Upon a trip to Costco

I realised something walking into Costco in its last 45min before closing. I hate things. Like Cartmen and his theme park, I dislike lines. When it comes to the piss poor selection of video games that makes Wal-mart look like a f'n mall in comparison, I found myself confronting yet another deep simmering distaste. The distaste for bundles.

In a effect, a bundled video game system usually is an attempt by hardware manufacturers to sell more units by selling said units with what the company perceives to be the best possible game. What could go wrong ?

Starting with the premise of the age old tradition that goes as far back as duck hunt and the NES (or the more recent and far less fun Star Wars PlayStation Portable bundle), we find ourselves confronting the sheer morality of it. Do we as individuals let a company bundle a game system with a predetermined game and pay an increased amount even if we couldn't give two fucks about the said game. Maybe I want to play Brain Age or beat myself stupid with some puzzle based trifecta from hell. Really its about having the decision to do so.

The fact that we could go into a GameCrazy, Target or other retail chain and just buy a DS or PSP or some other platform, by itself and then choose where to spend what could well be no more then 10-20 bucks on our first game is an empowering fact gamers appreciate. If you don't think Bundles are a negative then need I remind you of Pokemon Snap Nintendo 64 bundle ?

We've all seen bundles that have either made or broken a company's attempt to sell us a game system. Costco aside from lacking in intelligent reading material (Liberal Fascist was piled high in the book section), or Intel based computers, threw the Zelda Bundle at you for 172 dollars. Since there weren't any DS's being sold by themselves in the otherwise massive retail store, the PlayStation Portable could well have looked competitive, what with the Renascence its been enjoying.

Leaving Costco stewing over the philosophical implications of Bundles, I realised something else. I dislike 95% of the people that shop at Costco.