had to get my hands on that sleek machine.

I joined waiting lists. I signed up for email alerts. I tracked the trackers who graciously informed their audiences of product drops happening anywhere. I scoured the internet myself.

Finally, on Dec. 12, 2022, an email landed that made my heart skip.

It was from PlayStation. The message addressed me by my username.

“Dear WizKid25. We are pleased to inform you that we have PlayStation 5 consoles available on direct.playstation.com.”

After two years of waiting, and watching others acquire machines, I felt like I had finally gotten lucky. I felt like my numbers hit and I won the lotto.

The last gaming console I purchased was a PlayStation 3. It still sits on my bedroom floor, just beside my dresser. That generation’s console was released in late 2006. I was long overdue for an upgrade. It gave me all it had, and sometimes it still turns on.

I spent countless hours on that machine and others born generations before. Sports titles were my thing. Madden and NBA 2K were staples. But my favorite was NCAA Football.

I won the University of Michigan more simulated championships than Jim Harbaugh could dream of. I was relentless as a recruiter, routinely staying up until 5 a.m. to reel in the best of the best. I’d crash to the sweet sounds of “The Victors,” Michigan’s famous fight song, serenading me on a loop.

For much of the past 30 years, this was my life. It’s how I spent the majority of my free time. It’s what captured my attention most.

When the PS5 dropped, I couldn’t wait to run back to the control “sticks” that formed my first love. My Minnesota Vikings needed me.

I reached for my credit card the second I saw the email. Instinctively, I was about to make the purchase. This was the moment I had been waiting for. What was there to decide?

But this nagging voice wouldn’t let me do it. I was four months into my new money mindset, and I was hellbent on building better habits. By then, financial literacy had supplanted fun and games.

My gaming days had long been dying a slow death. I purchased my PS3 console in 2007 or 2008. I got married in 2010. My daughter Parker was born in 2013. My marriage hit the rocks in 2015. I moved to Chicago in 2017, and I was officially divorced in 2018. I haven’t had time for games.

The colossal time suck that goes with gaming like an irresistible side dish ultimately is what pushed me to pass on a PlayStation 5. That’s a cost I no longer can afford.

Rather than stacking meaningless championships for Michigan, I could have been learning a skill, starting a side hustle or launching a company. Instead, I settled for entertainment.

I allowed our most precious resource, which is time, to pass me by as I stared aimlessly into a television screen. It’s no wonder I’ve been stuck in the rat race, navigating the unrelenting cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.

My priorities were misplaced.

---

Can’t get enough Money Talks?

• Here’s the story of Parker’s first shopping spree.

• The cost of divorce.

• And here’s my 2023 timeline that proves that tithing pays.