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I’ll never forget that time in Grade 4 when my friend asked his grandparents for a specific game for his Super Nintendo, and his grandma bought him the Nintendo version of the game instead. He was then told that he had to keep it so not to hurt his grandma’s feelings. The story sticks with me because I’ll often get asked questions from parents or grandparents about whether they can buy, say, NHL (current year) for PlayStation when the gamer has an Xbox. Or even whether that year’s NHL for the Xbox 360 would just play on the Xbox One since it’s cheaper to buy that one.  This is a pretty quick and easy guide to understanding backwards (and even cross-platform) compatibility between gaming consoles to hopefully help you decide which versions are the right ones, and which ones should be avoided when you’re out buying for your gamer.

Routers take the cake when it comes to lengthy product names and here’s a prime example: Linksys just released its new EA8500 Max-Stream MU-MIMO Gigabit Smart Wi-Fi router. In this case, the extended name actually means something, because this router is literally packed with the latest technology. But from this point forward, I’m just going to call it the Linksys EA8500 Max-Stream for short.