This morning Nintendo announced that they will be partnering with GameStop to issue rainchecks in lieu of Wii consoles when supplies of the actual console are not available. The idea here is that if you pay for a Wii in full before Christmas, you'll get a raincheck which can be redeemed for a Wii sometime in January.

Though supply constraints continuing on into January are a concern, Reggie Fils-Aime said in a conference call today that the GameStop chain has "many tens of thousand" of rainchecks, though it’s currently unknown exactly how many are going to be made available. As each raincheck is tied to a specific Wii to be sold through a specific store, anyone in possession of a raincheck will be guaranteed a Wii after Christmas, but it’s possible that this still won’t be able to meet December’s demand for the system.

On an editorial note, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any console manufacturer doing this before. That’s pretty nuts.

Source: Wired