Aneres11

With you having such a strong love for Sony - I'm not surprised.

Interesting debate. I am totally backing Nintendo as they have the know how to turn around the very bad launch of the Wii U. It's a shame that they got themselves into a position that needs to be salvaged, but hey, here we are again! Once Nintendo go on an advertising push and they get the games that most people want out there, I think the console will sell like crazy. Even at a higher price bracket than people may like. Although we've seen massive price cuts already from some retailers I don't think Nintendo will cut the price of the Wii U as they did with 3ds to drive sales. I also don't think they need to slash it too much (a little would be good) - just get the games out and market it correctly. Sony need to take a long hard look at the what they're doing with the Vita and realise that their strategy is totally retarded. Makes me laugh that people criticise Nintendo so much for the Wii U when the Vita has been out a hell of a lot longer - and look at the state of it. You go into a games store and the Vita shelves are lined with the same games the console was launched with. Uncharted, Wipeout, Everybody's Golf and Virtua Tennis are always on the shelf. It's an absolute joke. Not to mention the price of it, plus the fact the memory cards are so expensive and you've got one marketing strategy that is beyond belief quite frankly. Say what you want about Nintendo and the Wii U (and yes, it was a terrible, terrible launch and continues to be pretty terrible), but the Vita steals the show in terms of how not to sell a console. I'm not surprised it's flopping. It's actually annoying too as I like the Vita a lot. Has a hell of a lot of potential but it just hasn't been tapped into unfortunately. Regarding the 3ds it goes from strength to strength and continues to be one of my favourite ever consoles (behind the DS ) The games out for it are very divers in terms of genre and with the improved graphical leap over the DS it allows for not just the pick up and play games but also the more in depth games that you can lose hundreds of hours in (looking at you Monster Hunter). I love it. As for the next XBOX - honestly, couldn't really care less. I will await what they show but I think Microsoft have well and truly destroyed what was an amazingly intuitive and well put together operating system (is that the right thing to even call it?) When I got my 360 the menus were a breeze to get through, everything was laid out perfectly, they had video blogs from guys who worked at Microsoft (was it sent you a message or somethin?) and it was nice to actually look through the menus and explore the content within them over actually playing a game! Now, it's advert after advert after advert with terrible integration of music, films, apps and search engines. It's horrid. It's feels totally lifeless to me now and it got to the point that I changed the system settings so that the game booted up automatically when the console turned on. 2 or 3 years ago I would never have dreamed of doing that! I don't like Kinect, and have a feeling the new xbox will be very Kinect heavy. I await to see the games they announce though as that's important to me and they could win me back with what they're offering there. Also, I still feel like their online services are absolutely spot on and am happy to pay for them yearly as I do now - providing the rest of the 'xbox package' is appealing enough. PS4 - well the intro to it didn't blow me away. I feel like we haven't even seen anything yet. There was a lot of 'should be able to' and 'we hope to bring you'... Right well when you know, say it then. The PS3 was the least appealing of the bunch for me last gen and I used mine for 2 things. Uncharted. And Blu-Ray player. Until I got a BRP free with my TV - then it became a dust collector. Sony's 'core' franchises didn't grab me. Little Big Planet was just a level creator which bored me after a bit, Infamous was too open worldy and I didn't enjoy the first game enough to warrant playing the second and uncharted 3 was very meh. I always bought multiplatform games on the 360 as I personally enjoyed achievements in most games and the Trophy system was no where near up to the same polish as achievements. I remain optimistic about all the consoles we currently have and are getting though. All of these companies have been around long enough to know what is going wrong and how to fix it - I sure hope they do anyway! But yeah I think the battle of the xbox and ps4 will be interesting. I don't factor Nintendo into it at all really as they have always done their own thing and generally tend to cater to a different market these days. They may have some competition this time around though in their casual market from Microsoft depending on the route they choose to take.

Ahh I see. Be good if it was all mint rather than just the lid! Looks good though.

I'm sorry the what now?! I love me some coloured 3DS' but I don't think I've seen this!

Oh man that sucks Jimbob. That's pretty moronic of them to go away with your parcel in their house. Could they not have left it with another neighbour? I'd have to break in.

I downloaded the demo of FE - I absolutely hated every second. It's just not my type of game at all. Never liked that style of gameplay. I think it's probably gonna be Castlevania for me.

I really don't know what to choose. I have Luigi's Mansion, will be getting DKCR, want Animal Crossing, but the 4th game I have no idea. May have to be Castlevania? Will have to have a think!

Yeah I must admit as much as I'm glad I have picked one up, I'd rather the Premium model any day. However, I have a HDD in line anyway (from when I bought my Premium one at launch), so was gonna get one regardless. In other news mine has turned up today. Ordered from Amazon last night and it's here! Mum text me as I'm working overtime all day today so will get home and do the dreaded update. I still have no games for it though! I'm tempted by either Need for Speed or Lego City Undercover but with both still being full price virtually everywhere I'm not sure whether to wait til I get paid and just invest in some cheaper eShop titles for a week or two to tide me over. If the 8gb can take the download! Haha.

