Random: Feeling Flush? The Queen's 24 Karat Golden Wii Has Popped Up On Ebay

You may remember an old PR stunt pulled by publisher THQ around the 2009 launch of Big Family Games (known in the US as Neighborhood Games) which involved sending a gold-plated Wii to Buckingham Palace as a present for HRH Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen isn't in the habit of opening unsolicited gifts, so she almost certainly never personally saw this shiny custom console, but the system absolutely existed and cropped up on our radar a couple of years ago when People Make Games released a fun video tracking it down.

Well, the self-same console is back on the gaming scene — and now we proles have the chance to get our greasy mitts on this regal retro curio. The 24 karat gold (plated, obviously) Wii console is up for sale on auction site eBay with a chunky 'Buy It Now' price of $300,000.

The current owner is Donny from consolevariations.com, a fine website devoted to cataloguing system variants. He originally got hold of the console in 2017 and he has detailed the motivations for selling this little piece of Wii history in an interview on the site:

My family was never very healthy financially, so money was always needed. I never wanted to sell it; however, I was always curious how much someone could give for it. I wanted to keep it with me just in case I’ll open my museum.

I started talking to people about moving forward, and they told me nothing lasts forever. I’m the type who is attached to things in a way that I find it hard to let them go. So selling the Wii will also help me move forward in this respect.

Described in the listing itself as being in 'working condition', it's apparently running firmware 3.2E with the username "THQ" (we wonder what the Mii looks like). It is showing some signs of wear, though as you can see in the pics below:

The bottom of the serial number is very slightly covered with the red fabric it was displayed on by THQ. This may not be considered a flaw, rather a nostalgic part of the console. However, it should be mentioned.

The Wii-mote has some wear on the bottom. My guess is that it was actually used at one point.

Ol' Liz might never have got her gloved hands on this golden Wii Remote — and we're not sure it's worth its weight in gold — but even if this is little more than a leftover from a PR stunt, it's a unique gaming artefact and we can't help wishing we had it sitting next to our own TV on its little velvet pillow.

We're off to grab our gold Skyward Sword-branded Wiimote to compare its shininess to QE2's. Maybe we'll put in a speculative 'Best Offer' bid on this, too. 125 quid, perhaps? 200? Let us know below how much you'd pay for this particular Shiny.

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