I finally bit the bullet and got an xbox after seeing one for sale at under a hundred dollars and having a birthday come up. I got my ps2 free with my cellphone, and bought the gamecube for a xmas presnt for my parents a few years ago, then stole it from them. Heck my girlfriend just bought her mom a gamecube and mario kart
D for her birthday.
As long as I can remember I've been raised and encouraged to use entertainment technology responsibly. My parents were big videogame nuts when I was a kid and I can remember getting up in the middle of the night seeing mommy play centipede on the Atari 2600, or 5200 and dad beat Ms. Packman over and over again. I remember fondly as a family sitting around playing duckhunt, mario, and pictionary on the NES. I remember how proud my parents were when I made a wheel of fortune knock off on our old 286. I remember playing Oregon Trail and learning about history and fur trapping in the first grade and wanting to read about these things after playing the game. I remember retoring old arcade cabinets in the garage with my dad. Gaming has been good to me and my family. My parents are near 60 and will play DDR with me at on holidays. The entire family (even my grandma who is over 85) will sit down and play bomberman after a good Xmas or thanksgiving dinner.
As long as I live, and as long as there are good games out there I will always support gaming and other entertaining technologies as ways to bring people together.