Gaming is an expensive hobby. No really, when we compare it to other hobbies out there, it's a really expensive way to spend your time. Reading, which features the same "buy a new item every so often" has no initial cost (the console), and the individual units are much cheaper. If you're into music, you just have the once-off cost of buying an instrument, and then you can learn it by yourself, or with the help of online guides.

With video games, however, there is a whole bunch of peripherals that need to be bought, as well as the initial outlay for a machine that actually plays the games. On top of that, there is the monthly cost of a new game to play.

All this adds up to a really expensive hobby, and it is thus a sad day when something goes wrong in our established routine and we are unable to actually indulge our gaming habits.

This happened to me over the past November/December period, and in fact continues presently. Being a student and now, unemployed, has left me in a position where I am unable to afford the luxury of new video games to enjoy. Added to my frustration, my PlayStation 3 has stopped reading discs, and to fix will cost a hefty chunk of cash which I just don't have at present.

So, until I manage to scrape together enough cash to repair my beloved console, I am stuck without the ability to play games. I hear you ask, "but what about the PC you are using to write this column?", and it's a valid concern. However, being a good two years out of date when it was first bought, it is now sitting on an antique approaching seven years too old to play modern games. The last game that ran at a semi-decent speed was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which has almost zero single player replay value. The fact that the load times are terrible (as a result of my 512mb of RAM) does little to help the fact.

And so, I've had to sit back and watch the flood of games that have arrived over the Christmas season. I've missed Assassin's Creed II, Bayonetta, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Brutal Legend, God of War Collection, Modern Warfare 2, Dante's Inferno, Darksiders, DJ Hero, Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time and the biggest exclusive of the year, Uncharted 2. With so many games come and gone, I am left to wonder if I will ever get around to playing them. The 2010 releases keep on coming at a frantic pace, and so the backlog of games which I really wanted to play will get bigger and bigger.

For example, I wonder if I will have my console repaired in time for Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, ModNation Racers, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Split/Second, White Knight Chronicles, Bioshock 2 and God of War 3. All games which I am eager to get my hands on, and all games which face an uncertain future as part of my collection.

If things continue the way they are, I may have to either find a new hobby, or evaluate the backlog and decide which games are the most important to me and buy those first; once my console is repaired. In the meantime, I must evaluate whether to save money to repair my console, or buy games off the PlayStation Network to alleviate my boredom in the interim?

I'm sure we've all been in a position where we've been unable to indulge our gaming pastime, for whatever reason. I've told you about my current situation, now tell me about yours.