Gaming decisions you really regret and gaming decisions you dont

[Wools]

Rise of the Robots (Regret)

• Buying the majority of the Japanese RPG?s released during 1996 ? 2006 in the mistaken belief that I?ll like them if I play more of them
• Getting into a collecting habit for a few years and acquiring sealed games for no good reason, wasting thousands of pounds
• Buying the Sonic Anniversary Box Set for nearly ?70 that required my Dad to loan me the money. It can now be had for about ?5 and I could not give mine away for ?10 with shipping several years ago
• Selling my Xbox 360 S a few months ago in the mistaken belief that a 3DS would be a better choice

Sega Rally (Don?t Regret)

• Being strong enough to not sell my PS2, Dreamcast, GBA and Mega Drive (Everything I owned back in the early 2000?s) to buy an import Gamecube with Wave Race Blue Storm + 59 Memory Card for over ?400 at a local indie
• Spending the entirety of the first weekend my parents allowed me to have the house to myself, by bringing down all my consoles to hook up to the main 60hz TV and playing Videogames. Saturday night, endless supplies of Crisps, Chocolate and Drink and no one to moan I?ve got my Dreamcast hooked up to the phone line playing Phantasy Star Online & endless F355 Challenge ghost races.
• Not blowing the ?300 or so left of what I had to live on to buy an N Gage after being impressed with a demo of a Quake style FPS
• Saving up for 6 months to buy an original Xbox on launch day for hundreds of pounds as Microsoft reimbursed all early adopters with a free controller and choice of games. It was a great gesture and made me invest in Xbox
• Spending an entire Saturday down Bournemouth at the Sega Arcade with my Brother whilst we were meant to be on Holiday for the weekend. I spent nearly ?80 at that Arcade over 6 hours, playing Sega Rally 2 Link Up Championships, F355 Challenge races and printing out the results, completed Time Crisis 2, Manx TT, LA Riders, Daytona USA 2 and played Pool with barely another soul entering the Arcade, except for the manager who asked us if we would like a drink during our marathon.
• Selling the majority of my collection several years ago before the market really fell through the floor

[Golgo]

- Selling a C64 with 200+ games in order to fund the purchase of an Atari ST.

[Fader209]

• Spending the entirety of the first weekend my parents allowed me to have the house to myself, by bringing down all my consoles to hook up to the main 60hz TV and playing Videogames. Saturday night, endless supplies of Crisps, Chocolate and Drink and no one to moan I’ve got my Dreamcast hooked up to the phone line playing Phantasy Star Online & endless F355 Challenge ghost races.
• Spending an entire Saturday down Bournemouth at the Sega Arcade with my Brother whilst we were meant to be on Holiday for the weekend. I spent nearly ?80 at that Arcade over 6 hours, playing Sega Rally 2 Link Up Championships, F355 Challenge races and printing out the results, completed Time Crisis 2, Manx TT, LA Riders, Daytona USA 2 and played Pool with barely another soul entering the Arcade, except for the manager who asked us if we would like a drink during our marathon.

This is what gaming is all about! Excellent post.

[Brad]

- buying an N-Gage

[charlesr]

I can't really regret any of my gaming decisions. They have shaped my gaming landscape today which has turned out to be a pretty fun place to be.

+ Getting rid of my PAL N64 and replacing with US and J versions
+ Getting my N64 fitted with an RGB video chip - ultimate win
+ Limiting myself to one display case of games. When it's full, I need to get rid of some to make room for more purchases.
+ Playing Rallisport Challenge 2 online for hours on weekend evenings.

Loving reading some of the stuff in this thread.

[ItsThere]

- buying an N-Gage

Me too!

I had it while I was at Uni. All my mates referred to it as the croissant phone.

