Now, I've been a Nintendo fanboy since I was about 9 or 10 years old, and I first held in my stubby little mits one of those genius little handhelds that preceded the Gameboy. Those of you old enough might remember the little rectangular devices; the ones that only played one game, and those games had a very limited range of anything at all. But they were state of the art at the time, and climbing ladders and jumping barrels with my barely discernible Mario character consumed vast hours of my life.

My gaming exploits even then had been quite extensive. Having grown an early fascination for my Dad's Atari 2600, it wasn't long before I had one of my own, and hours at a time were spent alone in my room playing classics like Missile Command and Space Invaders.

The Commodore 64 came along shortly afterwards, and even at the age of 7 or 8 it became clear that I was already a gaming match for my father; my hand-eye co-ordination progressing nicely, and my young mind gleefully absorbing new and more complex gaming genres and experiences.

When I was gifted with a NES at age 12, my appreciation for Nintendo blossomed into an outright bias in favour of their efforts. At the time, you were either Ninty or Sega, and as far as I was concerned, Sega sucked donkey balls. So I played and beat a good 30 or so NES games, while also owning a Gameboy, which ruled my world. The SNES followed, with all its 16bit glory. Super Mario Kart is still, in my opinion, one of the finest games ever created. The sheer genius of this console and the experiences it game me in my early teenage years are without measure. The console wars were comparable to both sides taking grenades in WW1 trenches.

I became a deviant, of course, during a brief period of time in which I became over-excited and concluded that gaming experiences (as they had so far) logically became more fulfilling with increased processing power. During this period of following such a heretical belief, I purchased the Atari Jaguar, in the folly-ridden expectation that, because its power outweighed that of the SNES, it would be a more fulfilling experience. The sheer disappointment of this venture only hardened my Nintendo fanboy status, as the N64 took its place at my side, and many a fine hour was lost on Goldeneye, and many an hour of sleep was filled with appreciation for analogue joypads.

The Gameboy Advanced and the Gamecube were logical successors, and both of these have brought me innumerable days of gratification.

Of course, during these later years, I did become somewhat concerned at the growing culture of heresy among my peers. The folly of chasing better graphics in lieu of an improved gameplay experience. The Playstation fostered its own form of innovation, and sold its soul with the PS2. Gameplay became largely irrelevant. As long as it looked pretty, it sold in droves.

But Nintendo held true with the latest crop of 'next gen' consoles. Choosing to get people off their couches and make them fling their arms around instead of sticking with the tried and tested 'button-bashing' control system of the last twenty years. Innovation centred not on the speed of the PCU, but on the experience the gamer receives.

And it looks like a winning formula. Unfortunately, I've not been able to test this for myself. You see, the console was unleashed on my shores on the 8th of December. Now, at the time of writing (31st January), it is still nigh on impossible to buy one. Stock searching online, adding my name to every waiting list on offer, popping into every local store on the slim hope that a console was buried under mountains of other stock by mistake and could be made available to me. All of it completely fruitless.

Some say simply that I should have pre-ordered. To this I say I know people who pre-ordered months before the release date, who have yet to receive a damn thing. And these poor bastards have already paid for the right to be playing their new toy on the day of release (almost two months ago now). Money those companies are earning interest on. Money those companies will not refund, unless you want to be dropped off their 'priority despatch' list.

From what I hear, stock is slowly dripping into the UK market at the rate of about 10-15 consoles a day. Yet somehow, more than 4.2million of them have been sold worldwide. How hard could it possibly be to send a few more of them to the UK? To be honest, for all my love of Nintendo, and everything they've done to shape the course of my life, my patience is wearing thin.

Don't get me wrong, given the choice of innovation and milking the consumer with the next slightly better sequel, I'll pick the innovator every time. Unless, that is, the innovator fails to deliver the product. It is one thing to produce something really clever as a trump card to your competition, but if that promise fails to deliver, ultimately, it's all just a facade, and I'll be forced to buy a 360 or a PS3 simply through lack of any other alternatives.

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