No point anymore, I think. Most modern games, the manual isn't necessary at all, is it? In Ultima the manuals were very important or else you had no idea what was going on, or how to do anything. In modern games, all that information is built into the game. There are training missions and directives and so on. The game will tell you what to do, there's no point in a manual anymore.
I used to read the entire Prima or Versus guide, before I started playing a game. That way I knew everything about it and I could just speed through without running into any difficult frustrating parts. Soon I grew up and I realized that it's much more enjoyable to figure it out yourself, so I stopped buying guides.
I think the only time I ever absolutely needed a manual/guide for a modern game was for the Water Temple in OoT. I actually had a player's guide, but it was so bad at describing it that I still couldn't get through the temple, so I had to go buy a different one for a second opinion.
