Mine were where yours is at back in the day. The sticker shock was worse because I really did not believe my three would spend the time playing these games that the price warranted. I was correct. Ours was minimally used. My son chose ping pong, disc golf and learning to juggle over time "gaming". We chose gamebox--My students would say it was the wrong choice.

My students who play, play NON STOP in their non school time. These games have become their lives. They play with never seen strangers alone in their rooms and tell us they were not alone. The games they play are "Call Of Duty" and all its versions --all violent and ugly. If I taught a parenting class and if I thought anyone would listen the #1 mistake parents make is buying into the video/social media device purchases. Technology is dumbing down, making social outcasts, ruining our kids. These Gamers will never be captains of industry!!!

We have an Xbox I think? Purchased about four years ago now. It gets almost no use. My 12 year old only likes playing the Major League Baseball game on it and his neighborhood friends are not interested in that game at all. He has lots of opportunities to play other games at other houses and refuses. I think he is quite unusual though. He does also have an iPad and has various game apps; they are all silly kid games and he doesn't play them a ton either.

I will say that the kids who play games in our neighborhood are not playing anything as violent as call of duty and they are all more into tech in general than ds. They are also way more computer savvy and can FaceTime people, and write code, and shoot and edit movies, and so on; while ds is not interested and cannot do any of those things. And I think those are all useful skills. (Some of the kids have parents who work for silicone valley tech companies.)

My kids play games on the computer more than anything. The 8 and 11 year old primarily play Minecraft and Roblox. My 17 year old primarily plays World of Tanks. For the younger ones we screen what servers they are allowed to play Minecraft on (there are family friendly ones). Because we have time limits each day on use of devices (computer plus tablet), a game system would not be used as much in our house, with the exception of Saturday when dad is home and wants to play World of Tanks as well so a Wii U is in the future but it will be a gift from an aunt and she is buying a refurbished one.

You are not alone. Oldest DS is 10 and we do not have a game system either.

We have iPads but the kids have limited device time (and parental controls). Mostly, they play Minecraft.

Many of their friends have Wii or Xbox. They enjoy playing the Wii sports at a friend's house.

My sons both played Xbox and our daughter wii, but now it seems they play on their computers and the game systems collect dust unless a friend comes over and wants to play.

Thanks all. I think we're going to go with a Wii U. The games available for it are more kid-oriented, less violent, so I like that. It does also allow you to stream Netflix, etc, like the Xbox and PS.

I have 6yo and 11yo boys and we have a WiiU that is intermittently used. We were holdouts until the oldest turned 9yo. My kids are only interested in a few games - Skylanders, various Lego and Mario games, Splatoon.

The only other game they play is one on the computer by National Geographic, Animal Jam - sometimes over the phone with friends.

I keep waiting for the Xbox envy but it hasn't happened, thankfully! They do love to watch YouTube videos of people playing the same games. It seems super weird but apparently this is a big thing with kids now.