2007: A year in review, December

Tis the season to be jolly - or miserable if you haven't managed to buy a Wii yet

31 December 2007 11:00 GMT / By Katie Scott

While O2 relished the ever-rising iPhone sales in the UK, Vodafone attempted to prevent its rival T-Mobile enjoying the same glory in Germany.

A German court overturned an injunction which would have forced T-Mobile to sell unlocked iPhones.

Vodafone had taken the matter to court in order to object the exclusivity agreement on behalf of customers.

T-Mobile had been selling the unlocked iPhones for 999 euros ($1500/£720) but opted to ceased sale, meaning the only place you can buy an officially unlocked iPhone remains France.

December offered exciting news for Xbox 360 owners with news of a movie download service.

US customers had already been enjoying the Marketplace service, which allowed Xbox 306 owners to download and rent movies including Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Good German among many others.

More good news for the UK came with the announcement that Dell had signed a deal to make its notebook and desktop PCs available in DSGi stores.

This retail giant takes in PC World, Currys and Currys.digital stores in the UK, as well as Dixons.co.uk online.

It had, for 20 years, adopted a direct to customer selling model but had reversed this worldwide.

The announcement came after similar deals were forged in the US (with Wal-Mart) and in Asia.

While Dell promised more availability for its products, Nintendo admitted it could not meet demand for its Wii console.

While parents searched furiously to fulfil their little darlings' dreams of a shiny new console, Nintendo decided to replace adverts for the Wii with ads for the DS instead.

A Nintendo spokesman is reported to have said: "We have been running the campaign all year round, but we want to take a responsible stance this Christmas and not fuel demand".

But still UK shoppers scoured the shelves.

There were 13 as many UK internet searches for "nintendo wii" as there were for "apple ipod", and over twice as many searches for "wii" as for both "ipod" and "iphone", reported NetImperative.

As Christmas drew near, the newspapers gaily snapped shoppers crossing the Channel to cadge a console, and rumours swept the Internet hourly as to where there were still consoles left.

Will this Wii wackiness be equalled in 2008?