"My friend Jon and I found an urban campout in our Wii line, where campfires and s'mores were replaced with laptops and alcohol. I was impressed at how Nintendo's new machine had garnered this much support. The whole ideology surrounding the console was a tad contrived: 'While the code-name Revolution expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer. Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everyone else.'
"However, looking at the line, no one looked like they were on the other side of Nintendo's wall ..."
Dan Dormer reports from out in the cold, waiting in line for a Wii.

Frostbitten In Florida

The more I read accounts like this, the more I realize just how lucky I was. I headed out an hour before the stores opened on Sunday, saw the lines going all the way around the Best Buy and, remembering the phone call the previous week that Fry's would only be getting ten of them, headed back home. Along the way, passed a K-Mart, already open half an hour. Went inside. Three people ahead of me in line. Four Wiix left. And they sold out of all the games (had a preorder for Zelda elsewhere), so I didn't even have to walk out of there with Happy Feet.

But while Twilight Princess ended up being worth the wait, the software release pattern is beginning to hearken back to previous generations.

I've heard other people express a similar concern, and from the PS3 Deadpool article, it may not be unwarranted:

Gamestop's "Coming Soon" pages list about 80 PS3 games scheduled for release through the end of 2007, compared with about 90 for the Xbox 360 and 46 for the Wii.