Like many others, I found myself looking for a Wii yesterday and came up empty handed. I called all the standard places (Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Wal-mart, et cetera) starting at around 9AM Sunday morning, assuming that the Wii wouldn't be in nearly as much demand as the PS3 and, since there were supposed to be about a million units available, I would be able to get my hands on one with relative ease. Not so.
Everywhere I called was sold out by 9AM except the Toys 'R' Us in Elizabeth, NJ which wasn't answering the phone and didn't open until 10. That store is kind of in the middle of nowhere so I gave it a shot and drove over, knowing that either way I needed to go to IKEA next door so it wouldn't be a total loss. I missed the last unit by three people and gave up, dejected, and spent four hours at IKEA instead.
Today I woke up, spirit renewed, aware of the fact that Nintendo promised to have nearly four million units in the US by Christmas this year (and that they would want to sell as many before Christmas as possible), so my chances of getting one before 2007 were pretty good. But then I wondered, what if Nintendo is already shipping more to stores?
I started calling all the same places again and they were all still out of stock, but they all said the same thing regarding the next shipment: soon. Very soon. "Hopefully today," a Gamestop employee told me. Suddenly I was energized—if Gamestop says today that means getting one this week was a possibility. And, logically, I thought, if they were going to get them today, 2-3PM was about the right time in NYC (that's a pretty average UPS delivery time). So, at 1:45PM, I called the Gamestop on 14th street and, lo and behold, they had just received 15. I rushed over and got one (and Zelda!). I got the second-to-last unit and more than a few people behind me in line left empty handed.
Now, Gamestop said that they have "no idea" when they'll get more, but I don't think that's true. I think they know they'll be getting more on a regular basis. Kmart also said they had more coming this week and next week, so if you didn't get your hands on a Wii, start calling places every day just before or just after average UPS delivery times.
This was an extremely long post for such a short point. Perhaps it's just my excitement causing me to babble. All that aside, I look forward to this evening when I can try the system out and I'll have more to say then.
On a side note, it seems impossible to find additional controllers and none of the stores I called had component cables. It just so happens that I ordered mine last week thanks to Cabel's recommendation and they happened to arrive today. Controllers I'll have to wait on.