Wow someones obviously never owned a console. Ever. I'll admit Wiimotes are expensive, but yeah. What an idiot.

Don't forget the cost of the TV, and entertainment center, and a bigger house to store all the empty boxes. We are looking at $200,000 hidden costs here.

Not only that; Think of all the money you are going to lose when you skip work to play a game on day 1 release!!!

Correct sir.  It is called a special pleading fallacy.  This is where either one side is given numerous exceptions or exemptions from certain rules or qualifications while the other isn't or the other side being that one side is put up to higher standards of comparisons that the other isn't.  In his case, he made assumptions for the Wii on certain standards it had to meet to constitute it's sell and further sells while he exempted the other 2 from those rules.  It's a completely unfair comparison with no logical foundings in it whatsoever.  Haha you'd be surprised how many of these you'll find in common day comparisons, especially political ones haha.  I really can't see how people don't notice they do it as most of them are blatant but yea. 

The guy has dem' issues.

Some of you who didn't even bother to read the full article before making statements are failing pretty badly.

Anyway, what I think is this guy has some kind of anxiety disorder because he mention anxiety and panic attack several times in the article. Now I am sure the added cost contributed to him returning the Wii, but that wasn't the only factor. He also returned it because it would undermine the other gifts they had gotten for the kids. He also stated that they could figure out a good policy in which to govern the wii use. Finally he stated at the end that he may indeed get a Wii.

Some things that got to me. He mention that he limited his kids internet time becaue he didn't want them to become shut in that have no friends. I can understand limiting the time cause of there age, but the shut in statement was uneccesary. He also hasn't played video games since Atari. He is really out of touch with technology it seems. I don't agree with his 30 minute policy, and I believe making it 30 minutes on wii and 30 minutes on internet would have been an easy and simple policy. He is not me though and I have not right to tell him how to raise his kids.

Anyway, boring article. I can't believe someone can get paid to right about their boring life. Maybe there hoping Wii in the title would up reader interest.

I'm assuming this guy has never really owned a console before...he should know that you have to buy games and some accessories

I will give him that nintendo should have come up with a better solution than the batteries for the wiimote, but $30 dollars for a recharge station for never having to buy batteries again is worth it

his own damn fault

Journalism is suffering because of wage and time pressures, so are his kids if he can't afford a Wii and controllers.

Deciding on 30 min increments of tv time for your children. Are you in Natzi germany or something?

Playing Wii would have taken away from the other gifts? Not buying the other gifts would have saved you plenty of money for WSR and controllers and everything else.

- Newsflash - Opinion journalist writes boring and monotonous self absorbed shit about himself, because he has nothing else of value to say - News at 11

Wait, so I have to FEED these kids THREE times a day?! And I have to buy the food?!
Clothes?
School?
Haircuts?!

These hidden costs are INSANE! Kids go get your slickers (which, by the way, cost money too!), you're going back where I found you...

Seriously though, I can understand how someone who doesn't really "get" technology can walk away feeling screwed by the video game word, we all have at one point or another, but why write an article about it? And why do I hear John Stossel's whiney, nasal-y voice when I read it?

While I think the article is mostly a demonstration on how uninformed typical buyers can be, I do think there is an argument that there is a lot of gouging in the price of accessories; and a level of hiding the true ownership cost of consoles by increasing the number of accessories people have to buy.

This might have changed, neither the XBox 360 Core/Arcade nor the PS3 came with cables to hook your HD console to your HDTV to get a HD signal. Controllers have (roughly) doubled in price in a generation, and the cost of games has increased on the HD consoles. There is a noticeable increase in the amount of for-pay downloadable content which would have been included in a game as it shipped a couple of years ago. And all three console manufacturers expect their owners to buy additional/upgraded control schemes to the ones they have already released.

Even though I understand why the market it this way, I can understand the frustration of the common man who bought a PS2 for $200 with 2 controllers, a memory card and a couple of games (and was good to go) who now goes out to buy any of the consoles and is spending so much more; and a large portion of the expense seems to be the companies nickle and diming them.

While I'm certain it wouldn't excite the dedicated gamer, a company could probably do fairly well if they released a console from launch with 2 controllers, 2 games, and everything needed to hook it up (and use all the extra features) and advertised it with no more hidden costs.