​Following the E3 2011 Wii U announcement, it occurred to me that the next generation of consoles is, quite literally, just over the horizon. Given the most recent crop of systems, it also occurred to me that this next generation will likely include overpriced hardware, a shortage of supply, an abundance of patches/updates and sparse initial libraries.

Rather than get hyped for whatever new hotness we'll be playing in a year or two, I instead found my thoughts turning to the consoles of old; specifically the Sega Dreamcast. Other than a handful of sessions in college, I (Along with the rest of the world, it would seem) pretty much missed the boat on Sega's last attempt at a home console.

A month after returning home from E3 and I found myself picking up a used Dreamcast for a measly $35. After that, I discovered rather quickly that getting into a console you skipped over initially can be just as exciting as picking up the newest piece of hardware on the shelf.

Once the inevitability of new consoles started to sink in, I found myself doing the "next gen" math. If we're being extremely hopeful, we can assume that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft's next offerings will initially be in the $400 range. We'll go ahead and assume that the games themselves will stick at around the $60 mark. Online plans could cost us another $50 annually per console, and there's no telling what other peripherals we'll need to fork over additional cash for.

All told, and being very conservative, we could be looking at an investment of $600 just to get rolling with one new console. I don't know if you folks have heard, but they've got this thing called a recession on, and it doesn't look to be going anywhere anytime soon. The thought of sinking that much money into a hobby (Even one that I love truckloads) was staggering.

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The Dreamcast, it seemed, could be my salvation. I could have all of the joys of discovering a new console with none of the drawbacks. It's missing some of the more modern gameplay advancements, sure, but fun is fun, amiright?

Before long, I became something of a Dreamcast fanatic. Once I got that "new" console home and fired it up, I found myself going through the exact same bouts of excitement as the first time I hooked up my PlayStation 3. It didn't matter that I was late to the party by about a decade. For me, there was a whole new world of games to discover and, unlike a new generation of consoles, every inch of said world was available for me to explore.

As I said, the Dreamcast itself cost me about half as much as a modern game. The same place I picked up the console also deals in used media, so they have an ever-changing crop of titles on hand, too. And since the system is around 15 years old, Amazon and Ebay provided a massive library to pick from on day one.

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While a few rare titles are out of reach due to their collectable nature, I've yet to spend more than $15 on a single game. Even some of the most sought after Dreamcast games can be found for *gasp* around $60. Even better is the fact that many of the games can still be found brand new, still in the shrink wrap, for less than you would pay for a Subway foot-long. Do you know how cool it is to open a pristine game that first released more than a decade ago? Or what it feels like to peruse those in-depth manuals that have all but disappeared today? Or to gawk at those offers, sweepstakes and ads that hype "upcoming" blockbusters that will "revolutionize the way we play video games?"

The best part about an old school console's library is that it already exists in its entirety and has therefore been judged by the masses(Not including the handful of developers that are still making games for the Dreamcast, of course). A simple Google search will take you to a dozen websites overflowing with information about all those wonderful games you can track down and add to your collection for a handful of Washingtons.

I plowed through countless top-10 lists and "best of" forums and scoured online shops in order to find the best deals. I felt like a gaming archeologist, digging through websites, message boards and reviews to discover the system's biggest gems and most overlooked treasures. Also, hunting down the titles and purchasing them was far more rewarding than heading to the local shop and grabbing one of the 30 copies sitting on the shelf. In a weird sort of way, it felt like I had done something to actually earn those games (Other than forking over my hard-earned cash, I mean).

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Everyone complains about how expensive playing video games is these days. There are certainly some money saving options out there (smaller downloadable titles, mobile games and free-to-play offerings) but if you want to get into console gaming, you're usually looking to make a pretty sizable investment.

I say bring on the old consoles instead. For me, the Dreamcast did the trick. I've got a lot of great games for very little money and the fun I'm having with titles like Jet Grind Radio, Chu Chu Rocket and Sonic Adventure is every bit as grand as the fun I have when booting up Saints Row: The Third.

I definitely want to support this industry and help it keep doing what it's doing, but sometimes that's just not a viable option, financially speaking. While waiting on that new console to reach a more attractive price, might I suggest investing $40 in a Nintendo Gamecube or Sega Genesis to help tide you over instead?

Infinite Ammo is a weekly column by Ryan Winslett about video games, the industry that make them and the people who play them. He can be stalked via his blog at staticechoes.com and followed on twitter @RyanWinslett.