Toys R US Australia's Wii deal is off?

news via palgn

We previously reported some of the ups and downs of the much talked about Toys R US Wii pre-order deal in our Wii rumour feature a couple of weeks ago. A recap for those who missed the drama: Toys R Us had been promising a 'free game at launch' with $50 down on a Wii pre-order since the middle of the year. When it was announced that Wii Sports would be packed in with the console, many reasonably assumed that TRU would go the cheap route and say that this pack-in was the free game, even though every other store would be offering the same deal automatically.

However, Toys R Us employees began telling customers that it would in fact be an additional Wii game of their choice, and this news set pre-orders alight. Three weeks ago, the dream of free Zelda was shattered like so many stalfos when TRU changed the deal so that the free game could only be the upcoming movie tie-in Open Season. After receiving a lot of negative feedback as to this odd choice of title, TRU changed their deal again, allowing customers to chose between Open Season and the Wii version Need For Speed: Carbon, which while still no Zelda was an improvement.

But yesterday it seemed the already soiled rug had been pulled out from under eager gamers' feet. According to US gaming mega-blog Kotaku, the deal is now totally off, and customers will be receiving no free game at all. But while we all know the interwebs are world wide these days, what do the yanks know about Australian retailers?

While we are still waiting for official confirmation from the Toys R Us head office, some inquiries with actual stores, combined with common sense have led us to believe Kotaku have it wrong, and that current pre-order holders will still receive their choice of Open Season or Need For Speed: Carbon. The pre-order deal is now closed for new customers, perhaps this was confused with the deal being canceled for existing customers?

We'll keep you updated if we hear any more on the topic, but for now it seems as if there's no need to declare 'open season' on TRU.