Googleshng:
As other people in my inbox have pointed out, it isn't really fair to say that Sony makes shotty hardware in general. The best VCR I've ever seen in my life is made by Sony, and has been working fine for years. For that matter, my PSX has never had any problems... except for the power not coming on when I hit the button 3% of the time, two first party memory cards biting it, and part of the disc holding peg falling off one day.. OK, maybe that's a bad example. Anyway though, statistically speaking, the original PSX is the second least reliable video game system I have ever seen (the least being the Atari 5200, the controllers basically shipped broken). The PSX2 I don't have enough stories about to judge, but a friend of mine has gone through FIVE in as many months, several controllers (one of which had the main circuit board CRACK IN HALF after the controller was hit with something), and I believe it was 6 copies of The Bouncer (due to the system scratching games to death if it's moved while running). No horror stories from anyone else, but that's quite a few from one person. Oh, and to finish answering your second question, in addition to the aforementioned Atari 5200, I also happen to have an Intellivision around. With an RPG for it no less. Weird AD&D based dungeon crawl. What's disturbing is that that's the second mention of the Intellivision I've heard tonight.

Googleshng:
Disney does not by any stretch of the imagination own Square. The only connection the two have is their collaboration on the drunken bet that is Kingdom Hearts. Aside from that, the only connections Disney has with Japan at all are the fact that The Lion King is a blatant ripoff of Kimba the White Lion, they recently bought the translation rights to all of Haiyo Miyazaki's stuff, and the minor little detail that the traditional anime drawing style originated from someone pretty much spoofing Disney's style.

Googleshng:
Where did I get "Kulisumas"? Uh, by saying Christmas with a Japanese accent? Anyway though, first off, thanks for mentioning the broken links, I assumed a few would crop up when I switched servers. As for your Xenogears question, first, you CAN get back to the world map right from that last save point if you need to. You can probably get by as is though, especially if you have 6 Angel Armor +3s (50%+50%=0 damage from that major attack). You don't have to kill the 4 little sub-bosses, but considering you have 5 characters just twiddling their thumbs and that convenient swap point, you might as well take out as many as you can without breaking out the 3 characters you use. I recommend the healer and the fuel leech just so you can finish up quicker. Beyond that the only advice I can think of is that you should spent as much time as possible at Attack Level Infinity, especially with Fei.

Googleshng:
OK, each card is randomly dropped by a particular kind of monster, just like any other kind of item in the game. The luck stat affects how likely it is for them to drop one, so boost it as much as you can and, well, kill every kind of monster 20 times in a row or so. As a general rule the ones with cards tend to live only in 1 or two rooms right next to each other.

Googleshng:
A total of 3 people pointed this out to me, and after the first I couldn't believe how I could have forgotten such a thing. So, thanks.

Googleshng:
The best advice I can give you is to take all of those odd gear parts you have that say they make you fight better underwater and such and equip them. You'd be amazed what a difference they make. Bart's new Depth Charge command is pretty spiffy too. For the record, equipping specialized equipment is something you should always do from there on.