If you are looking for a suitable children’s gift, maybe for Christmas or for a birthday, then you might be well advised to seriously consider choosing a more traditional gift. Perennial favourites – Monopoly, Scrabble, slot car racing games, train sets etc. – have all withstood the test of time for a reason.

There are plenty of options for kids today, but the large majority of these will tend to have a rather short lifespan. Video games are a very popular choice today, whether for use on conventional consoles or for the portable, handheld gaming devices. However, most of these have a fixed goal – and ending – which, when reached, makes the game obsolete.

There are, of course, some exceptions. Wii Sports is a good example of a game which does not have a clear ending. If you can find an opponent who wants a game of baseball, tennis or golf then you can keep playing Wii Sports for as long as you wish. Nevertheless, this is very much the exception to the rule and most video games have a targeted ending which, having been achieved, does tend to limit the life span of the game.

Christmas comes but once a year – and when it does, it is a very important time for retailers. It can mean the difference between a good year and a bad year. So it’s no surprise that so much effort goes into predicting what the best selling items will be every year.

Obviously this is especially true in the toys and children’s games category. Every year seems to throw up on hot must have toy that is all the rage for a while. In years gone by we have seen, in no particular order, toys such as Cabbage Patch Kids, Buzz Lightyear, Tickle-Me-Elmo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Furbies and Beyblades emerge as the Christmas best seller.

As a general rule, these toys will spend one year only as the best seller. Clearly a lot of these toys are still around – but they won’t claim the number one slot this year. A lot of them won’t even break into the top twenty best sellers.