Nintendo Wii on sale in Europe tomorrow

The madness comes to the UK

7 December 2006 10:55 GMT / By Amber Maitland

Nintendo's Wii console officially launches across Europe tomorrow, the 8th of December.

Some retailers in the UK are planning on opening their doors at midnight tonight, but caution shoppers that those without pre-orders are unlikely to be able to purchase one.

The DSG Group told GamesIndustry.biz that despite expecting four Wii delivers between launch and Christmas, it doesn't think it can “satisfy” pre-orders until 2007.

“We're expecting to fulfil all pre-orders on the day”, Hamish Thompson of DSG told the website. “We're continuing to take pre-orders but informing consumers that they probably won't be able to be fulfilled until after Christmas.”

The Wii's profile and therefore sales has received a boost from the news that Sony's PS3 wouldn't be released in Europe until March 2007, leaving the way free for the Wii to scoop up all the pre-Christmas sales.

GAME and Gamestation stores are planning on opening at midnight, while Nintendo's official launch partner, HMV, is opening its Oxford Street store at 11pm for a star-studded event. Ian Wright, Nell McAndrew, Pat Cash, and Ricky Hatton will all be on hand to try out Wii Sports.

Nintendo says that 24 Wii games will be available before the end of the year, with another 36 Virtual Console games to be downloaded and saved on the console's internal memory.

Full tags

Gaming, Nintendo Wii, Gaming hardware, Nintendo