It strikes me that a shrewd single-player gamer can simply lag behind a couple of years deliberately.
e.g. If at this point in time, you're playing the best Nintendo DS and PS3 games released from 2006-2011, every single one will cost peanuts on eBay or Amazon marketplace.
This is what I did for a long time, just enforced by owning an older PC/laptop. I don't get to play things that tax my computer, but only rarely do I want to.
That makes my gaming experiences very different from someone playing 2560xwhatever with all settings on Ultra. Maybe I don't know what I'm missing. But I tend to emphasize gameplay over shinies.
True. But for many games, especially FPS, players spend most of their time playing multi-player. By now, the 2006-2010 probably won't have many players online.
e.g. If at this point in time, you're playing the best Nintendo DS and PS3 games released from 2006-2011, every single one will cost peanuts on eBay or Amazon marketplace.