Mendon

As I said in the Xbox 360 forum, I really, really enjoy getting all these games, such as Xcom - Metro Last Light - Dungeon Defenders - Hitman - etc for only a small yearly fee. My video game budget is now much, much smaller as I haven't had the urge to hit any brick & mortar stores for a new game in several months. Hell, between all the time I've spent playing Xcom, Metro, & Bioshock Infinite on PS3, I haven't even thought of buying inFamous 2nd Son or Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeros for the PS4.

The monthly free games on Xbox Live & the PS Store have really cut down on my video game spending. Though I still have several of these games to try out after downloading them for free, I really appreciate getting games like Xcom, Dungeon Defenders, Hitman, Metro Last Light and others for only a small yearly fee. Because of XBL & PS Store, I have had no urge to run to the store and buy something new.in several months.

To me, there is one big difference between Nintendo & the other two console manufacturers: Microsoft & Sony themselves do not have to develop and distribute another game from this day forward and their consoles will sell, sell, sell because of the vast 3rd party & Indie support. Nintendo has to develop and distribute its own software to have any chance of improving console sales because of that very lack of 3rd party & Indie support. I'm sure Mario World 3D moved a few consoles. And I'm sure Mario Kart will move some. But I believe the continuing 3 and 4 month drought between releases, even 18 months after the console launch, will continue to hold back the improvement of console sales figures. And not every Nintendo title will have good sales success, let alone improve console sales. Game & Wario, Wonderful 101, and Wii Fit U have all received low sales figures and been given quick price cuts by retailers in order to move inventory. Nintendo, I think, finds itself in a situation that Sony & MS doesn't face, and I don't believe Nintendo has any idea of how to correct it.

Not sure how much you want to spend for a Balance Board, but Amazon is offering the entire package..... board, game, meter..... for $55. At least for me they don't charge tax and free shipping on anything over $35. http://www.amazon.com/Wii-Balance-Board-accessory-Meter-U/dp/B00FE8WKPQ/ref=zg_bsms_videogames_35 The board does work with the Wii and if all you want is the board itself, you can probably sell the game & meter to get most of your money back.

This looks awesome and the price is right also: http://youtu.be/R_91gwWEEWo

I rarely shop at Walmart and the couple times I've bought a game from them, I swear I had to hunt for 20min to find someone with a key to open the game cabinet. Can't imagine how long it would take for you to sell them a couple games.

Not sure how many here have Call of Duty: Ghosts for Wii U, but I was VERY surprised last night to see that Activision released a DLC map for the game. And not only did they release DLC for the Wii U, but made it a FREE download!!

I had forgotten until it arrived yesterday that I had ordered the extended life battery for the gamepad from Nintendo. Either it was a popular customer purchase or Nintendo didn't have very many of them in stock as it took almost 3mos to arrive (I ordered it just before Christmas). Anyway, I installed it and charged it over night, so we'll see if it helps out with longer hours of gamepad use.

I haven't fired up my 3DS in over a month due to gaming on other consoles/Vita. But I do know one thing: Nintendo collectors are going to go broke trying to keep up with all the damn Limited Edition 3DS's that Nintendo has released in the last year. Now I see that yet another one is coming out this week, a LE Green Yoshi 3DS. Glad my collecting days are behind me!

I think Moycon is right that the market isn't shrinking: MS & Sony have sold 10million consoles in 4 months. I don't think the Xbox360 & PS3 came close to those figures. And remember the press.... all the "experts" were saying Sony was going to fail because of low launch PS3 sales & high price.... and we now know how right the experts were on their predictions. Now, the experts are writing nothing but doom & failure for XB1 & Wii U. We'll see, we'll see.

For me, Gears of War was the first game that really looked and played "next-gen", and I believe it was released a year before AC. And I also thought Call of Duty was a pretty good launch game for the Xbox360.

It's often hard (at least for me) to know which articles are accurate and which are just speculating or pure opinion. The article you linked to shows one view, while this article shows figures that supposedly backs up the claim that the market is declining. Is your link or this link accurate? Damned if I know. http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/09/console-crisis/

If the following article is accurate, then it shows a major problem with Nintendo. I mean, if Nintendo won't support and market 3rd party titles then why should 3rd party developers support Nintendo? Cannot believe that with the lack of titles available for the Wii U at the time of the games release, Nintendo didn't get behind Need for Speed and see that it was released properly and didn't play a major role in helping market & advertise the title (and yes, EA shares some blame also). http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a556642/need-for-speed-most-wanted-developer-slams-nintendo-ea.html

Maybe my launch battery is dying out, I don't know. But I'm not getting a long charge.. I used it fully charged to watch NintendoTVii during the Oscars (was fun answering the trivia questions and such) and the red light was blinking about 30 min before the show ended. Was the same sort of situation during the Super Bowl. I'm not sure how it does with games as I haven't played any long gaming sessions of an hour or more in quite some time.

