well I wouldn't call my cousin that he's family but the gift had sentimental value to all the people in his family that played it and to me who gave it to him in the first place. Shoot there were Mii's on there. He didn't even ask if i would care. I didn't even find out until I asked him about it.

I empathize with you on an emotional level. On a level of understanding the concept of gift giving it may seem selfish on his part, but technically whatever he has now is because of you and your gift. What he has now is what he considers your gift. If it was a gift for the family then I would understand, but you stated that you gave it to him. It's not like PS3 wont have the capability to produce something for the family that they can create and enjoy, especially with the preliminary titles of the move. 

Technically his cousin isn't an asshole. He's done nothing wrong. For instance, which is worse....selling or trading away a gift you paid for and thought they would like or a gift you got for free and thought they would like? Truthfully.....it probably cost him less than a dollar to get it. He should be proud because he saved his cousin 300 on a console whichever way you slice it. The smile on his cousins face should suffice. A gift is meant to be given to either help or please the one you give it to....it's not done for your own intentions.

Technically his cousin isn't an asshole. He's done nothing wrong. For instance, which is worse....selling or trading away a gift you paid for and thought they would like or a gift you got for free and thought they would like? Truthfully.....it probably cost him less than a dollar to get it. He should be proud because he saved his cousin 300 on a console whichever way you slice it. The smile on his cousins face should suffice. A gift is meant to be given to either help or please the one you give it to....it's not done for your own intentions.

I guess this all boils down to perspective my friend, so I'll spell it out. The Wii does have a "shit ton" of games out there to play, but an increasingly large amount of them are shovelware. Because of Sony's strictness with quality control I am already expecting Move titles beyond the Wii and thats the way I like it. I like to expect more as things evolve. As I've said in the past, I liked to play COD: WAW with my friends on the Wii, but thats on my friends Wii. I was planning to get a Wii when it came out with enough games that I wanted to play, but Sony basically filled the gap with a preliminary showing which I feel is superior to almost anything the Wii has out aside from a handful first party titles. The Move is basically a Wii-mote on crack and with the camera adds depth to the picture which the Wii cannot replicate unless they gather a camera themselves. It's not just about graphics for me, but that also helps paint the picture, especially if a shooter is involved. I never realized how great the possibilities for a wand shooter was on the Wii until a third party title like COD: WAW and with the PS3...I see that as a non-factor. Mod Nation Racers has replaced Mario Kart for me as a figure of taste. If I want Mario, I'll just create him.....and the scary part is......you can.

I'm not trashing the Wii, but I am stating how I feel growing up with Nintendo and feeling let down. (Example of trashing the Wii: The Wii is a POS!) The OP asked for a comment about how people feel about the situation and quite frankly cannot blame nor condone the way the situation has turned out.

To conclude with another perspective, I mainly talk to older people and the majority of my friends are in their late 20's. I will narrow them down to the friends who actually have the Wii, because the others just don't care for Wii titles unless it's a party game. I have a friend whom is 28 and has saved for a very long time to buy a house so he will not have to have an apartment. Everytime he sees us playing a 360 or PS3 he attributes his purchase to only having the Wii so he could focus on other things in life. He literally told me that if he had a PS3 or 360 he would either have to stop buying games for a long time (which is hard for him if he only has a fork out $60 or less for games after the console purchase). He knows Nintendo is lagging with the games he likes and finds that as a positive so he doesn't have to game. Yet...on his free time I see him at my friends house whom is 26 playing on his PS3 like a mad man (LOL you should see it). 

All my other friends who own the Wii and mainly play it for shooters like the game I previously mentioned were floored when they saw the GT Socom showing back home. These guys are not casual gamers by any means. They have game nights two times a week and play regularly on their own.

I go to an art school for illustration (but also dabble in graphics) but also trains furiously in animation and videogame development which has mainly PS3 and 360 owners and everyone games. The Wii owners admitted that they have been reduced in their free time to playing Tatsunoku (which is a lot of fun) and Brawl as multiplayer titles. When a PS3 or 360 party starts the room is filled. The gamers who create games has no time to play games, but because of the little money they have people swap games and they find it to be in their best interest when they have free time to swap PS3 or 360 games. This brings me to the time I had my paradigm shift about the Sony move, when gametrailers sent a flurry of Move videos our way actually showing us the possibilities. Being a students in a art/technological school, we obviously have to test this product to come up with a final idea, but from what we saw....purely as far as the core in gaming is concerned....its pretty much over unless Nintendo changes the game plan. PC is also the main thing everyone has in their room of course, but I am speaking of consoles. 

Are you somewhat starting to understand my point or at least the perspective?

P.S.

You also must admit the excitement is added for the possibilities knowing Microsoft and Sony are hugely behind 3rd parties. This means more quality titles.

I thought by illustrating the absurdity that way would have got the point across, but I guess not.

Let me put it in simple terms: the Wii was not an unconditional gift. It was only given under the condition that his cousin had more use for a second Wii than he did.

This isn't a birthday present we're talking about - if he gave him a Wii for a present and the guy ended up selling it, that's his business. It's the fault of whoever bought the Wii that he didn't buy a better present - I understand that.

I know how annoying this can be because this has happened to me a few times before, albeit in a smaller scale. For example, in videogames like WoW when loot/gear is distributed, and one ends up winning an item that they don't really need from some boss. They offer it to some person, asking, "Do you want / need this?" If the person responds yes, it's under the assumption that they have use for the item itself. People who later just go off and sell the item are looked down upon, for good reason.

The concept is to give the item to whoever would make the most use of it.

This is such a common occurence. On this very forum there was a thread started by a guy who wanted to sell his Wii and someone else jumped into the the thread defending his decision and I clearly explained that the Wii has plenty of great games, you just have to rely a lot on the internet as opposed to brick and mortar to find some of the good games. Since let's be honest, a lot of the third-party "core" Wii games (Nintendo first-party being an exception unless it's Fire Emblem or something niche like that) don't exactly get a lot of shelf space.

But I've already went over how easy it is to go to amazon.com, gamestop.com, bestbuy.com, ebay.com and make a simple search (and yes you will find what you are looking for at these places. Finding Fragile Dreams and other niche games like that is not hard). But then I get the "but I can just go to GameStop and buy what I want for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Why do I have to even put in extra effort to get good Wii games? It's not worth it!" As if making a simple internet search is more of a hassle than driving to a GameStop and back to buy a game.

Most self-proclaimed "hardcore gamers" who are Pro-PS3 and/or Xbox 360 and anti-Wii are a product of marketing and hype machines. If the game isn't advertised well enough, it might as well not exist to them. They don't want to go out of their comfort zone (relying on media hype to tell them what to buy) to go try out a niche game that they may very well like.

In my opinion, a "hardcore gamer" is someone who spends more time than usual on their gaming hobby. The notion that "hardcore gaming" is about consuming heavily advertised, heavily commercialized video games is absurd. In my opinion, playing No More Heroes or Muramasa is more hardcore than playing God of War III or Splinter Cell Conviction. The former two are geared towards the niche gamer. The latter two are geared towards mainstream gamers.

Also many of the so-called "shovelware" games on the Wii may not even really be shovelware if one gave it a chance. Just Dance for one may very well be a fun game. And Wii Sports in my opinion is good for what it is. A pack-in party game collection that comes free with your Wii.