Shonette:
Here is a HUGE piece of advice...
Buy whatever gaming system you end up going with at Best Buy and get their 2 year replacement plan. Its an extra $19.99 for the xbox or PS2 or an extra $9.99 for the gamecube but its worth it. Considering you have little boys that won't be taking care of the system too well, the extended warranty is a no brainer. The warranty is VERY EASY to redeem. If the system stops working/disc read errors/no power/controller malfunctions/scratching noises...etc. basically anything that goes wrong with it, as long as you didn't drop it or step on it or abuse it then Best Buy will replace it. You can either take it the system into a store and they will give you a new one, or you can mail it in and they will send you a merchandise voucher. It gets even better, say 6 months from now the PS2 you bought during the holidays of '05 stops working, you go into the store to get it replaced and see the PS2s have dropped in price from 149.99 to 129.99 well guess what, you get store credit for the amount you originally paid (149.99) but you get the new one for the price that it is currently going for (129.99) that means you have an extra $20 in store credit to use towards a game/memory card/controller etc.! Trust me, very rarely does Best Buy reject your exchange inside the store. They will only reject it if you dropped it or spilled pop on it or something. And if you decide to mail it in, they almost never reject it because they'd rather just send you a voucher than send you your old system back and tell you they rejected it. Another thing is keep in mind that when you take back your old system to best buy, it is STORE CREDIT you are getting so you are not obligated to get another PS2, you could get an XBOX instead or whatever else you please that is inside the store. Anyway, this is my first post so you might be thinking I'm lying but trust me, I have bought these warranties all the time when buying gaming systems and have exchanged them numerous times with no problems.
Hope this helps!