[Decider-VT]

Don't regret:

Picking up Cybernator in Woolworths for ?15. One of my favourite SNES games ever.
Buying Terranigma when it was brand new.
Blowing my savings on a Nintendo 64 and getting a part-time job to fund game purchases.
Cheating on Nintendo with the Dreamcast. Infidelity felt good.
Getting Shenmue when it was brand new and mindblowing.
Being first in line for the OoT launch with my dad outside Electronics Boutique, chatting to the guy who was second in line about Nintendo for four hours, then playing it for five days straight.
Importing Pok?mon Blue.


Regret:

Trading Zelda II for SMB3 at our local video shop.
Not buying Yoshi's Island ( ).
Sticking to PAL consoles for years before seeing sense.
Getting a pre-MMX PC that couldn't handle DirectX.
Not buying a PlayStation in the 90s (missed out on some good stuff).
Dating the girl that bought me Shenmue for Christmas.

[englishbob]

Regrets -
Selling my Japanese Saturn with all of those Marvel/SF games.
Selling GigaWing2 on the Dreamcast (although from memory it wasn't very good, a very VERY short game).
Buying God of War 3 / Assasins Creed 2
Having a Wii

Don't regret
Switching to NTSC imports (and never looking back), mostly for Resident Evil on the PS
Getting a Playstation (UK) day-one with Ridge Racer. Wow.
Selling my Gamecube

[Nu-Eclipse]

I don't regret:

Spending considerable money to buy a region-free, US/JPN-modded Panasonic Q from Lik-Sang back in the day. Love that machine and still use it today!

Skiving off College for the day to go down to Electronics Boutique Oxford Street (as it was back then!) to purchase OoT & F-Zero X on their days of release and then return home to play them for the day!

Almost always spending all of my spare time and pocket money at my local arcades as a kid (none of which are around now).

Being a Wii owner (thanks, Homebrew Channel! ).


I regret:

Selling my PC Engine Turbo Duo.
Selling my copy of Snatcher (Mega CD).
Selling my Black GBA SP.
Selling my NTSC-U N64 (Especially as I sold my PAL one to part-fund the purchase!).
Not purchasing a Wavebird when they were more readily available.
Not purchasing a Multi-Mega.
Not purchasing a Saturn (did 2D fighters better than the PSOne, c/o the RAM cart).
Not purchasing a Dreamcast.
Not purchasing PSOne or PS2 (so many of my friends had them at the time - somehow didn't feel essential!).
Spurning the chance to buy a GB Light.
Selling my Panasonic Q Gameboy Player (if only for the ball-ache and expense that it took to find another one!).
Not keeping the vast majority of my retro hard/software (C64, NES, SNES).
Not playing Street Fighter games more post-SSF2T - don't really have the time these days to put into getting back to the level I was at when I did play them regularly.
Not taking more care of the gaming magazines that I purchased during the 1990s/early 2000s - I have next to nothing left of what I had from that period.
Buying Mario Kart Wii - significantly dulled (if not killed outright) my appreciation for the franchise.

[noobish hat]

I could probably list quite a few "why didn't I buy"s from when I was living in Japan, but the one that pains me recently is not picking up an N64 Hori pad for what would only have been an hour's pay.

[kryss]

You obviously need an education on GC-loving!

The regrets:
- Spending a little too much time buying and playing games when I should have been out and about exploring Japan more. Although that would have left me no reason to go back, plus with work it wasn't all that easy.
- Buying far too many Wii games before moving to Canada. Not because I have too many game but because that little bit more cash would have been nice. Just to clarify.
- Leaving Japan and moving to Canada.

The NEVER REGRETS:
- Getting GC, GBA, GBA SP, DS, GB Micro, Wii, 3DS all on release day.
- NOT getting a PS2 until I could get one for 100 quid.
- My Super Robot Taisen obsession. Those games alone helped me double the speed I can read Japanese (or I would have spent most of the time reading and no time playing).
- My love for Nintendo. They take me where I need to go.
- The hundreds of hours I've sunk into PSO and MH games over the years. An excellent time was had on all.
- Adopting a "buy it now or you'll never have another chance" attitude while living in Japan, which netted me two GB Light, a Q, a Virtual Boy, and a 64DD.

