Wii pre-orders sell out in day one

Grapevine (TX) - GameStop today announced that it officially stopped taking pre-orders for the Wii by the end of Friday, 13 October, the day pre-orders first became available.

Click here for pictures of the Nintendo Wii console...

Unlike the PS3, for which GameStop unveiled pre-order availability a couple days earlier, individual store allocations for the Wii have not yet been confirmed by Nintendo. Each EBGames and GameStop store will reportedly receive between eight and sixteen PS3 units, all of which have already been claimed by eager customers who put down a $100 deposit last week.

The Wii is expected to have a larger-scale launch than the PS3, mainly due to manufacturing problems that Sony announced in September that caused them to cut release date allocations to one fourth of what they originally predicted.

Following in the footsteps of last year’s Xbox 360, the PS3 is expected to make a large presence in the secondary online markets, like eBay. Reservation slips from GameStop/EBGames are already posted on the online auction site for a significant price premium.

Last year, the Xbox 360, which was sold out promptly after its release, fetched prices on eBay of two or three times its retail value. With a much more significant supply of Nintendo Wii consoles promised than the PS3, it may be less elusive to consumers for the holiday shopping season.