Wii made its highly anticipated debut across Europe on Friday 8th December and the preliminary results are in. Attracting vast crowds and selling out in stores all over Europe in just a matter of hours, 325,000 units were sold in the first two days making it the fastest selling home console in history.
Demand for Wii was so great that shops all over Europe had large queues forming outside for up to three days before the launch and hundreds of shops opened their doors at midnight on launch day to allow gamers to get their hands on Wii. After just one weekend on sale, shops across Europe sold out of Wii consoles and daily shipments are now arriving across Europe to replenish stock.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, proved to be a favorite for avid gamers, with 240,000 copies snapped up over launch weekend in Europe, representing 74 per cent of all hardware purchasers. Wii Play was also a big hit with over 50 per cent of people buying the game (which includes a Wii Remote) along with their Wii console.
The reception of the Wii in Europe mirrors that of Nintendo's console in the Americas and Japan, where over a million units have been sold in just three weeks. In the Americas, where the console launched on the 19th of November, 600,000 consoles were sold in the first 8 days from launch. The Japanese launch saw similar success with around 400,000 units being shipped to stores for launch day and selling out during the first morning on sale. After just a few days of sales in Europe the Wii seems to be achieving similar success.
While Wii enjoyed a hugely successful launch Nintendo DS also had a record-breaking week, with 515,000 units sold across Europe last week, which is not only the highest weeks sales since the console's launch but also the most any console across all formats has ever sold in a week! Nintendo's DS, since its European release in March 2005, has sold over 8.5 million consoles in that continent.