[buster_broon]

- buying a MegaCD on launch day just for cobra command because it looked like a cartoon
- selling my AES collection for a 3rd time and the last time i have over 140 carts
- selling my AES collection early because some of the games are currently crazy money
- selling off a good chunck of my stuff to settle in my divorce (its killing me)
- having to sell off more in August to cover solicitor fees and i might have to sell everything if it goes wayward
- not nothing anything about PC Engine until 5 years ago, the stuff i missed was incredible
- getting into PSone late because at heart im a nintendo fanboy
- the times ive lost control and wrecked consoles and games through frustration
- selling my electrocoin 2000 arcade 4 slot cabinet, AES is great but a Cab is incredible

+ buying my first AES console in 1991 and getting samurai spirits on launch
+ wife who im currently going through a divorce with not quite understanding the actual value of AES carts, My slug cost me ?29.99 (really cost me ?1500)
+ the years of enjoyment ive had from games
+ the absolute moments in games that have made me laugh or nearly cry (Final fantasy 7)
+ when i leave my current job the candy cab im going to buy just to enjoy Neo moments again plus arcade action
+ meeting people who share the same interest and having a laugh with people you might not actually socialise with

[gambit6613]

Dont regret

Trading in my 2 month old Mega CD for a SNES with Mario World, Zelda LTTP and StarWing best trade i ever made
Buying Panzar Dragoon Saga and Shinning Force 3, 4 copies of each when i saw them going for ?20 each on a gaming website
Blowing about a months wages on US Gamecube, 5 games and the old step-down plug. Only went to look.
Buying Japanese Dreamcast with a game called Blue Stinger. Lol was all in jap so could not understand a word but great none the less.
Spending about 6 months worth of paperound earnings on Street Fighter 2 for SNES on import. Paid ?120 for it, crazy.

Regrets
Asking for a NES for Xmas, getting it then realising all decent games cost about ?50, which in 1989/90 was a huge amount of money for 1 game, compared to what i could buy Atari ST games for.
Buying Mega CD when all the games really were piss poor except for maybe 1 or 2, though redeemed myself as above

My biggest regret is spending the past 5 years buying almost every new release from Game and paying ?40+ each without even looking how cheap they were online and to make things worse after about 2/3 weeks they were all reduced and each year telling myself i will learn from this but like the fool i am it took me to Xmas just gone to do this.

[Grapple Convoy]

- getting a PAL Super NES instead of importing. Missed out on some real greats, Chrono Trigger, FF VI, Earthbound...
- selling my Game Boy Color and its software collection, including Super Mario Bros DX, the Zelda Oracle games, Pok?mon. Wouldn't play them again most likely, but I would like to still own them.
- Buying a PAL GameCube in 2002 instead of a switched NTSC console.
- selling my GBA collection, including loads of decent and now hard-to-come-by games such as Gradius Advance, to fund a DS Phat on launch. (I had the cash, should've just bought the DS!)
- selling the jewels in the crown of my PAL Super NES collection, including Secret of Mana and Terranigma, to buy a Wii at launch (again, I had the cash, there was no need for me to sell those classics).
- Buying a Neo Geo Pocket Color and a fair few games, it just never did anything for me.

+ Getting into console gaming in the first place with Super NES, relegating my Amiga to non-games duties.
+ buying NTSC consoles belatedly in the '00s, GameCube, Super Famicom, PC Engine etc, wishing I had done so years ago.
+ getting my girlfriend a DS Lite, Animal Crossing and plenty of puzzle games and turning her into a videogamer.

[Super Grover]

- spending circa ?500 on limited/collector edition games
- selling the above for far, far less than what I paid for them
- not finding a sealed copy of Giga Wing (Jap) for the DC, no matter how hard I look

+ buying all my Jap DC Shmups upon release
+ when a game 'clicks' for me, and the subsequent pleasure I have from playing it
+ being old enough to be around and enjoy the arcades 'golden years'