Thousands attend HMV midnight launches

Retailer HMV, who was the host of Nintendo’s official launch party, has hailed last night’s late night arrival of the 3DS in the UK and an overwhelming success..

"I want to congratulate Nintendo on a wonderful VIP event and official retail launch at HMV, and for delivering a truly fantastic new product to the market," CEO Simon Fox told MCV.

"Through its broad appeal connecting to players of all ages and backgrounds, and its groundbreaking technology, the 3DS help take gaming to the next level. Its sets everything up really nicely for the weekend and beyond, and all the signs are that 3DS will definitely be one of the ‘must-have’ items of 2011 – so it gives us all a tremendous platform to build our games offer on over the next few months and well into next year."

Head of games Tim Ellis told MCV that the midnight launches across the country had been a huge success.

"We’ve had an amazing response to our midnight openings, with thousands of fans queuing around the country," he said.

"The official 3DS launch at HMV Oxford Street proved a spectacular success – again, with a fantastic turnout and sales, and a great film-premiere style event that Nintendo pulled out all the stops to deliver. So massive thanks to Dave Yarnton, Dawn Paine, Rob Saunders and everyone on the Nintendo team for making it happen, as well as to all our store staff and our head office games buyers, who I’m proud of for doing a great job."