It's not much of a local gauge, but it's still impressive, nonetheless. According to Amazon UK, the Nintendo 3DS is the most pre-ordered console the retailer has ever had, smashing the Wii by a whopping 56%. It also trumped the PS3 by 20% and the DSi by a massive margin of 255%.

"It’s unusual for a hand-held console to attract this amount of excitement in the run up to launch," said Amazon UK’s director of videogames, Chris Poad. "Such high levels of interest are normally reserved for the play-at-home hardware like the ground-breaking Nintendo Wii and last year’s Microsoft Kinect."

We've contacted local retailers and Nintendo to see how it's faring on our shores, so stay tuned.