Wii-mania strikes Dandenong

By Shaun Inguanzo
VIDEO GAMERS eager to play Nintendo’s newest offering flocked to a midnight release of the machine at a Dandenong retail store last week.
The Nintendo Wii video game console was released in Australia on Thursday 7 December and many video game stores across the state celebrated the occasion by opening at midnight to large queues of eager video gamers.
David Boardman, assistant manager of EB Games, a specialty video games retailer within Dandenong Plaza, said that up to 100 people queued outside the shop to be among the first in Australia to buy the new video game console.
Just 15 minutes away at Westfield Fountain Gate, another EB Games store was so busy that some gamers were waiting until 2am on Thursday to get their hands on a Nintendo Wii.
Narre Warren’s Kyle Nguyen was first in line at Fountain Gate, and was video taping his midnight launch experience to later post on the YouTube website.
“I’ve got every single Nintendo console ever made,” the avid fan said.
“I won’t sleep for the next week!”
The fanaticism shown by Nintendo devotees was in response to the intense hype surrounding the Wii’s revolutionary control system, which ditches the idea of a conventional game controller for a remote that detects its position in three dimensions.
The technology means that playing a sport simulation is as easy as swinging the controller like a tennis racquet, or sweeping it back and forward to launch a bowling ball down the lane and into the 10 pins.
Mr Boardman said stocks of the hot Christmas item had been snapped up within days of the launch.
“At this stage we are sold out,” he said.