I stopped by our friendly neighborhood GameStop the other day, as I found myself in desperate need of a PS2 memory card, for reasons which should quickly become obvious to even the densest of readers. I walked through the door and past two of the tiny leased suite’s (RHYMEZ) employees, one busy with the XBox kiosk, another playing the GameCube demo unit. The third employee was leaning against the counter, thumbing through a game magazine.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “can I get a Playstation 2 memory card? One of the Sony ones.”

“Used cards are behind you.”

“I’ll take a new one if you have one, actually.”

He sighed, turned around, and pulled a single black PS2 memory card, mounted on garish yellow cardboard, from behind the glass case. “What game you playing?” he asked as he rang me up.

“Ico,” I said.

“Ico? Man, why you playing Ico? That game sucked.”

I quickly generated a large number of possible responses in my head, ranging from yeah, I’ve heard most stupid people didn’t like the game to don’t worry, I picked up a copy of GTA 3 in case I get bored but eventually settled on “oh.”

“You an RPG fan?”

I didn’t have the time to give him my thoughts on the modern RPG genre, and so simply responded with, “not really.”

He then told me the price, $25 or thereabouts, I handed him a $20 gift card I had recently acquired through completely legal procedures, and he mentioned something, though the specifics have been lost to my rage-tainted memory, about Xenosaga.

“Actually,” I told him, “I don’t even own a Playstation 2. I’m playing Ico on my roommate’s.”

“He won’t let you use one of his?” he asked.

“Yeah, he would. But I plan on owning a Playstation 2 someday, so I might as well buy a card now.”

“You know, PS2s are now only $149-”

“Actually, I’m waiting until they’re $99.”

“They’re not going to be $99 ’till the PS3 come out.”

“Well, it’s only a matter of years,” I told him.

“And there’s been a lot of talk about the new consoles. When they come out, they’re gonna be scarce. We’ll probably start taking pre-orders for the PS3 and XBox 2 pretty soon.”

Nevermind the very real possibility of the N5 and/or Nintendo Revolution beating both competitors, or almost certainly the Playstation 3, to launch. Or the PSP. Or the impending release of the DS. In four months.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, as he handed me my receipt.