Your most pathetic purchase? (regrets about wasting money)

[DMC]

I refer to two things (both game-related):

a) purchases that were just plain stupid or silly.
b) purchases you regret because it was a whole lot of money being wasted.

I bought some silly things like a cheap batrider "superplay" with some extremely weak scores as well as a Shining Wisdom watch (for women).
But I have not wasted that much money anyway.

How about you?
Photos are encouraged.

[Specineff]

A Sega 32X at launch, and an external Iomega CD burner... which I was able to return by the skin of my teeth. That's all I can remember for now.

[BrianC]

Game.com

[WelshMegalodon]

A couple years back I spent $12 to replace the battery in my Pokemon Sapphire cart. I'm not sure why I bothered when the battery barely affects anything and the game itself runs in mGBA and VBA-M just fine.

$12.

[DMC]

A Sega 32X at launch

It hurts that a SEGA console was the first thing being brought up.
You got some decent launch game experience at least? It had launch titles, right?

[EmperorIng]

Two Panasonic 3DO's. Two. Bought last year. One was clearly a mistake because I had bid on both auctions thinking I would only win one. Ha ha, joke's on me. Turns out the extra one was broken, too.

The working 3DO is my "play Starblade" machine.

[DMC]

Two Panasonic 3DO's. Two.

Reading this my inner voice said "I also want two Panasonic 3DOs".

[Xyga]

Atari Jaguar at launch. Expensive console and games, several titles I was looking forward to got delayed over and over.
The PlayStation came out before I even got those games and it beat the crap out of that shit I wasted my money and patience on.

Mega CD (Sega C2) 2 at launch. That was before the Jaguar but same story. Though if some of the better games had been available earlier and had I managed to source the thing that let you play imports (+ a 60Hz switch I lacked for my MD or a JP one), I think I would have gotten more for my money.
But these things were not really easy to acquire at the time and meant further investment.

EDIT: I'm so glad I never bought a 3DO.

[Blinge]

A £20 Mandolin I guess.

I would fret upwards and the pitch would not change for 2-3 frets.
Would not be tuned haha.

Realistically the worst wastes for me are falling foul of railways. Fines, forgetting to touch out with my card etc.

[Sumez]

Please don't make this mistake

[Specineff]

A Sega 32X at launch

It hurts that a SEGA console was the first thing being brought up.
You got some decent launch game experience at least? It had launch titles, right?

Oh, believe me, it saddens me too that I had to mention it. It had launch games, yes; I got Star Wars Arcade with it. Never got to try Space Harrier and After Burner until emulation was viable, though.

Two Panasonic 3DO's. Two. Bought last year. One was clearly a mistake because I had bid on both auctions thinking I would only win one. Ha ha, joke's on me. Turns out the extra one was broken, too.

The working 3DO is my "play Starblade" machine.

You know there's no copy or region protection on 3DO software, and that Star Control II on that system is one of the best versions of the game, right?

[dan76]

Two Panasonic 3DO's. Two. Bought last year. One was clearly a mistake because I had bid on both auctions thinking I would only win one. Ha ha, joke's on me. Turns out the extra one was broken, too.

The working 3DO is my "play Starblade" machine.

You know you can play Starblade on the Wii, with the pointer as the gun. Way better.

I bought an N64 at launch then two weeks later Nintendo dropped the price by £100. This is why I have no problem with modding and downloading Nintendo stuff. Fuck 'em. Thay made me!

[BulletMagnet]

Bought a Wii U after the Switch came out; not only did the price not drop as much as I was hoping, but since then almost everything I own for it has either already been ported/enhanced or is slated to be soon. At least I probably won't have to worry about replacing the gamepad.

[JBC]

Bought a Wii U after the Switch came out; not only did the price not drop as much as I was hoping, but since then almost everything I own for it has either already been ported/enhanced or is slated to be soon. At least I probably won't have to worry about replacing the gamepad.

Same here, not too upset about it though. I just did it for the sake of completion. There's still Star Fox, Pikmin 3, Yoshi's Wooly, SM3D World, Kirby & the Rainbow Curse, etc. I think that Smash Bros is going to stay exclusive to Wii U/3DS as the Switch one is a new game.

[MintyTheCat]

I've been pretty fortunate in that I've never wasted any cash on games that I didn't want.
However, the NeoGeo X was a massive let down and I think msot people felt deceived.

[BIL]

Please don't make this mistake

A warning from history

[Sumez]

Oh I bought it long before that

[soprano1]

Splatoon pack with green squid amiibo. I don't know why I got it when I don't like playing online at all. I don't think I even finished the story missions.

[GaijinPunch]

Thought I was buying some rare Nintendo/SMB flyers for 5000 yen. Turns out they were pages torn out of an old mag. (Read the description folks)
Also thought I was buying original character designs from Keio Yuugekitai Katsugekihen. Photocopies. Another 5000 down the tubes.

[BIL]

Oh I bought it long before that

That's a relief, I was feeling kinda bad!

I want to believe I've dissuaded a few poor souls from that, and the perhaps even frowzier (and certainly pricier) SNES/SFC comp.

Oh, as for me... I felt kinda dumb when after years of indecision and rising prices, I bought a brand new Game Tengoku (Saturn), only to learn that very day its loop is apparently nerfed from PCB. I'm not that bothered though, tbh. It's been a long time since I exclaimed "oh lawd what have I done" at my purchases, vg or otherwise. I'll have to think a bit.

