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Wii buyers follow French Connection for consoles

How much? Sacre bleu...

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If you’re after a Nintendo Wii this Christmas then you’d better get your credit card out - and maybe start brushing up your French too.

A report by the Daily Mirror claims that British shoppers are donning their best French accents and sailing over to Calais, where the console’s reportedly ready to be had for just £150 (€210/$300).

A spokesman for Calais store Micromania told the paper: "English interest is phenomenal." It's having to limit Wiis to one per customer, the Mirror claimed.

In the UK, though, websites such as eBay have the console listed for sale with prices ranging from around £300 (€420/$600) to £1000 (€1300/$2000).

One intrepid seller hoping to offload his Wii for £1m may be slightly overestimating the price people are willing to pay to get their hands on one of the consoles this Christmas though.

CPC_wii

What would you pay for a Wii?

Alternatively, some companies with stocks of the console are targeting gamers by email, but with hugely inflated prices. For example, dealer CPC sent Register Hardware reader Walter a "December Deal" email offering the console for £352 - without any games other than the standard Wii Sports bundle.

The 'standard' UK price suggested by Nintendo is £180.

At least CPC's throwing in free postage...

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Latest Comments

At last some payback

for all you Euros and Merkins getting the best of everything! Come on down to sunny 'STRAYA for Nintendo deals!

$399 Australian which works out to £171. W00T! The shelves here are full of the things, too. Sure they are selling a lot, but there is plenty of stock.

Now here's my plan:

1. Buy Wii

2. Find UK-based numpties

3. ...

4. PROFIT!

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Seriously

The top 10 Christmas toy list is released in the summer (August I think), with the wii in there (dunno where it came on the list this year). In the summer there was easy availability (or enough time to pre-order), and as a parent you could guess that your kids (or you) might want one and they would be scarce at Christmas, so if you are complaining about not being able to find one for your kids or not wanting to pay twice the price, it is there for partially your own fault for being disorganised, (personally i waited till January this year to pre-order and it came in 5 )

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"Or you could... "

Spot on. From our experience, Argos are brilliant with their stock reservation if you go in-store, and also have plenty of games at little over half the price of anywhere else. Why are people prepared to risk eBay and dodgy importers, where it's going to take a week to enter the lottery of getting something at an inflated price, when they can probably get it in a couple of days, at RRP, on the high street?

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