Nintendo expects Wii shortages

The Wii launch is just weeks away, and many who pre-ordered are begining to receive those dreaded emails confirming that they joined the queue a little too late, and they won't get a Wii on launch.

Many Play.com customers have already recieved the bad news: "Dear Customer, due to a European shortage of the Nintendo Wii Consoles, we regret to inform you that Play.com will be unable to supply your pre-ordered Nintendo Wii at launch."

It goes on to say: "We are guaranteed more stock before Christmas, but Nintendo have informed us, along with all other official Nintendo retailers, that the console will not be freely available until next year."

Obviously, this is causing quite a stir so CVG contacted Nintendo to get its take on the situation this Christmas. "In Europe Nintendo is maximising all its resources to ensure that there is a good quantity of stock available in Europe at launch and a regular supply of Wii consoles coming into the market from launch through 2007.

"However due to the phenomenal pace of pre-orders over recent weeks, it is likely that demand will outstrip supply at launch." This is bad news for all those that joined the pre-order party late in the day.

It's not necessarily too late yet, however, because CVG has heard of a few cases where eager beavers here in UK have found electrical stores such as Comet or Dixons to have very few pre-orders placed. Granted, they'll probably only get a small number of units at launch, but it's worth a try if you're one of, say, four in the queue, don't you think?