This is why I still enjoy, and buy games for, my (refurbished) PlayStation 2 (actually, I still play games on my SNES too). My workstation was dated, so I built a new machine with parts just below top-of-the-line (Core2Quad rather than i7, 600 GB instead of 1.5 TB hard drives, for example).
The advice in the article about new cars is valid; new cars depreciate as soon as you drive them off the lot, because then they're "used." You might get a nice warranty package with it, but you can get extended warranties for used cars from certain dealerships.
Spent the money saved on high quality Power supply, case and motherboard.
The next upgrade is a top-of-the-line Core2Quad when local distributors slash prices on those to dump their old stock.
I'm aware there is a trade-off in Electricity consumption Edit: technical typo
More seriously I have a PS2 and a printout of the top 25 games for the PS2. Whenever I think of a new game system I can just look at that list, buy any one of those games for extremely cheap and have a ton of fun. (The good SNES games on ebay are a more expensive, but still $10-$20, Chrono Trigger was a bit more...)