Since the NES, companies have been producing books and releasing them alongside games to help players who get stuck. If a new game you get has a strategy guide, do you buy the guide as well as the game?
I used to get guides a lot for Super Nintendo games. I still have guides for Super Metroid, Final Fantasy, Zelda: Link to the Past and others. Many of them were great, but the ones by Prima were filled with mistakes.
After the Nintendo 64 came out, I stopped buying guides because most of the same information was coming out online. The last game guides I bought were for Zelda: Ocarina of Time I believe, but I wanted those only for artwork and posters.