Nintendo announces record sales numbers for the first Holiday shopping week (Thanksgiving week: Sunday, Nov. 18th, through Saturday, Nov. 24th) in the United States.

Shoppers gobbled up more than 653,000 Nintendo DS portable video game systems, 350,000 Wii consoles (Where they hell have they been in stock?), and millions of games and accessories.

Nintendo DS set a new all-time sales record for Thanksgiving week, eclipsing the previous mark of 600,000 Game Boy(R) Advance systems sold during the same period in the United States in 2005. Nintendo DS remains on track to be the top-selling video game system of 2007.

Nintendo's 350,000 Wii's sold represent the highest one-week U.S. sales total outside of it's launch week one year ago. Nintendo has repeatedly increased it's shipments and it's fiscal-year sales forecast for Wii in an attempt to meet soaring demand. The Wii reached 5 million sold in the United States faster than any video game system in history, after only 12 months of availability.

Nintendo thinks that because of the higher gas prices and the lukewarm expectations for the 2007 holiday shopping season, Wii and Nintendo DS might be just what Santa ordered.

I am surprised that Nintendo could move 350,000 Wii consoles in one week. Online the Wii is still nowhere to be found for the $249 standard price. The 3rd party Wii offers on Amazon are now around $600.
On eBay the situation is a bit better with Wii auctions around $400-$500.

Expensive Wii bundles on Gamestop have a shipping date of January 31st of 2008 - this is crazy!