Thanks go out to Liam for first alerting us about this, and to Chris for providing a link. It seems that Canadians are now able to pre-order the Nintendo Wii, an ability originally only available for Australians. Like in Australia, the flagship store for Wii pre-orders in Canada is Toys R Us.

Canadians can put down $50 to guarantee their system, though the store has no info other than that. Our tipster Liam says, "the guy was rather clueless, he even pronounced wii 'W-2'. But I put down 50 canadian dollars for the console and a bundle they have going which includes two games and an extra controller. He had no idea the price point but he said they would call with any breaking news."
So it seems as though, much like a lot of stores that did Xbox 360 and PSP pre-orders, to pre-order a Wii you have to commit to buying a bundle of stuff, likely without any kind of package discount.

The U.S. is still behind the boat on this. I spoke with my local Toys R Us and they had absolutely no idea when they'd be doing pre-orders. Everyone's playing it safe. Sheesh. You have one pre-order catastrophe (the Xbox 360) and all of the sudden no one wants to take the first step and guarantee themselves hundreds of customers for the next-gen systems.

You can pre-order the Wii at Canada's Toys R Us website

Our comprehensive Nintendo Wii guide

Report Published by: Mark Raby