Yeah, we all know that Nintendo’s Wii is fast redefining the term ‘short-supply’ and is very much the white-hot-ticket item this Xmas, but are over-eager punters really paying over £1000 to get their hands on one? Or is the Nintendo PR machine up to its old tricks again?

Yep, among the stories of swearing nuns and gasmask-wearing teen muggers in today’s free Metro newspaper is a report that Wii bundles have been shifting for over £1000 on the world’s favourite auction website recently. Great gosh almighty!

On the one hand this tale does have a ring of plausibility about it, and anyone who’s tried to buy one in the last month will no doubt be able to testify to the sense of dread and desperation that descends once the staggering scale of Wii non-availability hits home. But is anybody really that desperate? Or dumb?

Moreover, did this sale actually happen? A quick glance at the 8000+ Wii listings on Ebay reveals that there are indeed a number of consoles for sale at £1000+, including a handful of real mickey-takers hoping to land up to £1,000,000 for theirs. However not a single stupidly-priced sale has a bid against it, meanwhile regular Wiis are in plentiful supply and are shifting for around £240.

With regular rrp at £179 that's still a rip-off, but even at those prices you could buy an overpriced Wii, snap up every single one of the games that are actually worth owning (bearing in mind that one of them comes free in the box), nab an extra Remote and still have an awful lot of change out of £1000. Hmmm, make of this story what you will but you can probably guess what we’re thinking…