Kiwii’s Snatch Up Nintendo Console

At midnight last night, New Zealand became the first of the PAL countries to be offered the Wii.

I was safely tucked up in bed at the time, but by the sounds of it, it went pretty well.

There were complaints about shortages of various things, including games (i.e. Zelda) and controllers, especially at The Warehouse.  However in general, people seem pretty happy.

When I visited my local ebgames a short while ago there wasn’t a Wii to be seen. Asked if this was an indication that they were all sold, the answer was a resounding “yes”, accompanied by a hasty, “if you wanted one you should have preordered”.

I also asked the next logical question of when they would be receiving more and was astounded by the response.

January.

That’s right, we’re one week into December, and we can already be sure that we’ll see no more Wii’s this month.

I can’t confirm at this stage that this is true of all stores in New Zealand, or whether it’s true for Australia as well, but I’d say it’s pretty likely.

So kids, if you wanted a Wii for Christmas and didn’t preorder, then you should probably blame our friends in the US, as I’m betting that’s where all the available Wii’s are going.

For those with wealthy parents however, there’s sure to be a strong supply on local website trademe, wo already have two Wii’s listed, one for a starting bid of $900 ($400 over retail) and the other with a buynow of $550.

But heck, while I was expecting some shortages, I was definitely assuming we’d see more stock for Christmas. So put another tick in the box for Xbox 360 as they seem like they’ll be the only ones on store shelves this Christmas and there are some great deals floating around.