Can you hear the sleigh bells ringing? Well, if you’re not into the whole Santa Claus thing, or Christmas in general, that’s fine too because plenty of other holidays surround the December season and you can just as easily justify a pricy tech purchase under one of those umbrellas as well. As we know, the real reason for the season is to pick up a swank new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.
Every year the list of gifts that come from the electronics “department” (in now-ancient parlance) grows exponentially as young and old alike delight in technological innovations that continue to roll out at breakneck speed. This year, it’s important to sit back and take a look at some of the bigger gifts to hit the scene.
Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo 3DS, and the Nintendo WiiU
Although Sony has claimed that ten million PS4s have already been sold, this Holiday season is the one to watch for first-time buyers into next-gen hardware. The flagging WiiU has been bolstered by Mario Kart 8 and Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Warriors, and will no doubt sell a tonne of systems with the release of epic party game and platform fighter Super Smash Bros. Microsoft’s Xbox One is also selling quite briskly and can be expected to continue doing the same.
The big name titles coming out this season are Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (November 4), Far Cry 4 (November 11), as well as Assassin’s Creed Unity and Assassin’s Creed Rogue, the latter of which will be on Xbox 360 and PS3 only. As mentioned above, Super Smash Bros. hits the WiiU sometime in late November or early December, with the 3DS version being released October 3.
The WiiU retails for $299 with a game currently included, the Xbox One and PS4 start at 399.99 without a game bundled in, although this may change as Christmas grows nearer.

Check out LootCrate, ThinkGeek, Threadless, and DealExtreme
Looking for actual internet venues at which to spend your hard earned dinero on some seriously nerdy gifts (for yourself or others?). Look no further. We have four solid recommendations right here, just for you.
LootCrate: Competing with services like GeekBox, LootCrate is the original and the most widely known. The premise is simple. You hand LootCrate (or GeekBox) some cash, decide whether you’d like to subscribe for a single month, a few months, or a year, and then wait for your awesome mystery box to arrive filled with geek goodness every month. A great gift for the gamer or the comic book fan in your household as it can last over the whole year, and there’s always something to everyone’s taste. ThinkGeek: The oldest and most venerable geekery shoppe on the ‘net, ThinkGeek is still going strong. From Star Trek pizza cutters to rare earth magnets featuring iPod and iPhone icons to dehydrated astronaut ice cream, it’s a bizarre bazaar of assorted tech toys and miscellany. Plus you earn Geek Points which can be redeemed for further awesomeness with every purchase. Threadless: Threadless deals exclusively in clothing, but that’s not to say it’s not worth checking out. Carrying topical t-shirts that are of much higher quality than the equivalent from Hot Topic, plus with the added benefit of supporting an indie artist each and every time you buy a t-shirt or babydoll, you can see what the appeal is. Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Mario, Sonic, Link, and Master Chief all make appearances regularly. DealExtreme: Free shipping on trinkets from asian nations, from portable USB stick batteries to rainbow laser pointers. Consider this an equivalent to a medium-market dollar store, only offering crazy items that you may have never seen before (or see again). Interesting to pick through the thousands of tech trinkets and gamer toys. Spouses looking to trade gifts under the tree of a digital nature may be better off ditching the iTunes gift cards and looking for something a little more creative.
For the children, some interesting toys to look out for would be OSMO, an attachment for iPad that comes with three built-in games, including perennial favourite Tangrams. The physical toys can be manoeuvred under the camera that OSMO provides in order to produce a variety of AR or augmented reality games.
No matter what direction your Christmas or holiday shopping may take you in 2014, be sure to stock up on the hottest games for the season, the latest and greatest apps, and to start shopping now and not a week before the celebrations begin. You’ll save yourself a great deal of time and effort, and spare yourself the headache of having too little time and too many gifts yet to buy.

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