I had a 32X back in the day, but no lie, I was grateful for its fairly crummy DOOM. My family's PC sucked. My current PC sucks too!

[Xer Xian]

Gaming-related, I've had lots of Dreamcast-related shitty purchases. Like importing a custom painted DC from eBay.com for about €150 after shipping and taxes. Not only it looked worse than it actually did on pictures but it also didn't read discs (official US versions). The seller was the worst to deal with so I ended up keeping it, only to dump it on ebay later (after replacing the drive) for like 50% off the total cost because I was so soured and couldn't stand looking at it. Also buying underwhelming controllers like the Ascii pad FT (it's bad) or this piece of shit:



Which came with a yellowed DC+RGB cable+2 controllers (1 found not working) that I didn't need at all and only bought because I really wanted THAT stick. That shitty stick. Which was in pretty poor shape too (picture was taken after disassembling it for a deep clean and treating the rusty bottom plate). Ah, and one button did not register inputs well.

Non-gaming related, my worst purchase has to be the Varier Thatsit chair. It looks like this (mine was in blue velvet):



I foolishly thought that it could alleviate my back pain, but it did nothing for me. I didn't like it one bit. Dumped it for nearly 50% off on ebay (the stupid chair cost me €580 used).

[Turrican]

I sinned when I bought the limited edition of Lords of Shadow. I atoned my sins by playing around 20 minutes of it, unfortunately they were enough to unlock one single trophy, which now stains my soul and my PSN profile.

[lilmanjs]

I once bought a copy of Ford Racing for the PS1. Yeah, it goes as far as being the worst game I've ever played. Couldn't give that crap away and yet they made 2 sequels! Another purchase would be Another Public Enemy. That movie was too long, and dragged on. The start and ending were good, but holy crap, I spent money on a new copy! Also, any of the Need For Speed games on the PSP past the cool Carbon release.

[dojo_b]

Shit, now I have to go play Ninja Gaiden on PCE, especially after checking compulsively for difficulty upgrades... and yep, they took away the FC/NES vers' (minor, and slightly curious) health restores after the temple-in-view and Malth-intro cutscenes. Don't worry, I'll emulate.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I foolishly thought that it could alleviate my back pain, but it did nothing for me. I didn't like it one bit. Dumped it for nearly 50% off on ebay (the stupid chair cost me €580 used).

Damn, sounds like a snake oil chair.

I'd say Wii U is in my regret purchases, but I got it (relatively) cheap and enjoyed both the Mario games I played on it. It's certainly borderline.

I bought a shitty Extron scaler for $47 despite having far superior scalers already because curiosity got the better of me. Man, is it a pile of ass. Don't buy Extron scalers kids. It's like going from a luxury car to a beater.

[bigbadboaz]

LOL. Maybe 80% of everything in high school through several years after college. Growing out of being a spoiled young person sure gives perspective on where money ought to go.

[Mischief Maker]

No Man's Sky preorder.

What's even more pathetic is there's still a little part of me that's excited for the upcoming update this summer because maybe, maybe they'll finally have a game that lives up to the promise of the E3 trailer.

What am I saying? They're not going to add dynamic animal and space faction interactions, they're just going to implement multiplayer because for some dumb reason THAT was the shortcoming youtubers focused on.

[iconoclast]

The Wii is probably my #1 regret because I only liked No More Heroes, Sin & Punishment, and Punch Out on it. I didn't like having to get a Wii U for Bayonetta 2 and The Wonderful 101, but the rest of its library was much better than I expected. That was probably one of my better purchases since it made me like Nintendo again.

The Xbone kinda felt like a waste since it has like 3 good exclusives, but backwards compatibility made it worth owning.

I also shouldn't have bought Final Fantasy XV when it came out since Square could still be patching and creating content for it, for all I know. I liked the game well enough from what I played, but I stopped once they put out their patch roadmap or whatever it was. I should've waited until the game was finished.

[Ruldra]

Bought a Logitech racing wheel, which was fine by itself, but then I proceeded to buy a bunch of racing games that I eventually never even touched. I pretty much only used the wheel to play GT5 and sold it afterwards. The rest of the games are just collecting dust here.

Also, wasn't an expensive waste but I bought Simcity 3000 on GOG some time ago only to realize in 5 minutes I don't enjoy it at all. I do like goal-oriented builders like Caesar 3 or Pharaoh but Simcity does nothing for me.

[sven666]

I regret nothing, certainly not when it comes to something as frivilous as money, you can always make more.

I grew up pretty lean and when you know what it is like to have none and still be happy the overemphasis on the value of having money and expensive things in todays society simply doesnt phase me.

That said i bought a ton of stupid shit in my days but for wasted money nothing even comes close to the stockmarket, that game is a hard and expensive lesson for everyone I think (certainly was for me)..

ed: gaming wise, it would have to be a replica Fa-mas softairgun rifle (like the one in metal gear) I bought off yahoo many years ago, instantly regretted it, dont know what i was thinking, gaijinpunch thought i had gone mad when he saw it, threw it in a dumpster within a week, was not cool at all just pathetic..

I also got into a very expensive bidding war on a Big Fighter kit that i wish i hadnt won, altho with todays prices ill proboably still come out on top if i sell it..