Games console for 5yo? Which one?

[Mumto3dc]

My 5 yo ds is mad keen on gaming, atm we've just got an iPad. His friend (!!) has got an Xbox so he's asking for one of those.

I'm totally ignorant, what device would you suggest for that age ? Also got 8yo and 4 yo. Are there age appropriate games? Don't want to spend more than £80 or so.

Thanks!!

Bump

What about a Nintendo wii? You'll be able to pick up a relatively cheap second hand one from Game or Amazon, lots of children friendly games for that. Plugs into TV with a motion activated thing, can be lots of fun for everyone to play.

We have a playstation 3 which my 4 year old DS can play car racing or lego games on - again a second hand one shouldn't cost too much.

There's also a new thing called Leap TV, by Leapfrog - similar idea to a wii - I think in some of the games kids can actually see themselves on the TV while playing. Last I checked it was £90 in Smyths, but we already have a wii and you can get more games for that. It also might be a bit young for your 8 yr old, not sure

I would second the vote for a wii. The games are very suitable for a younger age group. Good ones include mario Kart, the wii board game, drawn to life. There are no war games really available for this platform which is what I was attracted to.

You could easily pick one up for your budget secondhand - I'm in Ireland and we picked up a secondhand one for 50 euro last year.

Yep, DS was probably about that age when we had a Wii. I can definitely recommend Raving Rabbids games, any of them.

We have a 5yo and a 7yo and they play Skylanders on a PS3.

The wii games are very good but if you're looking at either xbox or ps I would go with the ps3. The controller is much easier to handle than the xbox one and not as bulky for smaller hands.
There's more suitable games on the wii though.

Just a warning if you go for a Wii - they have stopped making games for them now, so you won't be able to get any of the new games for it. There's a huge back catalogue of old games for it though.
You can get the new version, the WiiU, but the cheapest you'll get one is about £130-£150. They do make new games for it though, and all the old Wii games work on it, so it's a good investment. Nintendo make the best family-friendly games.
You can get a second-hand Xbox 360 or PS3 for about £100 now, and if you were looking to go that route, I would recommend a PS3. The Xbox 360 is much more fragile a console, and the game disks often get scratched or damaged (for example, if you move the Xbox console while it is powered on and there is a disk inside, it will very very likely burn rings into the disk and damage it). Ps3 games are on Bluray disks and are really hard to damage, and if you move the console with the game inside nothing will happen.

Also a warning: If you get a nintendo Wii or a WiiU and you want to buy extra controllers for it (so more than one child can play together) they are really hard to come buy at the moment. Both consoles (Wii and WiiU) use the same controllers, a basic Wii controller, but they're hard to find secondhand and are about £40 new.