Definately a combination id say. Probably it was mainly early christmas buying based on how hard its been to get a Wii since the release, people are being catious this year after last Christmas which was a nightmare and sooooo many people came away empty handed. That and its the end of the summer holidays. People want something to do in the cold lonley evenings!

@Gameboy: Metroid Prime 3 was, from what i have seen, about as much anticipated title as SMG and Brawl. Maybe you're that much younger, that people you know, have started gaming in the "Playstation era". Or Nintendo fanboys you know have came along with Wii or DS. Basically everyone i know, who have ever owned NES or SNES have at least borrowed Metroid/Super Metroid from a friend, if not owned one. Besides, i don't know any game with that large amount of (european) speedrunners/sequence breakers, what Metroid series have at the moment.

@Topic: I would say that the numbers show Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 3.

60000 a week in UK i pretty much, it would equal 300000 a week in US.

Nintendo starting to release extra christmas units early? (they did tell everyone to pick them up as early as possible)

There is a definate lack of spare remotes here though....a couple of months ago it was nunchucks in a countrywide supply low, now it's Wii-remotes.