Amazon Wii preorders sell out in under 10 minutes!

OK, first the happy news: I have theoretically secured a Wii (+games) for launch day (08/12/06), yippeeeee!

So how did I do that? Well, Amazon were one of the last (if not the last) retailer to announce their preorder plans. But, eventually they sent customers an email saying that pre-orders will open on Tuesday 21/11/06 (ie today) at 9am GMT, and they will only take as many orders as they have stock, hence theoretically guaranteeing everyone who manages to pre-order a console on launch day.

This morning at 8:45 I started a "page camp". I loaded amazon in 2 browsers (IE and FireFox), signed in to amazon and loaded the Wii page. I then started pressing F5 every few seconds! Imagine the number of people doing that, it's amazing the servers didn't crash!
Eventually, at about 9:30, the page updated to say "click here to pre-order this item", I quickly clicked and it said "there's been an error - we can't supply this item". FUCK. I thought I had lost out on it so quickly! I didn't lose faith though, so I kept refreshing the orignal page and re-ordering, until finally the item was SAFE in my basket. I quickly checked out, and received a confirmation email!
I then went on to order some games and an extra controller, and combined all the orders together in to one big ball of Nintendo happiness!

And how long did it take for the Wii to sell out? JUST UNDER 10 MINUTES! At nearly 9:40am, Amazon stopped their preorders and annouced that the item was out of stock, madness!

So, come 08/12/06, I should hopefully have a Wii delivered to me. Is it going to be worth it? you bet your ass! Who's going to win this round of console madness? SoB says the Wii60 (people with a Wii and a 360 together, collectively CHEAPER than a PS3). Only time will tell.