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[Spottybra]

I'm not a gamer, the nearest you get me to gaming is a friends wii after a few drinks. But the dc are turning out to be uber sporty and energetic and there's going to be long rainy winter nights when I can't annoy the neighbours and pop the floodlights on and let them on the trampoline or into the garden to play.
So, I have been thinking about secretly getting them a wii or an x box. My criteria is its for family games like the wii tennis, dancing and boxing etc, its not a full on solo gaming, not too bothered about connection to the Internet either, they are 3 and 4yrs. The 16 yr old just sold his Xbox for money to build a computer for gaming. He says a wii but I need to be aware that Nintendo are phasing the wii out. I dont want them gaming alone at this age, its to get rid of some energy and for family fun only. Any advice what to buy?

Ooh lurking. We want to get the dcs something liek tbis for christmas they loved a game when we were on holiday that seemed to involve leapkng about (so like a normal game but you are the characters in it iyseim). What wouldthat be?
Plus point if it isnt somethjng you can load games on thatinvolve killing prostitutes!!

my teenagers would nOT be happy with a wii

think you need to accept the family gaming is what you want and not perhaps what they might use

Karl, there are no teens. It's for a 4 and a 3yr old. The 16 yr old who lives with me is building his own gaming pc.

Mine are 7, 5 and 2. We got a second hand wii last Christmas and they really like it. The 7 year old plays, the 5 year old provides commentary and the 2 year old likes to think he is playing with the spare remote . We got it with wii sports and mario cart. Dh and ds1 often play tennis etc together on it and have good fun. We don't have it connected to the internet so they can't access anything on it that isn't on there.

Like you I didn't want anything for solo gaming, I don't want handheld consoles etc they can go to their room with. The only issue with a wii is you can't get minecraft andy my 7 year old would love it but I have told him he can save his pocket money and get it for the computer but he keeps spending it on lego so clearly not that bothered!

Kinect?

TBH, at 3 and 4 are a bit too young so you can save for a few years. I would wait until they can follow the rules without getting frustrated. They are a bit too small generally for the sensors to recognise them as players. (sometimes they can be seen crouching)

oh they are 3 and 4

HAHAHAHA!
ignore me

Thanks everyone, some thoughts there, plus the 3 yr old is quite small for her age so the crouching thing is a consideration.

Kinect is a bit rubbish if you ask me. When gaming you want to have a real physical connection to the game. Waving your body around the living room really doesn't work that well.

You know there's a Wii U right? That's the latest Nintendo home console. Most Wii games will play on it too. And if they ever move on from family party games, there's still plenty of single player stuff out there. A whole generation of top gamers grew up with Mario and Zelda games, Nintendo still make the finest gaming experiences out there!

The Wii is gone now unless you buy second hand.
The new console is the WiiU its expensive but it is backward compatible so you can play the Wii games on it, but if you get a Wii you cant play WiiU games on it only Wii games, and possibly game cube games if you can find any.

Pedro you beat me to it, totally agree with your take on nintendo bloody love it Wii sports resort is brill