Another week, another Nintendo hardware drought – but retailers aren’t complaining, describing current demand for Wii and DS as ‘like nothing we’ve ever seen before.’

As parents continue to buy up any hardware possible ahead of Christmas, retail has seen both Wii and DS consoles sell out almost as quickly as they’ve been made available.

“If anything demand has accelerated over the last few weeks on both formats,” said HMV’s head of games Tim Ellis. “We’d have loved more stock but we knew that we’d be in this position so it’s hardly a surprise.”

Leading e-tailer Amazon has also seen unprecedented clamour for the consoles: “The demand for DS and Wii is like nothing I’ve ever seen in my time in the industry,” said video games manager Nick Arran.

“Every customer seems to want them. Stock has been a constant struggle throughout peak. A big thank you to Nintendo who have pulled out all the stops and are delivering weekly allocations. These are selling out within a few hours.”

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And Comet’s assistant category buyer Jim Leighton added: “We are selling through all the stock we get almost immediately. The interest is overwhelming – 15 per cent of the searches on the Comet.co.uk website are for the Nintendo Wii.”