Yes, finally Japanese gamers can play the Wii in the comfort of their own (tiny?) homes. The run up to this latest Wii launch was apparently an extremely cold wait for many of the Japanese hopefuls as they queued in chilly conditions awaiting the opening promise of store doors.

Some of the queues at the larger gaming outlets were said to be literally thousands of people long and more than a few people deep. The good news for our far-east consumers is that, unlike many US stores that only received the Wii in fairly small numbers, the large gaming outlets in Japan appear to have had stock available in the thousands.

It will be interesting to see just what happens in Japan now, as the two big consoles—the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii—go head-to-head alongside the all-but non-existent Xbox 360. Will the Wii do what the DS has done and overtake Sony’s latest console offering? Flinging the doors of accessibility wide open to gamers and non-gamers alike is a(nother) great strategy by Nintendo, and it’s also nice to see the company advertising to one and all, regardless of age, gender, and so on.