I figure there’s not much chance of this, but I can give it a try…
My mom has said that she’d like to get my little brother a PS3 for Xmas. The problem is that they run about $250 for a used one, both in Gamestop and on Ebay. Her budget is more like half that - $100, $150 at the VERY highest.
I’d prefer to get one of the backward-compatible models, which means a 60- or 80-gb one. Still, I’m not gonna be picky if it’s within the budget and works.
Can anyone help me? Do you know anyone who needs fast cash & is willing to let their system go for a song? Are YOU?
From the technical side, I’d be very wary of a second-hand one anyway. IIRC once the machine gets banned from online play, that ban is permanent despite changes in ownership.
The problem is the backwards compatible ones are all about 3 years old, only the first generation were backwards compatible. All the ones made in 2007 or later had that feature taken out.
What you can do is this. Go on craigslist (assuming you have decent sized towns nearby) and look for a used one, many people sell them for $200-250 with a few games thrown in. Buy it and try to sell the games on half.com.
But even if you do that, you still need about $200-250 upfront, and you’d have to wait a few weeks until someone buys the games on half.com.
But finding a decent one for $150 is going to be insanely hard and if she does find one in that price range there is a good chance it has something wrong with it and the seller wants to pawn it off on someone desperate for a good deal.
Honestly, if your mom wants to get him a gaming system for $100-150 she is better off looking at a Wii or Xbox 360. Those are both backwards compatible with the gamecube and Xbox respectively, and both can be found used for $100-150 fairly easily.
I agree with Wesley - I really wouldn’t trust any backwards compatible PS3 that someone’s selling for less than $300, if that. They’re older, have been failing more and more often, and aren’t worth the extra money.
I know that doesn’t help, but with less than two weeks to go, I hope it helps your mom from being scammed. If her budget is set at $150, maybe she can give him 1/2 a PS3 for Christmas, along the lines of “I can meet you (more than) halfway - if you can come up with the other $100, I’ll pay $150”. I don’t know how old your brother is, but I had a few Christmases like that - and for a big ticket item like that, I worked for it. And I ended up appreciating the gift all the more because I’d bought into it.
There’s a thread at Cheap Ass Gamer talking about a sale at Walmart, on the 17th, starting at 9 o’clock. It gives a $100 giftcard with the purchase of the 160gb PS3. Mind you that’s still a couple hundred bucks. But that’s maybe the best deal you’re going to find.
May I ask, would he be happy with an xbox 360? There’s very few exclusive games these days and a 4gb xbox will probably go for about a hundred dollars less than the PS3 if you hit the right sale.
Oh hell no. Pawn shops generally price electronics at just a few dollars less than new retail. If a TV sells for $200 new, for instance, a pawn shop is going to want $175 to $185 for a USED model. I guess that they expect some haggling, but when the starting price is that high, I just walk out.