So, you’re generous enough to be buying someone a console for Christmas (how do we get in your good books?) or you’re at least willing to stroke their gaming ego and buy them something to improve the console they already have. You have the money, but you’re not exactly in the know when it comes to buying electronics.

The question on your mind is, what to buy? Unfortunately, this year doesn’t really hold much in the way of accessories for consoles. Here are some of the cooler, more useful accessories we found out there along with the obligatory, no nonsense guide to this season’s hottest consoles.

The Nintendo Wii

The Nintendo Wii is famous (or infamous, depending on your orientation) for being the casual gamers’ console. Having said that, more recent titles show that Nintendo is branching out from the casual game genre.

Many diehard Nintendo fans were wary if not a little bitter when it came to the Wii. Fans felt that Nintendo was, in the process of taking on a whole new fanbase, ditching the old one. For many years Nintendo was the producer of safe, reliable, old school consoles and it had built up a loyal troop of Mario and Alfred Chicken lovers. Then, along came Polly and the forums were filled with comments like, “Fans like us made Nintendo what it is today and this is the thanks we get?!” Well, gamers will be gamers.

Whiney hardcore fans aside, the recent releases like Mario Galaxy and Metroid, and the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl, mean that the nasty comments on the forums have simmered down a little. It also means that there’s another wave of demand for the console.

That’s right folks. You can’t get them for love nor money. Major retailers have programmed their staff to fob you off with “expected delivery” excuses and there are people charging extortionate amounts of money for used consoles on eBay.

So, now that you know who likes it, who hates it and that you’re never going to get your hands on one, we might as well tell you what you’re missing.

Basically, it’s a console with motion sensitive controllers. All your days of wiggling around in your seat, waving the controller haphazardly are over (and have been since last November). It’s a small white box that stands nearly-upright (it comes with a tilted stand). Unfortunately, you only get one controller with each console, so unless you’re willing to fork out for an extra one (or three, ahem) then there’s a lot of chopping and changing.

The console comes bundled Wii Sports, which in our opinion is one of the more fun Wii games. You’ve got tennis, golf (you laugh but you haven’t seen me play), bowling and baseball. Along with that you get a fitness “trainer”. It gives you a ream of challenges, which incorporate a little something from each sport. Then, depending on how badly you do, it tells you you’re fitness age is around 100 and you never play again.

The Wii is a fun console. It’s not serious and it’s not going to be something you play for 26 days straight but it does have the added plus of having a whole range of Mario titles coming out in and around the Christmas season, not to mention LEGO: Star Wars. Such a pity they’re all sold out.