guys
this is the present for one of my child (7 years old) for christmas. i know nearly nothing about the wii (i'm too OLD -school-), but i don't want to spend very much. i ask him if he liked better the gameboy, but he didn't knew it (damn new school ). So, how many models are in the market? what's the best? how much did you pay for a used one?
i know by now there is a brand new model (wii u)...

thanks

I have a Wii, and didn't really play videogames since genesis went out. I prefer it over XBOX or Playstation because those controllers have way too many buttons. The new gameboy is the Nintendo 3DS I think? It's more like a touchscreen thing.

My favorite thing about the Wii is that you can play lots of old school games by buying them with "Wii points"... Old school nintendo games are 5 bucks and SNES/GENESIS are about 8 or 9 bucks. You may need to buy the "classic controller" to play some of those games, probably an extra 20 bucks. Unfortunately it has a 'lag' delay in gameplay when the Wii is hooked up to a big LCD or Plasma TV...

I got mine used for about 70 dollars, good deal!

thanks Kel!
for the gameboy i intended the very old ones ahaha! those calculators-looks-size-like things (no offense for the fans in advance).
however, are there different models of wii (since this wii u) or just one?
70usd is a good price indeed for my budget...

There are three different versions of the Wii.

The original has GameCube compatibility, the revised version does not. The new one is the "Wii Mini", which lacks both backwards compatibiliy and Wi-Fi (!) - but I believe this one is only available for Canadians.

I'd go for the original version, so you can have access to GameCube, Wii and Virtual Console (nes, snes, master system, genesis, neo geo) games.

Like kel said, you'll probably want to upgrade to the Classic Controller Pro for the old stuff and even some Wii games will probably play better with a standard controller layout.

All versions are region locked.

For the handhelds: 3DS is probably gonna be supported for the next 3 to 4 years at the very least. The DSi has a nice amount of games and also DSiWare stuff. The DS Lite is discontinued but it is still a good deal because you can play both DS and GBA games on it. Mind you both 3DS and DSi are region locked, the DS Lite isn't.

The PSP has a decent backlog and might be a good deal, the main issue here is that it has game discs instead of cartridges and (apart from Japan) Sony is not really supporting the platform anymore. Having games on a Memory Stick is a better plan on the long run, if the PS Store works in your region you could consider that. The game discs aren't region locked but digital stuff is. Avoid the PSPgo and the E-1000 version.

I think you can go with the Wii, its fun for kids and its better suited to play with two or more than the Wii U. There are enough games out to keep them happy for a while. Performance-wise and when it comes to mature games its easily the weakest, but its excellent for kids.

We have the Wii with ” backwards compatibiliy and Wi-Fi”. Great console for kids. Let your kid dive into the world of Skylanders, Mario Cart and Zelda. Maybe play FIFA online? Nintendo tends to have less violent games. It’s not only about shoot to kill.

Mario kart is the must have for my kid: he asked me that game very precisely ahah "the wii has to be with mario kart" he said (or something like that).
Other games in the same vein or other funny games for 7 to 10 years old kids? How is zelda?

Get him the Wii U. Touchscreen controllers will rock his world.

i know Ill, but he now rocks many time my telephone (an android) with many games, so i would like him to be detached from a "solo" dimension and go with matches on wii between 2 or more persons (i think about tennis, or soccer or other games like that)

Zelda will arrive this x-mas.... What ive heard it great on wii to. Playing skylanders with a friend is absolutly the next step after mario cart. Having a ps2 as bonus isnt bad.... It almost for free and so are the games. At least in Sweden...