Be on the bus 3 to 4 hours a day because of school and work and all that other responsible shit

That is required by law in a lot of states.

jeez OP 4 hours a day sounds like a rough commute, maybe download a few podcasts? those usually last me a while. Generally I just zone out and try to meditate or listen to musik.
they're probably trying to keep the price artificially inflated, but they could just be continually out of stock. IIRC corps make a deal with factories to produce X amount of consoles per year, so if the demand increases beyond that they're always out of stock.

As opposed to what, figuratively explain?

Why don't you just get a 3DS? That actually has games, and you can hack it wide open.