Holy mother of everything amazing. Cannot wait. Eternal Darkness is one of my all time favourite games. It's titles like this that the Wii U needs along with the first party Nintendo goodness we're gonna see.

Yeah I didn't enjoy Galaxy 2. It wasn't crap lol, but it didn't grab me anywhere near as much as the first game did. I'd like to see a move away from the Galaxy / space mechanic and would love to see something a bit more Mushroom Kingdom based. The castle of 64 was obviously brilliant, and I don't see them doing that again - but I'd kinda love them too! I also do not under any circumstances want to see a Sunshine 2. Which for some reason I'm sensing we might see.

That Base deal is showing as £350 for me now? I took the plunge with Amazon - £149 for a Wii U Basic is an amazing price that I couldn't say no to.

Happened. £149 was too good an offer to turn down. Also bought car insurance. But that's just totally not worth mentioning. Even though I just did.

Well minus the odd offer these games are hardly dropping in price at the rate that every other game tends to these days. And I'm with Ronnie - 3d land was brilliant. Didn't feel rushed to me at all either.

Bring it on. Also, good luck waiting for it to be cheap Rummy. Mario games never go cheap.

If you held the original one and then picked up the XL you certainly wouldn't call it sleek.

Yeah it's true you can't predict what you're gonna get. It's like a screen lottery. It's interesting how many people prefer the XL over the original. I can understand the screens, but the buttons, form factor, feel, look and overall finish of the original is head and shoulders above the XL imo.

Yeah mine will be this, Luigi's Mansion, Animal Crossing and something else. Not sure what just yet though...

I want it for my 3ds. Waggle controls suck. Plus it's part of the free game deal Nintendo just announced.

This has been reviewed in the latest issue of ONM which got delivered to me today. Score: 80% In short they said: + Some of the most challenging platforming on 3DS + Brilliant use of 3d (when it works) - A few too many port-based problems Summary: As with any rehash of a great, it's the problems that stand out, but the uninitiated will find a huge amount to love. DK's still playing his second fiddle very nicely. I haven't read the whole review. But skimming through it kinda says that the difficulty of the game is bad enough, but when there are moments of frantic action with precision timing required, a small move of the console will knock the sweet spot out and mean you're likely to jump / whatever at the wrong time. They say turning the 3D off is a shame but almost required at times. They also say that the game doesn't look as good as it does on the Wii as there is a certain level of jaggedness on show. The good points are... well, it's a damn good game. And the biggest praise tends to go to the fact that using a button press to roll rather than a waggle is very very welcome indeed. I'm sure the review will go online soon (if it isn't already), so you can read it yourselves in full. Thought I'd share anyway.

Oh that's interesting. Thanks liger05

Nope I sold mine at the start of the year. There was nothing on the horizon for a good few months so I thought I'd wait for a price drop and sell my console and trade in the games. Got credit for some 3ds goodness from the games and sold console for £260. I was always gonna buy again but was waiting for the invevitable price drop and more games available. Games aren't there yet, but the price is pretty tempting. Gonna give it a think.

Basically the DS and 3DS line (as production moves on from launch) seemed to have suffered from a yellow tinge to the screens. So the top screen in launch models tend to have a bright white crsip screen but as newer colours are released, some seem to be fitted with a screen that has a yellow tinge to it. I noticed it when I bought an Ice White 3ds and compared it to Mike1988UK's original launch model. His was bright white and mine was a very dull yellow. Messing with the brightness settings didn't really change anything with it either. When I bought my XL, the screen was white but not as bluey white as Mikes in comparrison so didn't appear as bright. It's a bit of a mixed bag. I know that some people were put off upgrading their 3DS to an XL for fear of getting one with a yellow screen as it is not quite as nice... If you have no other 3ds to compare it to though it probably wont / shouldn't bother you!

Oh nice one. Hmm ok I will have to have a serious ponder over this Basic model then. Hmmm. Very tempting price though for a fairly new console.

I have quite small hands (well, I guess they're more 'not big' lol) and I find the original 3ds comfortable to use. The XL is also very comfortable as there is less cramping going on, but I still find my right hand aching after every single Mario Kart race and holding down the A button. So it's not a case of bigger equals more comfortable for me. I will see if it is any different tonight when I use my Peach one for the league. You're definitely correct in saying that there is a stretch with the D-Pad and left shoulder button though as I had the exact same experience, so if you haven't had a hands on with an XL model I would recommend it if you can to see if it'd be a real problem. All I will say though, is that in my opinion there is quite a difference in screen resolution with the XL. Some games look great on the bigger XL screen (Mario Kart especially due to how crazy it can get!), but others don't look so good stretched out. I personally like the bigger screen but there are more plus points of the original over the XL for me. You've also got to be mindful of the dreaded yellow tinged screen in newer models.

Hmm I'm still tempted by the basic at that price tbh. Is that just online or in store too?