I've gotten several emails now from unidentified Toys R Us employees regarding the availability of Wiis and DS Lites in their stores. It seems that (once again) a company wide email has gone out telling employees to hold on to any shipments of the Nintendo consoles that come in in preparation for a release on February 11.

I don't agree with this kind of mass hoarding and I find it aggravating that this has become a pattern now for most major retailers. What is the point? They are still going to sell them whether they put them out today or next week. It seems a little shady to tell Grandma that there are no DS Lites for her precious grandbaby's birthday when there's a big pile of them sitting in the back. I think at this point we can dispense with the forced line waiting and just get the consoles into the hands of the people who really want them. Flynn De Marco

We hear that each Best Buy location will have upward of 60 PS3s on hand for Sunday, December 31. No details on the 60GB to 20GB ratio, though. Regardless, get your tents and sleeping bags out from the attic and definitely do not bring cash. Pepper spray, maybe.

Thanks, John and Brian, for the heads up. Michael McWhertor

UPDATE: We got the following info from another Best Buy mole this morning:

Just wanted to verify that Best Buy is hording more PS3's. We received a shipment of around 82 PS3s today around 6pm. What they plan on doing is releasing 14 each day until Sunday, when they plan on releasing 40 (they are all the 60gb model).

Ee hee hee! I like the headline "Shortage of Blue Lasers". It makes me feel like I'm living in the neon-grit future that I crave, instead of this obese, mooing present.

Anyway, now that everyone is making or planning to make HD-DVD and Blu-ray drives, the laser supply is taking a strain. Blue laser diodes, which both HD DVD and Blu-ray use, are difficult to manufacture. The yield rates for the things are not increasing much, even though the demand for them is. But Sony's got our back!

This puts Sony in particular in quite a bind. Sony has obviously invested quite a bit in the Blu-ray format and the company would very much like consumers to pick up a Blu-ray player and not an HD DVD player or the HD DVD peripheral for Microsoft's Xbox 360. In order to make sure that the Blu-ray enabled PlayStation 3 does not run into any further problems, Sony has actually suspended shipments of blue laser diodes to other customers so that the components can be used for PS3 manufacturing first.

Hoarding all the blue lasers for the gamers, eh Sony? That's the girl I married! Eliza Gauger

Report: Blue Laser Shortage May Affect Blu-ray/HD DVD Battle [GameDaily BIZ]