I've read several articles in the past that say the home console market is in deep trouble. The following article is the latest that I've read, and while I'm not sure I completely agree with the conclusions put forth, it is still an interesting read and an interesting viewpoint on the market (including both the console makers and game developers). The last paragraph concerning Sony I found very interesting. http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/09/console-crisis/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl17%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D452125

Thanks for the comments about Thief, Cimerians; much appreciated! I think I'll wait for it to hit the $20 price bin. I haven't been playing the PS4 much at all as I've been so wrapped up in games on other systems (Xcomm, Far Cry Classic, Mario 3D World, Castle Storm Wii U, Walking Dead Vita). Maybe that will change when inFamous and a couple other titles are released. I'm not knocking the PS4 but I'm just having a very difficult time finding something I want to play on it.

Only problem I really have is battery life. If I use the Wii U for Netflix or NintendoTVii (such as during the Super Bowl or Oscar's), I sometimes get a red flashing lite before the movie or event is over. Yeah, I could plug it in to the charger while using it, but in the living room there isn't an outlet close to our chairs so I'd have to run a drop cord.... sort of defeats the purpose of wireless control (and I'm lazy...LOL)

Yep, and I also found that looking at the "Let's Play" videos on YouTube help a lot. As an example, I was thinking of getting Splinter Cell for the Wii U but was unsure. So after reading a couple of user reviews and watching a couple Let's Play video's, I knew the game wasn't a purchase for me. Almost every game has several of these videos where people post videos of themselves just playing the game and I found them to be an excellent resource in deciding on a purchase or not.

Yeah, I found that out. I didn't realize how much planning you have to do on research-engineering to really become effective. As an example, my first play thru I didn't build satellites until I had the money-engineers-energy-uplinks ready to go. Then when I did build satellites, I found it took 20 days construction and that was too long as countries were leaving the coalition because of panic. So I restarted the game and started building satellites right away and when I had the uplink & energy available, I could launch immediately and prevented countries from leaving the coalition. I'm loving the game. I sometimes get frustrated when I have an enemy flanked, with an 85% chance of hitting him in his exposed back, and I MISS, or sometimes when enemies pop up there is an army of them for my 6 people to deal with, but the game is GREAT and I can't stop playing.

I've read posts from others who say the same thing you posted and I wonder: the original Xbox could play DVD's but only if you bought a dongle from MS that activated that feature. Supposedly, the cost of the dongle paid for the licensing costs so that MS wasn't having to and raising the price of the Xbox. This method, to me, was an excellent solution for the situation: if you wanted DVD playback, you bought a dongle for $10 and could now watch them. If DVD playback wasn't something you were interested in, you didn't buy the dongle and saved $10. Not sure why Nintendo couldn't do the same sort of thing with the Wii U and make everyone happy.

Due to a busy weekend, I only got about 30min to try out the Beta. Must admit I was lost as hell trying to figure out controls and where to go on the maps to accomplish quests. Maybe I didn't figure it out, but it seemed like the game doesn't support in-game voice, only text chat. If this is so, not sure whether you could use party-chat for voice or not. Anyone know?

Please post your thoughts on the game. I've been considering buying it but not sure if I'd enjoy the stealth-intense game play.

While my Wii U owning son loves the game, he says he hasn't been as frustrated with a Nintendo game since the original Kid Icarus. He can clear the levels, no problem. But he says getting all the puzzle pieces and letters is a royal pain and he gets frustrated replaying a level over and over and over to get a puzzle piece in one of those "Collect all the bananas in a 20sec" rooms. He won't stop playing, though, proving that his enjoyment of the game is stronger than his frustration level.

The saddest part of the whole Wii u situation, for me, is that so many game companies are continuing to totally ignore it. Pac-Man Museum was recently released for almost every system but Nintendo was totally ignored. The Vita received and is receiving a couple of excellent games: Gearbox is releasing Borderlands 2 for the Vita and and Telltale released Walking Dead Season 1 with the 400 Days add-on.(rumor has it that Season 2 is coming for Vita). Other than the belief (and history seems to prove it) that Wii U owners won't buy anything in large numbers that isn't from the Nintendo itself, the absence of the above games makes little sense to me: Pac-Man is a family safe game with a long & popular history but the Wii U wasn't considered as a release format. Lego sells well, why wouldn't Pac-Man? Borderlands 2 would seem to be a natural fit for the gamepad with inventory control & mapping. And lots of Wii U owners are playing FPS CoD. But Gearbox says no to Wii U. Resident Evil always sold well on NIntendo systems and lots of Wii U owners love the Walking Dead TV show. But the game isn't considered for a Nintendo release. I don't blame companies for not releasing games on a Nintendo system if the game won't sell and the company takes a loss on it. And this has happened with games such as ZombieU, Batman, and Assassins Creed. But I'm not convinced that major releases like Walking Dead or Borderlands 2 wouldn't sell in large enough numbers to match Vita sales. I'm not complaining, just sad that the Wii U isn't doing better because it deserves to.

Excellent thread!! The only thing I can add is that while insuring an item is great in concept, trying to collect on that insurance is a royal pain in the ass. Three times in the past I've had to file a claim and after the inspectors viewed the package, they always refused paying out, saying the item wasn't packaged properly. Even though 90ft of bubblewrap and a dump truck full of peanuts was used, it is never enough for the UPS/Post Office people.