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Senior Member
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Rutland
Posts: 25,358
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Rutland
Posts: 25,358
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All I want from Christams is a Wii bit of luck
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All I want from Christams is a Wii bit of luck I MARCHED up to the counter, took a deep breath and asked the question that shopkeepers from Kirkwall to Kelso have come to dread: "Can I have a Wii?" My request had nothing to do with the British Toilet Association's new Community Toilet Scheme, but even if it had been it couldn't have earned a more patronising response from the teenage shop assistant. "I'm sorry, sir," he smirked. "We don't have any Wii. Nowhere has them. I doubt you will be able to find any shops that have them at this time of year."
And so my search for this year's must-have, can't-get Christmas gift hit yet another brick wall. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the festive stinker Jingle All The Way, I was running out of options if I was going to land the game system whose unique selling point - remote controls that act as bats, rackets and all sorts of other "real" devices - appeared to be more than doing the job for Nintendo.
Let's recap: what is different this year is that the toy that every kid wants has been on the market for almost a year. It was hard enough to get them in the weeks following its UK launch last December but, 12 months on, the manufacturer appears to have been caught short by its continuing appeal - which is odd considering it is the subject of an ongoing, multi-million pound TV advertising campaign.
Reports this week suggested parents were resorting to bribery, emotional blackmail and paying hugely inflated prices to try to get their hands on a game - and this five weeks ahead of December 25. Some are camping outside shops in sub-zero temperatures on rumours that new supplies are expected the next day.
My own search continued at Game Station, where I smiled politely as a nice man informed me that they had just sold the last of their latest delivery and could not guarantee they would get any more before Christmas. After similar, spirit-crushing knockbacks from Currys, Game, PC World, HMV, Toys "R" Us, Virgin, John Lewis and Comet, my smile vanished.
"Try again next week," suggested one. "We've got a delivery due but we don't know when it will be," advised another. "We can take your name and number but there is no guarantee that you get it in time for Christmas..." "You'll be lucky pal...". "Try eBay".
Eventually, I took the hint and abandoned the bustle of Glasgow city centre to surf the net. Almost immediately things started to look more promising.
Argos were offering the coveted consoles for a reasonable £180, complete with a package of sports games. A large red cross on the screen indicated that the home delivery option was unavailable, but a spirit-soaring green cross showed that Wii could be "reserved for store pick up". I should have paid more attention to the line beneath it which added "subject to stock".
I started checking locally then widened my search; not one of the chain's stores from Edinburgh to Glasgow, Aberdeen to Fraserburgh, Wick, Galashiels, Bathgate or Berwick had a single console. Was Scotland a Wii-free zone?
More than 10 million Wii consoles have been sold since its UK launch, even though the Nintendo newcomer is relatively low-tech, being nowhere near as powerful as the new PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360. Yet the Wii's movement-sensitive remote control has kept interest strong.
The amount of energy needed to play games has even earned grudging praise from some health campaigners, giving some moral cover to parents who buy them. The different nature of the console is reflected in a greater emphasis on sports-related software - though the usual zombie shoot-em-up fests and mindless US wrestling games are also high in the charts.
"There are going to be a lot of disappointed children and frustrated parents this Christmas, that's for sure," one assistant told me. He could have been talking about Glasgow mother-of-two Susan Brown.
"I have been trying to get hold of a Wii for my boys for the past four weeks and have got nowhere," she told me. "It's what they have both asked for as their main present and I really don't know what to do if I can't find one. They will be heartbroken and I'll feel like a bad mum.
"My last resort is to buy one online. But people are selling them for way over the odds and it is out of my price range."
In fact, consoles are being sold for more than £300 on some sites, often as part of a package with pre-determined games. Even then, availability is limited.
The unprecedented demand prompted Darren McKillop to set up Wii-consoles.co.uk - which sends out alerts across the UK when consoles come into stock. "There are clearly not enough Wii consoles available in the UK to meet the Christmas demand and I can see Wii stock shortages lasting well in to 2008," said Darren. "Recently, a major online retailer announced they had the Wii in stock and their website suffered a virtual meltdown as half the country tried to buy a Wii from them."
Of course, the pre-Christmas rush for one particular toy is nothing new. In 1984, American shoppers were crushed underfoot by people determined to "adopt" Cabbage Patch Kids. This continued throughout the 1990s, first with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then Buzz Lightyear, Teletubbies and Furbies all driving parents to distraction - only to end up languishing unwanted in charity shops a few months later.
This year, the Wii is not the only game exercising Santa's little helpers. Doctor Who Dalek voice changers are also in demand, as are Transformers (once again), Girl Tech Digi Makeover gadgets, FlyTech Remote Control Dragonflys and figures from the Ben 10 cartoon series.
All are already in short supply. Wii manufacturers Nintendo insist they are "doing everything possible" to keep up with demand for their own product, and hope to get 3.5 million more consoles on shelves in time for Christmas - but that is the total supply for the whole world.
"The demand for Wii hardware globally has been unprecedented and higher than Nintendo could ever have anticipated," said a spokeswoman. "Nintendo is now in a position in which seasonality demand trends are being broken, therefore the demand for Wii hardware is constant throughout the whole year globally. Due to this phenomenon it is possible that the demand for Wii hardware may outstrip supply." Translation: you can whistle for a Wii this year.
My own trawl of Scotland's high streets confirmed this. Toys "R" Us spokesman Mike Coogan said parents were going to unprecedented lengths to secure the console for their kids. "We are getting hundreds and hundreds of calls every day asking for Wii," he said. "In Scotland alone the numbers are immense. Every one of our stores is being inundated.
"We are expecting people to camp overnight this weekend. It has been going on for weeks but we haven't wanted to publicise it because we don't recommend it. People arrive at three or four in the morning and queue up outside. As soon as our staff arrive at seven in the morning they hand out tickets to those queuing."
It was a similar picture at HMV, where a spokesman for their Aberdeen store said: "I get asked about Wii at least once every five minutes of every working day. Last week we had a group of people who heard that we had some in stock and just wouldn't believe us when we told them that we didn't have any. They waited around for two hours until it finally dawned on them that we weren't secretly hiding any Wii from them. It's crazy."
In Glasgow, a spokesman for Zavvi (formerly Virgin Megastore), said: "The demand is the same as last year if not more and it continues to completely outstrip supply. We usually get about 20 every two weeks. There is a huge demand for them and they are sold within the hour."
Mike Kishii, owner of independent Dundee computer store Game Box, was as frustrated as his customers by the lack of consoles on his shelves. He said: "We have been getting barely any supply from Nintendo. I can't for the life of me understand why Nintendo haven't got their act together."
After spending the day like an underachieving JR Hartley, who seemed to spend much of the 1980s in search of his elusive tome Fly Fishing, I trudged towards home, empty-handed.
More to get out of the Glasgow drizzle than anything, I wandered into the tiny GForce store in Union Street. "I'm really sorry to bother you and I'm sure you're sick of being asked but do you have a Wii?"
"Yep, no problem," replied owner Neil Tait. As I stood dumbstruck, he told me how he had stockpiled the consoles earlier in the year to prepare for the festive rush. His hoarding has paid dividends with customers flocking from across Scotland and as far away as Ireland.
As I hugged my elusive white box, grinning like Alastair Sim's Scrooge on Christmas Day, another customer said I should get myself to Loch Ness. "If you can get your hands on a Wii in the run-up to Christmas, tracking down Nessie will be no bother."
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Source: Scotland on Sunday
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19-11-2007, 01:06 PM
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We were thinking about holding off right before Xmas, but you can never trust royal mail at xmas, and they were taking up so much room in the house.
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