Bilnick

Amazon still sells Wii U and 3DS games directly. Zelda, Mario 3d World, Pikmin, etc. are all available from Amazon directly, most for less than $50. Mario and Pikmin were $60. Only the hardware is sold through 3rd parties, and like Gabriel said, is usually higher than retail.

It looks like the only way to upgrade storage on the Xbox 1 is to add an external hard drive. I had assumed Microsoft would offer some over priced, under sized hdd in a special case, but the Xbox 1 hdd isn't replaceable. The good thing is 3tb external drives are only around $115. By the time I actually need to upgrade to more storage, 4tb external drives will probably be around $120.

I am just going to wait until I fill up the stock hard drive and then add an external drive as needed. Replacing a 500 gb drive with a 1tb drive just means that you pay 1tb prices for 500gb of additional storage. How large are the games for the new consoles? Most 360 games fit on one dvd, even if the new games double in size there should still be room for 20+ games.

I don't really see this generation playing out much differently than the last 2. The Xbox one and the PS4 will sell enough consoles that most third party releases will be available for both systems. The price difference between the two will not matter this holiday season, I would be surprised if it were easy to find either system until after the holidays. The 2014 holiday season is much more important, by then the PS4 and XB1 will be the lead systems (rather than the 360 and PS3) and I bet all of the big name first party games will be released (Halo, Uncharted, etc.)in late 2014. It wouldn't surprise me if the PS4 and XB1 were the "hot" Christmas item in 2014 as well. If the price difference matters becomes an issue after this holiday rush, I don't think it would take long for Microsoft to release a Xbox One without the Kinect for the same price as the PS4. No matter which of the two systems sells more, I don't think we will see a Wii U type situation where major third party releases just aren't available.

I enjoyed the 3DS game a lot. I would pass if it were just a port of the 3ds game, but a new adventure I would be all over.

This sucks, it was one of two games I was looking forward to on the U. (Mario 3d being the other) Nintendo reminds me of Blackberry sometimes. Tons of cash, delays, delays, delays.

Pre ordered the Xbox One, will buy the Playstation 4 early next year.

I am surprised no one has had the same reaction to the camera on the Wii U controller. When the controller is in the charge stand it is positioned perfectly to look into my living room. Who knows what it has seen and heard since November! I hope Nintendo puts a kill switch on the camera and microphone on future Wii U units.

I was looking forward to being able to share games easily with people on my friends list. But based on the responses here and pretty much everywhere else I was in the minority. This reversal doesn't change my intentions to purchase a Xbox One, I had already pre ordered one.

The Wii U came out in 2012, the system was likely finalized hardware spec wise in 2011. Does it really take 3 years to make a Mario Kart game when half the tracks are just re-used from previous games anyways? Did they hire the Duke Nukem Forever developers or what? The best they could do this year is one Mario game and a remake of a Zelda game that wasn't all that great in the first place? I bought my Wii U for Nintendo games. I figured that multiplatform games would be as good on 360/PS3 as the Wii U and better on the Xbox One/PS4, so I wasn't planning on buying a huge library of games for the U anyway. But I have had this system for 8 months and have 3 games for it.

I really enjoyed the first 2 games of this series. I will buy this dlc the day it comes out.

Is Sony eliminating online passes for PS4 games? I know of a few Vita and PS3 games that had a code to enter to enable the online portion of the game. If the PS4 follows the same model, saying that used games have no restrictions is not really true.

I will buy both the Xbox One and PS4. I have a Wii U. 90% of the games I bought this generation were for the 360, I am curious to see how it plays out this generation.

What did anyone really expect? All these console reveals basically have said the same thing for the last 30+ years. Better graphics, better controller, more stuff. Doesn't matter if it is the 5200 from the 2600, SNES from the NES, or PS4 from the PS3. Now comes the phase where we get the same old tired complaints. It doesn't play my old games. I guess the old systems break for many people when they buy the next gen system. I must be lucky, I can still hook up my old 2600, NES and Xbox and play those games. It looks like $%#!! Insert woodgrain, George Foreman grill, it is freaking huge, why does it have a handle jokes/complaints here. They called it what? (see also Dreamcast, Wii, Wii U, Ipad) I am switching to PC games! Unless your PC is hooked to your TV, have fun playing a game with 3 of your buddies on card chairs crowded around your desk looking at your 23" monitor. Or maybe those people do the all so convenient LAN party. The bottom line for me is I want to play the latest console games in 2014 and beyond. So I will be buying the Xbox One and PS4. (I already have a Wii U)

I am just the opposite, if something is good, I like it when sequels are continuously released. I have been playing Super Mario Brothers games since the late 1980s. I enjoyed them then, and I enjoy the latest games on the 3DS and Wii U. I will buy the next games that come out too. Not all the games that have had long runs of success are my cup of tea, but I can totally understand why people look forward to the next Madden, Mario, Zelda, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, Halo, etc. I am sure I will have this upcoming CoD game pre ordered for a release day delivery.

