For thousands of Japanese gamers and non-gamers, today has been the day they've been waiting for.

Amid queues stretching round blocks (but no queue-line violence), Japan has finally got its first taste of the Wii. Going on sale from early this morning in European time, the Japanese launch has been allocated at least 400,000 units. It will be interesting to see in next weeks charts how many of these will remain unsold!

European gamers now have less than a week to wait until their turn to grasp Nintendo's new bundle of joy, though how many European fans will cos-play as a Wii-mote as the Japanese fellow below did, we aren't sure.

Stick with N-Europe.com in this exciting week leading up to the Wii's launch - we've a bunch of cool stuff planned!