Having played a lot of Red Dead Redemption the topic of bounty hunting was recently on my brain. In some sort of beautiful coincidence I managed to catch the end of a show on TV recently about the arrest and prosecution of 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' Duane Chapman for breaking the conditions of his bail after being arrested in Mexico (ironically for false imprisonment of a big time bail jumper).
 
Now as a little bit of history I'd only ever seen 2 or 3 episodes of his show and just assumed it was some sort of ridiculous faux cop show that passed for entertainment and left it at that. After having my interest in the topic spurred again though I did a little bit of research and discovered that, stunningly, bounty hunting is still legal in the US! Don't mistake my surprise for a negative judgment here though, I'm just genuinely shocked that such an old tradition still remains on the US lawbooks.
 
So discovering that Dog's comedy troupe is actually carrying out a legitimate form of justice my question to you, citizens of America, is this. Why are you not out on the street busting ass and dragging criminals into court to collect a pretty penny? Apparently all it takes is a sweet hairdo, scrawny sidekick and amusingly top heavy partner and you're in business!
 

So recently (the night before the Red Dead TNT to be precise) my original launch PS3 suffered the second critical fault of it's long and fruitful life. Yes I was a victim of the lesser known acronym, the YLOD. 
 
Given my PS3 is a part of the original generation of consoles for most this would have meant the scrap heap or cracking it open for some DIY repairs. I was fortunate enough however to have got a dirt cheap rate on a 5 year extended warranty on purchase and since this is my second major repair job (the first was a faulty BR drive a year ago) the thing has paid itself off many times over by now.
 
Finding myself facing a second catastrophic fault with my beloved console in little over a year presented me with a dilemma however. Should I make another claim under my warranty or should I sell the PS3, warranty inclusive, and use the funds to purchase a new slim model? Perhaps I might have even been left with enough to purchase an extra game because of the premium these backwards compatible models seem to attract these days. Initially this seemed like a great idea and I was looking up comparable auction listings in no time. Soon enough though I got to thinking, do I really want to sell a console which might become a part of gaming history? Sure the launch models are far more error prone than the shiny new one I could have purchased but perhaps that was a blessing in disguise. With the user base of newer, gimped (I hesitate to use that term but it is sort of appropriate) PS3s growing by the day and more of the original models finding their way into the junk yard maybe the small premium I could earn on it today could grow to a much larger one in half a decade's time? Heck I might even develop a sense of honour or nostalgia through having one of the original consoles to roll off the production line.
 
Who knows whether the old girl will be worth any more in the long run or if the premium I could currently earn will just evaporate with the release of the PS4. Either way the opportunity to have a potentially unique piece of gaming memorabilia was too tempting to pass up (I'm still immensely fond of my big brick original gameboy) and so I wait for what will probably be 3 weeks before I can finally get Red Dead out of that effing Blu-ray drive...