Why? Are all these channels still available on the NES and Atari 2600?

I agree with this. 3-4 years ago my 3 kids and my 4 nieces and nephews would get together and play 8 person Mario Kart on the DS. Was a total blast. Today I am the only one with a 3DS, my nieces and nephews have Ipads, old Iphones, or Ipod touches, my kids have a Galaxy tab 2, Nexus 10, and my old Droid X phone. All see way more use than the 3DS. It is not that the 3DS is a bad system, it is not the "go to" gaming device that the old DS was. The Wii U has the same problem in my house. I don't know anyone else that even has a Wii U, ours only gets fired up occasionally for a game of NSMB, or Amazon Prime video watching. The Xbox 360 still gets used nearly every day. As it stands now any multiplatform game I buy will be for the 360 as that is the system all my son's friends have and he will want to play online with his buddies, rather than on the Wii U.

Of course you can just look up the movie in IMDB while watching a movie. Xray just makes it a little easier for novices like me to find the lesser known actors in a movie. Rather than have to try and find him/her out of the 60 listed in the full IMDB profile, I can just tap the one of 3-4 that are on the screen at the time.

Not to rebut anything you said, but this made me think of how the Wii U is my preferred device for Amazon Prime. When you watch a movie on TV (rather than the controller) it adds Amazon's/IMDB's X-Ray service to the tablet. As you watch a movie on the TV, the tablet is showing whatever actors are onscreen. As an actor comes and goes in the scene, so does his/her picture. You touch the actor on the tablet and takes you to the actor's IMDB page. It is awesome for those "what other movie did I just see that guy in" moments.

I used to walk into an arcade in the 1980s with $5-10 in my pocket and got maybe 2-3 hours of gameplay. Played arcade games for much of my youth. It was totally worth it even though I cannot go back to that same arcade today and have nothing but fond memories for my efforts. Had I known back then that arcades would largely be extinct by the 90s I wouldn't have threatened to boycott arcades, I would have still dropped my $5 a week into the machines and had fun. I look at games like SimCity or Everquest the same way. I know going in they aren't going to be around forever. I would rather drop a few dollars and have fun now than worry if I can play Diablo 3 in 25 years. If wanting to play and enjoy Video games regardless of how long I can play them means I do not belong on this site, then so be it.

It isn't brain washing. I would love to tell you I still have my 2600 and NES hooked up to an old 27 inch CRT and I play them every day. The truth is they have sat in boxes in my basement for years. I read about classic games more than I play them. If Sim City isn't playable in 3 years I am confident there with be other games I want to play 3 years from now. In the interim I am going to have fun playing games that are available now. If gaming was expensive I would be more concerned about longevity. 60 bucks is cheap for something that might give me 40+ hours of entertainment.

If I still play the game regularly in a year or two I would say I definitely got my $60 dollars worth. Heck even for a couple of months entertainment it is a good deal. If I am done with the game when the servers are taken down why would I care? The thought of buying a game and owning it forever is nice, but I am not going to miss a game I want to play now just because it might not be available in 2016.

I was definitely interested in this game until the server issues became news. I was going to wait a couple of weeks before buying, but the free game will probably entice me to buy it this week. Online only doesn't bother me, I played Everquest for almost 10 years (with a monthly fee too) and never had any issues with it.

That $600 dollar price also assumes you are running Linux rather than Windows. Do most PC games run on Linux these days? What about older games like World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, etc.? If the next Xbox or PS4 cost $600-$700 I do not think they will fly off the shelves. (And there will be multiple threads on this forum complaining about it too) Is there a big used PC game market? There are multiple threads on this forum with people saying they wouldn't buy a next gen Xbox or PS4 if it doesn't allow used games. Why would those people play on a PC instead? All of the games listed in the article are playable on a $200 Xbox 360.

The Wii U was easy to get before Thanksgiving in the US. Gamestop had them online with free shipping. No bundle required. That is how I bought my Deluxe Wii U. The Wii U is not a bad system, there just are not many games out for it right now. I haven't bought a game since New Super Mario Brothers, which I bought at the same time I bought the system itself. The Wii U needs more exclusives. Most people will not drop $300+ just to be able to play a game or two (like I did).