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Wii U (Credit: Getty Images)It hasn’t been a smooth ride for Nintendo’s Wii U. It’s premature to call the system a flop, but it’s undoubtedly been a disappointment thus far.

Nintendo's new console system had a decent start, selling 463,000 systems in December of last year, but that paled compared to the 890,000 Wiis that were sold during that console's debut. Worse yet, the Wii U sales drop since then has been dizzying. In January and February combined, only 112,000 Wii Us were sold, according to The NPD Group. To put that in perspective, the Wii sold 683,000 in that time frame. Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 have thoroughly outsold the Wii U in 2013.

Sony and (presumably) Microsoft are gearing up to launch their own next-generation systems this year, and there's a lot they can learn from Nintendo's mistakes. Here are five of the most important.

A 'hands free' urinal game (Credit: Reuters)By Joe McDonald, Reuters

(Reuters) - Play doesn't need to stop for sports fans taking a bathroom break at a Pennsylvania minor-league baseball stadium that has installed video games in men's room urinals.

The "hands-free" video game is played by directing oneself right or left in the urinals at the Lehigh Valley IronPigs' Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The game is aimed at increasing prostate health awareness.

The video screens challenge players to steer their way along a snowmobile course, while trying to hit cartoon penguins. They also display messages reminding men to make an appointment for a prostate exam, Schaeffer said.

A crowd attends a deferred action meeting (Credit: Getty Images)Jose Muñoz came to the U.S. illegally when he was a one-year-old – but today, he's a legal resident. And it's all thanks to his love of video games.

For the past three years, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has given people who immigrated illegally as children the opportunity to obtain legal residency, allowing them to work and purchase property in the U.S. The catch? Applicants have to be able to show residency since 2007.

That was a problem for Muñoz, who came to the U.S. with his parents when he was 1 and moved to Sheboygan, Wisconsin with his family in the third grade. Munoz had no school or work records showing that residency. He did have an Xbox 360, though, and thanks to some clever thinking by his attorney, that was enough.

Battlefield 4 (Credit: EA)If you’re wondering what the next-generation of gaming might look like, you’ll want to check out Battlefield 4.

EA took the wraps off the next iteration of its military shooter franchise Tuesday night at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, demonstrating an action-packed, cinematic game boasting some of the industry's most advanced graphics. Players will get their hands on it this fall.

Lady Gaga vs. Sudoku (Credit: Getty Images)You're driving along, minding your own business, when suddenly "Doo Wah Diddy" or "Call Me Maybe" blares out of the speakers, and the pesky chorus lodges itself in your head for the rest of the day.

You try passing it on to someone or replacing it with a different song, but it just doesn't work. These so-called musical ‘earworms’ burrow into your brain and refuse to get out, running on a seemingly endless loop.

Leave it to science to come up with a solution. The best way to get rid of an earworm, it turns out, is to solve a puzzle.

By Derrick J. Lang, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It's a time of transition for the video game industry.

Journey (Credit: thatgamecompany)With last year's launch of the Wii U, the impending arrival of the PlayStation 4 and the likelihood of a new Xbox on the horizon, the next generation of video game consoles is nearly here.

However, more than half of the attendees at this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco identify themselves as indie developers and their next creations will be for smartphones and tablets. So when it comes to the next generation of consoles, the question on their minds doesn't seem to be "What's next?" but rather "Who cares?"

BioShock Infinite (Credit: 2K Games/Irrational Games)How do you improve a classic? It’s a question that haunts anyone attempting a sequel or reboot to a beloved franchise, and more often than not, it’s answered with a resounding “you don’t.”

But don’t tell that to game design auteur Ken Levine and his team at Boston-based Irrational Games, because they’re not really listening.

Instead, they’ve been working on making BioShock Infinite, releasing Tuesday for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, as good a video game as humanly possible. For well over four years they’ve been at it, hoping that time and a budget of over $100 million yields a title that compares favorably to the groundbreaking 2007 shooter BioShock -- something the first sequel, the underwhelming BioShock 2 (crafted by a totally different team), couldn’t quite manage.

It certainly isn’t an easy task. Levine recently admitted as much, telling the New York Times that “it’s getting harder to ask someone to spend $60 on something that’s merely a good effort,” and that it has to be “different and really special.”

(Credit: Getty Images)As foreign hackers probe the U.S. infrastructure grid in an effort to infiltrate and undermine the government, the Department of Homeland Security is looking for a few good gamers.

Well, technically, it's looking for a few good hackers of its own -- but it's using games to find them.

The government organization has taken a cue from China and started to use competitions to root out the top teen hackers for possible recruitment to the agency, reports the New York Times. Using competitions like the Virginia Governor's Cup Cyber Challenge, teens take part in military exercises with names like 'NetWars' that have the feel of a game.